101 ways to tackle sexual harassment?
Ciaran McHale
In <1992Aug26....@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
mose...@elec.canterbury.ac.nz (C.W. Moseley) writes:
>> Dress doesn't have a whole lot to do with it. I go out in
>> baggy pants and a sweatshirt, and I still have to put up with idiots
>> hanging out of their trucks and making kissy noises. "Sure fire way."
>> Yeah, right. The only sure-fire way I've heard of is the assault-rifle
>> method.
>
>try dressing in camoflage gear, and carrying an assult rifle.
>
>(another (im)practical hint from the womans weekly)
Actually, you have the spark of a good idea there. It is very
frustrating being on the receiving end of harassing comments, regardless
of whether those comments are targeted at you for being GLBO, a woman or
whatever else.
Long ago I started collecting smart come-back lines from soc.{bi,motss}.
Anytime I see a good one I just append it to a file. It grows slowly
and one of these days I hope to put it into some sort of structure and
have it printed as a leaflet or as a contribution to a book. I'm
including the file below to show you what I'm on about.
Perhaps some of the women here might consider collecting smart come-back
lines and other suggestions for ways to respond to sexual harassment.
Such a list might well be of practical use as well as being empowering.
[More discussion follows this list]
----cut here----
>> "is this another thing like your becoming vegetarian?"
>>>"Why can't you people make up your mind?"
>Why should I have to?
>>>"Can bifolk be monogamous?"
>Can hetfolk be monogamous?
>>>"Do you guys know you're really sick?"
>I try. Wanna help? If not, thanks for sharing.
>deserve one, why bother? If someone posts "why can't you people
>choose?" and gets five hundred email messages that all say:
>
> Why should I?
> -- soc.bi.secret.society member 666
>> "Aren't you all really gay?"
Only when I'm happy.
>> "Why would gays discriminate against bisexuals?"
>You can't trust us.
>> "What is the Kinsey scale?"
>No May Bi few so low two no.
"It's sick."
"That woman should make up her mind."
"It's not healthy; she should pick one and stick with it."
Neither man nor woman will be able to trust you.
the myth that "bisexual women would
always choose a man over a woman," and that "bisexual women are
oversexed and turn to other women for relief when a real man isn't
around." (Almost the same myth, except the first is worded as it's
heard in the lesbian community, and the second as it's heard in the
straight community).
>I think we're talking AIDS here. Did all the anti-gay hatred prior to
>AIDS come from some inner source of eternal truth, or is this just a
>new way of packaging old fear and hate?
"all bisexual women are really straight, and all bisexual men are
really gay." My SO and I get a lot of that. The lesbians in her
discussion group were always pressuring her to dump me because "he's
really gay and will just leave you anyway." (A direct quote.)
>We've all met people who, by way of introduction, tell you
>"I'm gay and my name's Kevin. Got a problem with that?"
which seems more a problem for Miss Manners than sociologists.
>>The individual felt that acceptance of bisexuality would cause people
>>to lose a distinctness of genders, that there would be a trend towards
>>androgeny if bisexuality was accepted.
>
>I had two reactions to this paragraph:
>
>1 -- ...and if we let whites and blacks marry eachother it might
>diffuse all those important race distinctions that we base our economy
>on.
>
>2 -- ...that's a GOAL in my mind. Down with gender! By totally
>removing different connotations to the different genders things like
>sexism and homophobia/biphobia will become obsolete!
ok, my orientation is as legitimate as yours, so FUCK OFF!"
Redneck: Howdy, faggot.
Me (quick as can be): Howdy, bigot.
<> Tell you what. When the vast majority of straight folks
<> in this country learn how to have a private life
<> privately, learn how to "just be themselves without
<> telling it to everybody", why then I'll try to learn from
<> them how to do the same.
<> -- Elaine May (ela...@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM)
Bisexuals are equally attracted to both sexes.
Bisexuality is "a lifestyle" rather than an orientation. Just
recently I called the number for the only bisexual group in San Diego.
The recording said that they're a support group that talks about "the
bisexual lifestyle". I was impressed -- I had no idea there was such a
thing as _the_ bisexual lifestyle, and that these people had figured
out what it is. A few years ago, when I went to do my bit on a Gay and
Lesbian speakers panel (which I'd been on a few times before), I was
informed that I'd been removed from that panel and placed on one called
"Alternative Lifestyles". At that time in my life, my "alternative
lifestyle" was a monogamous relationship with my boyfriend.
A person is bisexual _only_ when they're having relationships with both
sexes.
If a bi woman settles down with a woman, she's a lesbian; if she
settles down with a man, she's straight.
* Everyone is bisexual.
* Nobody is bisexual.
* Bisexuals are
...just going thru a phase.
... haven't come out yet.
... are sitting on the fence.
* Bisexuals are denying that they are really
...heterosexual.
...homosexual.
* The only true bisexuals are people who are equally attracted
to both sexes.
* Bisexuals
...are "promiscuous".
...have many sexual partners.
...will have sex with anyone.
* Bisexuals can't form stable relationships.
* Bisexuals are have no moral values.
* Bisexuals are immature.
* Bisexuals are unreliable.
* Bisexuality is a political cop-out.
* Bisexuals are responsible for spreading AIDS
...to the "normal" population.
...to the lesbian community
bisexuals "aren't really oppressed" because we can pass for straight.
The way I generally respond to someone who questions whether I'm not "just
going through a phase" is "I'm going through a *life*. Are you the same
person you were ten years ago? I know that I'm not, and I don't think that
I'll be who I am now in ten years' time".
<>Straight people bring their personal lives to work all
<>the time. They just don't think they do.
"A Bisexual is someone who identifies themself as a bisexual". This
eliminates the need to "prove something to someone"
1% MOTSS attraction or 99% MOTSS attraction is still 100% bi.
>What's it like to be in bed with a man and a woman at the same time?
Try it and see.
>What does semen taste like? / What's anal sex like? / What's it like
>to sleep with a motss?
Try it and see.
Woman: What's it [sleeping with a man] like?
Bi/gay man: I tell you what: first you tell *me* what it's like to
sleep with a man and then I'll tell *you* what it's like
for me, and that way we can compare notes. So, go
ahead---you first...
Woman: You could make a woman very happy.
Bi man: I'm pretty good with men too.
>What type of sexual experience do you find more enjoyable?
>Heterosexual or homosexual? And if you prefer one over the other, why?
Yes.
<> If I'm confused, if I'm screwed up, it's because I'm alive,
<> not because I'm bisexual.
<> My eccentricity doesn't come from my bisexuality.
<> --- David Parsons (o...@usite-next.uchicago.edu)
<> In my family, bisexuality is a family value.
<> "So, why ARE you straight, anyway?"
<> Just because the stereotype exists doesn't mean that you have to fit
<> it. (Unless, of course, you want to!)
<> --- Coe Salzgeber (cjoh...@polyslo.csc.calpoly.edu)
<> My sexuality is for me, not for the consumption of hetero males.
<> --- Ellen Clary (pcl...@nike.calpoly.edu)
<> It is astonishing how much energy some people waste worrying that
<> someone else might be enjoying life in ways they don't approve of.
<> --- Kevin Michael Vail
<> "But there *must* be homosexuals who date women?"
<> "Yes. They're called lesbians."
<> --- NBC tv sitcom "Golden Girls" (1991)
<> Q. What do I say when introduced to a homosexual "couple"?
<> A. "How do you do? How do you do?"
<> --- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior
<> How many times do I hear that being bisexual means you MUST have a
<> partner of each sex at the same time?
<> --- amy young (aly...@silver.ucs.indiana.edu)
<> Where are we supposed to get the energy for dealing with all these
<> partners?
<> --- Iseult White (i...@tosser.Rational.COM)
<> You don't look like a fag.
<> Funny, neither do you.
<> --- Brett Manz (ma...@ee.ualberta.edu)
<> The other day I heard a kid call another a faggot, and the kid so
<> called turned around to face his "accuser" and said, "Hey, if you want
<> me to suck your dick, just ask nicely, and I might."
<> --- STella (STe...@xanadu.com)
<> why the fuck can't it be recognised that women love women through
<> *positive* reasons of loving women, not necessarily negative reasons of
<> hating men. --- Sara Hopkins (sa...@castle.ed.ac.uk)
>> Bi women are stereotyped as "actually straight," and will leave a female
>>lover for a man, therefore, they must both really be there for the man
>>rather than each other. Bi men are stereotyped as being actually gay,
>>therefore they are there for each other rather than, or as much as, for
>>the woman.
>
>Actually it makes perfect sense. Boys are much more important and desirable
>than _girls_. Attractions that people have to _boys_ are much stronger. A girl
>only has sex with a girl because she can't find a boy. If a boy has sex with
>a boy he would never be interested in girls. Boys are the center of the
>universe.
>
>Gods below, that is sexist. It's a really that the queers fall for it just
>like the breeders.
I had a friend tell me that he was only 'a little' bisexual.
I asked him if he thought a women could ever be 'a little' pregnant.
>...I tend to look at
>myself, as someone put it recently, as a <name>sexual, as opposed to a
>heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. I.e., I'm attracted to
>individuals, so I'm kinda a Omahasexual, a DeWolfosexual, a
>Peterosexual, a Kellysexual, a Sharonsexual, ect, ect...
A couple weeks ago, i appeared on a panel at a local H.S. on lesbigay
issues. In the course of our discussion with the class, I revealed my
relationship with Joni, as well as our impending marriage-type
ceremony. One of the students asked me, since I was getting "married"
to another woman, didn't that mean I preffered women [to men]? I said
no, it meant I preferred *her*.
>he said "Bisexual, huh? want to come by my tent later?"
>(all this without looking at my face, and then a little
>giggle at the end, as if to imply that he's just joking,
>so I shouldn't be offended.
"No. <brief pause> Why?"
"Only if I get to watch you have sex with a man first."
"You know I've always had this fantasy of two men together...."
"Only if I get to top you"
(Might have to rephrase it as:)
"Only if you're the receptive partner."
"Only if I get to fuck you."
"Don't be silly. Even *I* have my standards. <giggle>"
"You're not my type, but I think my boyfriend would like you."
----cut here----
Another thing I am doing is trying to think of as many (impractical)
ways to come out as bisexual as possible. While this is an exercise in
humour, I also find it empowering. My list follows. (Most of these are
mine, but a few have been suggested by others.) Again, perhaps some of
the women here might consider compiling a list of impractical ways to
react to sexual harassment. (The suggestion of "try dressing in
camoflage gear, and carrying an assult rifle" brought this to mind.)
----cut here----
Copyright 1992 Raymond Lynch
44 Ways to Come Out as Bisexual
-------------------------------
o Leave a copy of "Bi Any Other Name" on the coffee table in your
appartment for visitors to notice.
o Place a full page advert announcing your sexuality in a local
newspaper. If that is too expensive then you might consider putting a
small notice in the BIrths section.
o Walk into the canteen at work with an uzi machine-gun and say "I'm
bisexual. Anyone got a problem with that?"
o When you meet somebody new, introduce yourself by saying "Hi, I'm
bisexual and my name is ..."
o Sit down with a flower beside some friends and start plucking its
leaves, saying "He loves me. He loves me not. She loves me. She
loves me not..."
o In the midst of passionate sex with your boyfriend, shout out a
woman's name.
o While eating dinner with your parents, say "Pass the potatoes please,
Dad, and, by the way, I'm bisexual."
o Get your mum a subscription of "Anything that moves" for her birthday.
o Take both a man and a woman along as dates to your prom or staff
Christmas party.
o When at a party, flirt outrageously with _everyone_.
o Hang pinups of both men and women on the wall beside your desk at
work.
o Buy yourself some personalised stationary which indicates your
sexuality.
o Go up for national election. The newspapers will try to dig up some
scandel on you close to election time and are bound to discover your
sexuality.
o Tell people that your are any of the following: hermaphrodite,
transverstite, transsexual or swinger. Chances are, they won't know the
difference.
o Put a "Bisexual Pride" bumper sticker on your car.
o Say it with flowers.
o Graffiti a wall with "<your name> loves Frank and Jane"
o Get involved in a sexual threesome with a man and a woman. Have a
fourth person present to take some photographs with your camera. Then
hand the roll of film into your local film development centre and, a
few days later, ask your mum to pick it up for you, saying that they
are holiday snaps. She's bound to look at them on the way home.
o Write a letter to your local newspaper, announcing you are starting
up a bisexual social group and that you welcome new members.
o Wear a "Bisexual Pride" t-shirt or a button badge with a suitable
slogan such as "Equal-opportunity lover".
o Pay for 1000 leaflets, announcing your sexuality, to be printed up
and delivered to each house in your neighbourhood.
o While sitting in a cafe with a friend, pass comments on all the
good-looking men and women who walk past.
o If asked out on a date, say "Sorry, I'm busy all this week helping
to organise a national bisexual conference."
o Buy a magazine which has has a Personal Ads section. Circle at least
one ad for a man and one for a women. Then casually leave this magazine
open at this page on your desk at work or the coffee table at home.
o Make a "Bisexual Pride" banner for a pride march and leave it lying
around your home when visitors call.
o Start a chain mail letter which says "<Your name> is bisexual. Please
send a copy of this letter on to 10 other people, otherwise you will
experience bad luck in the near future."
o Make an armchair from old fence-posts. Then when friends comment on
this ugly piece of furniture, you can say "But I _like_ sitting on the
fence..."
o Accept the responsibility of buying prizes for a club raffle. Make
sure to include some bisexual books and t-shirts among the prizes.
o Record a message on your telephone answering machine which says
"Sorry, I'm not in at the moment. Please leave a message after the beep.
Alternatively, you might try contacting me at the Bisexual Social
Group: 756-8290."
o Put a note on the notice-board at work/college, saying:
Books for sale: "Bi Any Other Name", "Bisexual Lives" and
"Bisexuality: A Reader and Sourcebook". Contact <your name> at
756-8241 if interested."
o When asked: "Do you know Frank?"
Answer with: "Yes, I used to date him before I met Mary."
o Join a band as the lead singer. Have band practice in your garage once
a week and sing songs like "The Borderline Bisexual Blues" (pg 36--39 of
"Bisexuality: A Reader and Sourcebook", ed. Thomas Geller) or "Bi
Thing" (take-off of "Wild Thing" by the Troggs, as posted to soc.bi).
Make sure that the amplifier is turn up loud enough for the neighbours
to hear.
o Subscribe to several bisexual newsletters. Read them on the bus while
commuting to work or college.
o In written communication, consistently use "bi" in place of "by". For
example: bi oneself, bi the way, bi and bi, bi-law.
o Wear a "Bisexual Pride" t-shirt while taking part in a Queer Nation
or OutRage! demonstration and afterwards ring home to tell your parents
to watch out for you on the six o'clock news.
o Get a "BISEXY" personalised car-registration plate.
o Order two portions of dessert at the staff canteen and, if asked about
it, say "I like to have my cake and eat it too."
o If you live in an appartment block, write "<your name> (Bisexual)" on
the name label beside the doorbell.
o Get some stickers made up which say "... and Bisexual (get used to
it)" and attach these to any "Lesbian and Gay" posters you have on your
wall at home.
o Discard your ice cube trays. Then invite a date over for a drink, and
come staggering out of the kitchen with an unwieldy block of ice and an
ice-pick. Claim that you like 'rough edges'.
o Subscribe to both Playboy and Playgirl.
o Get some business cards made up which have overlapping pink and blue
triangles instead of the company logo.
o Take a walk with a friend partner through a playground. Sit on a swing and
ask your friend to push you. After a minute of this, stop and sit
facing the other way on the seat. Again ask your friend to push you.
Keep alternating your position until your friend enquires about it. Then
reply "I like to swing both ways."
o "John and I are celebrating our 2nd anniversary tonight."
"But I thought you celebrated that last week."
"No, that was my 5th anniversary with Mary."
----cut here----
Ciaran.
--
Ciaran McHale ----
Department of Computer Science, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland. \bi/
Telephone: +353-1-7021539 FAX: +353-1-772204 email: cjmc...@dsg.cs.tcd.ie \/
Evelyn C. Leeper
> >"I'm gay and my name's Kevin. Got a problem with that?"
> which seems more a problem for Miss Manners than sociologists.
I always thought the proper response was, "No, I think Kevin is
a fine name."
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or e...@mtgzy.att.com
--
"IQ describes how big your gas tank is, but it doesn't tell if you're
running on empty." -- Harvey Newstrom (hnew...@x102c.ess.harris.com)
Ellen Clary
>
>Perhaps some of the women here might consider collecting smart come-back
>lines and other suggestions for ways to respond to sexual harassment.
>Such a list might well be of practical use as well as being empowering.
Didn't some columnist come up with some really good lines?
Anyone remember such a thing?
Along the lines of carrying an Uzi might be:
Carry a large scary looking knife with the words 'Castrating Bitch'
printed prominently on the hilt or sheat.
Or you could say:
You know I wonder what your voice would sound like 3 octaves higher.
Or even:
I have this pet shark who justs loves doing fellatio...
>[some of Ciaran's quotes]
>>What type of sexual experience do you find more enjoyable?
>>Heterosexual or homosexual? And if you prefer one over the other, why?
>Yes.
<giggle> Well it seemed like the obvious answer...
><> My eccentricity doesn't come from my bisexuality.
><> --- David Parsons (o...@usite-next.uchicago.edu)
It comes from trainspotting.
>Another thing I am doing is trying to think of as many (impractical)
>ways to come out as bisexual as possible. While this is an exercise in
>humour, I also find it empowering.
Oh very much so.
Occassionally I'll wear "I like girls" and "I like boys" badges
at the same time (wasn't in a terribly politically correct mood
when I bought them). A reader will see one of them first, adjust to
that, then see the other one and usually will do a mental double
take.
I also have my badges up on a wall, so visitors usually go over and
read them anyways.
But you wanted _im_practical.
>o Start a chain mail letter which says "<Your name> is bisexual. Please
>send a copy of this letter on to 10 other people, otherwise you will
>experience bad luck in the near future."
Or, please send a copy of this letter to 10 other people or otherwise
<Your name> will proposition you.
>o Record a message on your telephone answering machine which says
>"Sorry, I'm not in at the moment. Please leave a message after the beep.
>Alternatively, you might try contacting me at the Bisexual Social
>Group: 756-8290."
^^^ (A Cal Poly prefix - interesting conincidence)
(I would suggest using 555 as an example prefix
but that only works in the usa.)
"Sorry I'm in the middle of <male name> and <female name>. I'll call
you back when and if they stop licking me."
You could borrow other GL tactics.
Stickers: "A bisexual was here"
"Bis are everywhere. Even here."
Make sure you put these stickers everywhere you go. In toliets,
restaurants, schools, churches...
Stamping "Bi <currency name>" on paper money.
But back to impractical...
Arrange for all queer's skin color to turn pink or lavendar.
You could even have gay's turn one color and bi's another,
or varying shades of lavendar (though this runs counter to
X% motos attraction + Y% motss attraction = 100% bi)
May sure this happens suddenly overnight.
Ellen
John Wadlow
> 44 Ways to Come Out as Bisexual
> -------------------------------
>
> o Leave a copy of "Bi Any Other Name" on the coffee table in your
>
.... and so on (refer to the original post for list)
oh..., one might read soc.bi with 64 pt. font, though it makes
reading it slightly harder.
I tried this but no-one was here to see it :(
John Wadlow
> 44 Ways to Come Out as Bisexual
> -------------------------------
>
> o Leave a copy of "Bi Any Other Name" on the coffee table in your
> appartment for visitors to notice.
>
oh...how about reading soc.bi with a font of, let's say, 64pt?
However, it might make it harder to read.
** snuggles **
john *wondering where posts go that don't make to the network* wadlow
John Clark
+
+Along the lines of carrying an Uzi might be:
+Carry a large scary looking knife with the words 'Castrating Bitch'
+printed prominently on the hilt or sheat.
Or just simple sheep shears...
--
John Clark
jcl...@ucsd.edu
David Parsons
|><> My eccentricity doesn't come from my bisexuality.
|><> --- David Parsons (o...@usite-next.uchicago.edu)
|It comes from trainspotting.
Hey, I resemble that remark!
__
david parsons \/ "There's One!"
Sults
>But back to impractical...
[ ways to come out as bi]
>Arrange for all queer's skin color to turn pink or lavendar.
>You could even have gay's turn one color and bi's another,
>or varying shades of lavendar (though this runs counter to
>X% motos attraction + Y% motss attraction = 100% bi)
>May sure this happens suddenly overnight.
So thats what Sara was doing while she was over here.
Iseult.
C.W. Moseley
> pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
> |cjmc...@dsg.cs.tcd.ie (Ciaran McHale) wrote...
> |><> My eccentricity doesn't come from my bisexuality.
> |><> --- David Parsons (o...@usite-next.uchicago.edu)
>
> |It comes from trainspotting.
alright, enough of the in jokes, what is trainspotting??
Is this something to do with graffiti??
MOZ?
David Parsons
| o...@usite-next.uchicago.edu (David Parsons) writes:
|> pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
|> |cjmc...@dsg.cs.tcd.ie (Ciaran McHale) wrote...
|> |><> My eccentricity doesn't come from my bisexuality.
|> |><> --- David Parsons (o...@usite-next.uchicago.edu)
|> |It comes from trainspotting.
|alright, enough of the in jokes, what is trainspotting??
Trainspotting is watching trains. In North America, trainspotters are
known as railfans (or, insultingly, FOAMITE's (frothing at the mouth
idiotic train enthusiasts, or something to that effect...); I thought that
trainspotter was the term used in Australia and New Zealand, but maybe
there are few enough of them so that the term isn't in common use.
Obviously, I didn't leave a good enough impression when I last visited.
I'll have to do better ("Wild-eyed American arrested while trying to hijack
Beyer-Garratt from railway museum." "Melbourne trolley taken for joyride
by typical citizen of surviving superpower." "American run over my
Alco C636 while trying to snap pictures of mining train") next time I'm
on the other side of the world.
__
david parsons \/ "Part straight, part queer, all trainspotter"
Albert Lunde
> Obviously, I didn't leave a good enough impression when I last visited.
>I'll have to do better ("Wild-eyed American arrested while trying to hijack
>Beyer-Garratt from railway museum." "Melbourne trolley taken for joyride
>by typical citizen of surviving superpower." "American run over my
>Alco C636 while trying to snap pictures of mining train") next time I'm
>on the other side of the world.
"Mysterious hot tub discovered on rapid transit light rail.", "Engine
driver discovered bound and gagged."
--
Albert Lunde | Interfaith | *Y*Y* "A branch on the
Albert...@nwu.edu | Bisexual | *Y* tree of life"
alu...@nuacvm.bitnet | Feminist |.......|.........................
Joe P Woodhouse
>>Beyer-Garratt from railway museum." "Melbourne trolley taken for joyride
>>by typical citizen of surviving superpower." "American run over my
>
>"Mysterious hot tub discovered on rapid transit light rail.", "Engine
>driver discovered bound and gagged."
I'm expecting to leave all sorts of headlines in our wake during
Karina's and my tour of the US in January...
"'Australian sex tourists made me do it', sobs Ms Coe Salzgeber".
"Firefighters called in to rescue an Australian man found bound & naked
on a hot tub deck".
"Chicago police called in to quell sex riot on New Year's Eve. Sources
claim two Australian tourists were highly involved".
"Australian man appears before court on obscenity charges. 'But I wear
a red scarf in my back pocket at home, and never got into this trouble
before', he claims".
"Customs officials were astounded yesterday to uncover a large load of
sexual devices in the luggage of two Australian tourists".
Joe.
/ Joe Woodhouse / I'm just a sweet bisexual... / Hello, there.
/ Latrobe University / (think - Rocky Horror) / Threesomes are fun.
/ Melbourne, Australia / Music. Magic. Mathematics. Me. / I like cats! (miaow!)
Coe Salzgeber
>In article <1992Aug31.2...@midway.uchicago.edu> o...@usite-next.uchicago.edu (David Parsons) writes:
>> Obviously, I didn't leave a good enough impression when I last visited.
>>I'll have to do better ("Wild-eyed American arrested while trying to hijack
>>Beyer-Garratt from railway museum." "Melbourne trolley taken for joyride
>>by typical citizen of surviving superpower." "American run over my
>>Alco C636 while trying to snap pictures of mining train") next time I'm
>>on the other side of the world.
>
>"Mysterious hot tub discovered on rapid transit light rail.", "Engine
>driver discovered bound and gagged."
:^)
-Coe
--
cjoh...@nyx.calpoly.edu
Ellen Clary
>"Firefighters called in to rescue an Australian man found bound & naked
>on a hot tub deck".
You know Joe, it occurs to me that you might want to bring another
man along for this get together. It's been my experience that when
there's one man with a group of women, the man gets ignored entirely.
(Or wasn't I supposed to mention that? ... ;-) )
Ellen
Roy S. Rapoport
->It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
->the man gets ignored entirely.
->Ellen
*grins*
I seem to be an exception.
I tend to get ignored no matter what the makeup of the group is :)
Sorry ... a somewhat fasticious(sp?) mood, I'm afraid.
Happiness tends to do that to me.
(And the 36 (+-) hours of sleep deprivation help :) )
*hugs* to everyone!!
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roy S. Rapoport r...@ocf.berkeley.edu
Disclaimer: "It wasn't me!! Must have been a fake posting or something!! I
would NEVER say something like that!!"
Joe P Woodhouse
>wood...@latcs2.lat.oz.au (Joe P Woodhouse) wrote...
>>"Firefighters called in to rescue an Australian man found bound & naked
>>on a hot tub deck".
>> [and other previous stuff about being summarily ravished...]
"Summarily ravished"? Um, that has an awfully *final* sound to it...
>You know Joe, it occurs to me that you might want to bring another
>man along for this get together.
Hey! My budget won't stretch that far! I think I'm doing well to be
bringing a woman from Australia and another from NY! 8->
But yeah, if there are any native Bay Area sorts you can recommend...
>It's been my experience that when
>there's one man with a group of women, the man gets ignored entirely.
Coe & I already discussed this...I'll just give a running commentary
or something, and if I'm shushed & chased away...well, how's your book
collection?
>(Or wasn't I supposed to mention that? ... ;-) )
Heh heh heh, all this presupposes I've been untied in the first place!
Eric C. S. Dynamic
>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
> the man gets ignored entirely.
It must be he's boring, or they're ignoring circumstances.
Sorry. Were I there, I would consume the resources.
None of us are ultimately stupid, though for some of us it takes more
lifetimes than others. You don't think I would incarnate on Earth if I
didn't want to party, do you?
I think it's because us sweeties is so *shy*, you know. I would say Hey.
And if I would be first, tough darts for you, sis.
- M. Venus in Pisces (ecsd)
Ellen Clary
>pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
>>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
>> the man gets ignored entirely.
>
>It must be he's boring, or they're ignoring circumstances.
>I think it's because us sweeties is so *shy*, you know. I would say Hey.
>And if I would be first, tough darts for you, sis.
Since when does who gets there first have that much to do with it? ;-)
Ellen
Ciaran McHale
>pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
>>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
>> the man gets ignored entirely.
>
>It must be he's boring, or they're ignoring circumstances.
>Sorry. Were I there, I would consume the resources.
>
Perhaps not, but you have managed to come across as clueless, sexist,
arrogant and egotistical all at the same time. No doubt, stupidity will
ultimately follow.
C.W. Moseley
> In <1992Sep7.1...@tfs.com> ec...@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
> >None of us are ultimately stupid [...]
>
> Perhaps not, but you have managed to come across as clueless, sexist,
> arrogant and egotistical all at the same time. No doubt, stupidity will
> ultimately follow.
(ciaran, this sounds like one of those sentences that is a good example of
what it is talking about - ie `so have you')
oops, did you omit `patronising', silly mistake.
MOZ
Swamp Thing
>pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
>>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
>> the man gets ignored entirely.
>It must be he's boring, or they're ignoring circumstances.
>Sorry. Were I there, I would consume the resources.
Do not count on it; sweetie. And that's all my "resources" you get.
Sara
--
>{8-) Sara Hopkins (-8}< _____^__
Geography Dept. Edinburgh Uni. Drummond St. \ OOO/ / The Thing
Edinburgh, EH8 9XP, UK. +44 (0/31) 650 2662 \++/ / From
>{8-) sa...@geovax.ed.ac.uk (-8}< ** nice ** \/\/ The Swamp
M Lloyd
poly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
[in the ongoing tease-Joe-before-he-gets-near-the-hot-tub fest]
|> You know Joe, it occurs to me that you might want to bring another
|> man along for this get together. It's been my experience that when
|> there's one man with a group of women, the man gets ignored entirely.
|> (Or wasn't I supposed to mention that? ... ;-) )
Does this mean I'm succeding in my attempts to behave as
androgynously as I can? After all, I was hardly ignored in
a hot-tub consisting of you, Coe and Muffy ...
Admittedly, at the earlier "6 Bi's in Hot-Tub; Flooding Results"
incident, I did get more attention from Grant, the only other
self-identified male in the water, so maybe you have a point ...
In which case, I *gladly* volunteer to help Joe out in this
regard ... oh, you weren't serious about him being ignored?
Well, never mind; it might do as an excuse *grin*
[OK, so this is really just a test message - it's been garbled by
three newsreaders on two sites already, so I'm going back to old
faithful. Apologies if you've seen it before.]
Hugs
Professor Lloyd ;-) (Currently the only faculty member [hah!
the fools, the fools, making me temporary faculty!] wearing
anything remotely resembling a >*LOUD*< red t-shirt, freedom rings,
and a combined-gender symbol on a necklace (arrow added at bottom of cross)]
--
Mike Lloyd | B0/1 h- f- t w- c g+ k(+) s m- e?
Retro-hippy, music nut, bi and | "The Trouble with Normal is it
owner of a one-track mind: | Always Gets Worse" - Bruce Cockburn
"thesis .. thesis .. thesis" | (-: F**k Your Gender! :-)
Joe P Woodhouse
>pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
>[in the ongoing tease-Joe-before-he-gets-near-the-hot-tub fest]
So I wasn't just being paranoid! It's a conspiracy! 8->
>|> You know Joe, it occurs to me that you might want to bring another
>|> man along for this get together.
>
>In which case, I *gladly* volunteer to help Joe out in this regard
^^^^^^^^
...just how much *did* they tell you about me, Mike? 8->
Not that I object to a reputation preceding me, not at all! In fact, I've
just today been told about *another* party (in the East Coast) that might
be organised around our visit...I am going to need a vacation from my
vacation at this rate!
>... oh, you weren't serious about him being ignored?
>Well, never mind; it might do as an excuse *grin*
It certainly does! 8->
Eric C. S. Dynamic
>ec...@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
>>pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
>>>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
>>> the man gets ignored entirely.
>>
>>It must be he's boring, or they're ignoring circumstances.
>>Sorry. Were I there, I would consume the resources.
>>
>>None of us are ultimately stupid [...]
>Perhaps not, but you have managed to come across as clueless, sexist,
>arrogant and egotistical all at the same time. No doubt, stupidity will
>ultimately follow.
If you want to flame, let's do it. I'll take the liberty of translating
"have managed to come across as" as "are", since you're not looking for
anything positive in what I write. I also voice you as endorsing Ellen's
original note, which may be unfair. I think it's also only fair to say
that I am responding to my take on Ellen's intentions in writing that bit,
since more might have been in her mind than I got. She could address that.
If I were a woman out there with you and one man on that raft, maybe I'd be
the only female to think to include the guy out of my *feminine* qualities.
This is a favorite image unliberated women carry, about how they will pack
together and ignore the male, probably to punish him for their insecurities,
so far as I can tell.
Since my image is inclusive and yours is exclusive, I think 'sexist' does not
apply to me - woe to me to have been born a male to be braying how much I like
females; only females are entitled to admire females, if I get you right.
Back on that raft from above, I'd be involved with him (this other person).
Seems you'd be looking for pals to spite him.
As far as cluelessness is concerned, do the following. Reread what I originally
wrote. Write down the specific things that made you angry - tone of voice, etc.
These are the things that make you feel insulted as a 'woman'.
Now, read it again. This time, consider how I am asking the scenario to play
out, instead of Ellen's ending. Please compare a generalization of the world
I ask for with a generalization of the world she describes. Ask in either world
who you can find who feels left out and made to feel worthless. In my world,
nobody is left out. In Ellen's, the male is left out. An average mature female,
as I understand how they have been programmed by the 'vicious male world',
would implicitly understand the pain the male would feel, and consider to try
to help him. Tell me what set of values it is where you and your friends enjoy
to play "exclusion games" and feel smug about it. I suggest your anger with
me is that I am calling you on this, albeit in a negative way (and for that
I apologize).
I regard myself to be a spirit being without a gender identification except on
the physical plane. I was born male, so I should do a good job of being male.
I was also born human, and I should do a good job of that too.
I believe a world where people love each other is a lot more viable than one
where they don't. I would never excuse myself of being an asshole by passing
it off on being male. I don't think you're entitled to live in a new
double-standard world where women call the shots; to want that is to be
dwelling in fantasies of revenge. I never authorized a world in which women,
or men for that matter, would be treated as less than equal merely on account
of gender, and I intend to fight such a thing wherever I find it. I found it
in what Ellen wrote, and you're defending it. I can't blame you for whatever
rage you feel; I feel plenty of it myself. But don't try to pass off bigotry
under the banner of 'women vindicated'. The vindicated woman is the man's
equal, not his 'trainer', his 'owner', his 'judge' or his 'executioner'.
Men would love to work it out with women through feminine archetypes, but
it seems many women really do have more work to do towards self-possession
on the masculine archetypal model, if the only way they can feel empowered
is through banding together to dangle the power of acceptance over the male's
head and have him jump through hoops. In my whole life I have met maybe two
males who actually took pleasure in hurting or rejecting females. You hold up
this ignore-the-guy image like some victory and defend it like some cherished
virtuous female rite. Men don't want to castrate women, and I think they're
going to have to come out big time to say they don't like women who hold
male-bashing parties Tuesday and expect to be courted on Wednesday.
I have no problem owning to being arrogant and egotistical, because (a) I'm
also gentle, sweet, sensitive and caring, and my heart is in the right place,
(b) I compulsively reflect upon myself and my actions to decide if what I'm
doing is right, and I try to gather information that will integrate me into
the world.
I know that hurting people is wrong, I know that negative responses and attacks
mostly bid the same. I'm trying to smooth my rough edges and to mature as
quickly as possible. I also need to establish my identity firmly and I do
that by standing in opposition to things and by practicing what I already am.
One of my most cherished instincts is to put my male energy in service to a
feminine ideal: if I see someone abusing someone else, I reflexively want to
attack the abuser, because I was that abused person. If I were on your raft,
I still would be. I don't know what kind of pain gives you to attack me.
If you want to tell me so I can share with you, then do that.
This man on the raft, curious how who he is, is of no interest as to whether he
will be ignored.
Think about whether enjoying to hurt someone because you can is a value you
really hold. You have many fine things to use out of the male archetype.
Choosing only those male traits which you complain are what abuse you is
to remain other-defined and a victim.
Your
angry, artistic, arrogant, brooding, charming, childish, compassionate, complex,
considerate, defensive, depressed, egocentric, eloquent, feminine, feral,
generous, gracious, intelligent, intuitive, judgemental, laughing, loving,
malevolent, masculine, mindful, nice, perceptive, playful, reflective,
sensitive, selfish, serious, strong, sweet, technical, tender, thoughtful,
thoughtless, voracious, vulnerable, weak and wise
Servant,
-ecsd
Eric C. S. Dynamic
>ec...@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
>
>>pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
>>>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
>>> the man gets ignored entirely.
>
>>It must be he's boring, or they're ignoring circumstances.
>>Sorry. Were I there, I would consume the resources.
>Do not count on it; sweetie. And that's all my "resources" you get.
>Sara
Here's another one. Punish me for expressing my values and desires.
Here I put myself in the role of a woman; I say "consume the resources",
which in this case is the man. What part of the man? All of him, in the
image I had when I wrote that.
Here's an ardent flame for you: looks like your "resources" might equate to
your pussy, and you have put a price on it: Behave thus, or none of This.
I give myself freely out of love. The instant a woman tries to commoditize
me and trade access to our mutual thing to manipulate my behavior, she's out
the door.
If it has a price on it, I don't want it. You keep it. The women I keep
company with are women, not cats.
-ecsd
Eric C. S. Dynamic
>pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
>>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
>> the man gets ignored entirely.
>
>a group of men. I don't know if this is typical.
>
>...
>--scott
I may have needlessly bashed Ellen, remains to be seen.
The grouping thing for women at least is cohesive behavior (Tannen et. al.)
The exclusion thing is the female variant of pyramiding (pecking order).
If it's one of one kind vs. numbers of the other, it's difficult to
integrate them, the singleton has to adopt the group's behavioral mode.
-ecsd
Brad Booth
In article <1992Sep10.1...@tfs.com>, ec...@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
> sa...@castle.ed.ac.uk (Swamp Thing) writes:
> >ec...@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
> >>pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
> >>>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
> >>> the man gets ignored entirely.
I've seen this too. *I* think one of the reasons is that men tend to be more
abrasive/rough sexually than women. It seems that when women are in a group,
they enjoy the gentler/softer sex that can be offered by women.
> >>It must be he's boring, or they're ignoring circumstances.
> >>Sorry. Were I there, I would consume the resources.
Doesn't necessarily mean the guy is boring. And if the resources didn't want
consuming, what would you do??
> >Do not count on it; sweetie. And that's all my "resources" you get.
Exactly!
> Here's another one. Punish me for expressing my values and desires.
No one's punished you... although I'm sure that can be arranged. ;)
> Here I put myself in the role of a woman; I say "consume the resources",
> which in this case is the man. What part of the man? All of him, in the
> image I had when I wrote that.
Well, if you meant that you were putting yourself in the role of a woman,
then why the hell didn't you say so and avoid all the flames. To quote
you, "Were I there, I would consume the resources." Take into account your
previous statement, and most readers probably (and quite reasonable) assumed
you were talking as you... a male... in the role of the left out male.
[rest of the junk deleted...]
__o Brad Booth | "I want you
_`\<,_ Bell-Northern Research | to know me only as
(*)/ (*) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada | what I believe I am."
---------- bbo...@x400gate.bnr.ca | ... 54-40
Ciaran McHale
>sa...@castle.ed.ac.uk (Swamp Thing) writes:
>>ec...@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
>>>pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
>>>>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
>>>> the man gets ignored entirely.
>>
>>>It must be he's boring, or they're ignoring circumstances.
>>>Sorry. Were I there, I would consume the resources.
>>
>>Do not count on it; sweetie. And that's all my "resources" you get.
>>Sara
>
>Here's another one. Punish me for expressing my values and desires.
Perhaps you should learn how to express yourself in a way which doesn't
allow so much room for misinterpretation.
>Here I put myself in the role of a woman; I say "consume the resources",
>which in this case is the man.
That's not what some of us read in your article. Since the name "Eric"
is usually a male name and you explicitly said "Were I there" rather
than "If I a woman and was there", your posting came across as
objectifying women (referring to them as "resources" for your
"consumption"). The rest of your original posting seemed to back up
this arrogant, sexist interpretation.
M Lloyd
his responses to Ellen, Ciaran and Sara. He replied, apologetically,
and as you can see below, asked me to post his note. I feel a little
strange doing that (posting mail), but he asked me to. Share and enjoy!
Unfortunately, he didn't quote chunks of my letter to him. If anyone
is desperately interested, I think I have it somewhere. Bascially, I
suggested he had mis-caught the etiquette of soc.bi by not reading
enough of it prior to posting, and that I wasn't at all surprised that
he had provoked negative responses, given the tone of his article.
Mike
----begin inclusion----
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 10:56:45 PDT
From: "Eric C. S. Dynamic" <ec...@com.tfs>
To: mll...@uk.ac.ed.castle
Subject: I stand revealed
(Subject: I stand revealed)
as a near idiot, I guess. I don't know how to pronounce "Ciaran", except
as "Sharon", and for some reason I implicitly assumed he was a female.
That being so, the response tied into some big themes I'm trying to get
clear about. I know I exactly want to accumulate wisdom and perspective
before I make assertions, and this evening's round shows I'm still in a
bad way around reactive anger. I determined I'd got Ellen's intentions wrong,
and sent her an apology. With the other two, this is a syndrome I've been
aware of, to let the other person assume the form of an archetypal thing
I want to kill, and try to kill it, only to find they weren't holding the
position I thought and I had needlessly damaged feelings. It's dysfunctional,
but at the moment I still know that "it is quicker than I am"; for now until
I learn how to get ahead of it, I have to cut my losses by noting that even
if I was dead wrong in recognizing the situation, I still had my fight with
the archetype. I have to find a balance between doing, saying and engaging
with nothing, and pulling out all the stops.
You are right about the venue. I locked into it because I thought it was a
place where I could work these things out. Apparently the mistake with the
little sliver of Ellen's note had me thinking the topic was active in soc.bi.
I'm not bisexual that I know. For a while I was willing to characterize myself
so because I'm open to same-sex sex. Now I think it's probably not true
because my emotional desires center around women, and when I ask what sort
of man I would be a lover with, I can't think of any male I know who'd work
out. Meanwhile, I'm not much interested in hearing about hot-tub escapades
in Edinburgh, so I will get out of it.
I guess if I want to _reconcile_ my male and female sides, _reconciliation_
is better sought in soc.women, soc.feminism and soc.men. I also have more
spewing to do (frightening to know it in advance, eh?), so hot things in
those categories, and alt.flame, better venues.
As regards having been rude, I am sorry, as of as you depict it, walking into
a storefront selling beer and demanding dry stores in a loud voice does not
make anyone happy. On the other hand, I also know something curiously occult;
people I touch were to be touched. The engagement teaches on both sides, even
if the 'lesson' regards entirely different issues. Ciaran and Sara reacted
to an initial infringement in a negative way, and what they received in
return was negativity. I entered making a mistake of presumption, but I was
met with same. I, in my finite wisdom, escalated.
Here you are, and you did what they might have thought to do: explain what
was going on, without presuming that my intentions were set-negative. (Concept
of slack.) I am grateful to you, and you have reminded me once again I still
need a great deal of tempering, and this has happened with no gnashing of teeth
whatever. So Dale Carnegie strikes again.
Clueless is right. I'll never call someone named Ciaran a 'she' again.
Well, I have the exchange on paper, ready to excerpt from when I really
am in the context I think I am.
I'll save this to post later. This will stand as my apology. But if I
may ask you a favor, that you could post this there for me, because it'll
be a while before I'll be back on the net. I'd appreciate it.
Thanks again.
-ecsd
----end inclusion----
Ellen Clary
>that I am responding to my take on Ellen's intentions in writing that bit,
>since more might have been in her mind than I got. She could address that.
Consider my comment a simple reversal of stereotypes. (And what I
said is true for _my_ experience, though I should probably empasize
that this was in sexually charged situations.)
[Aside]
By the way it definitely wasn't clear to me (and several others) that
when you said 'I'd consume resources,' you were casting yourself as a
woman. By not making this clear you plunged headfirst into more than
one classic male stereotypes, one of which is that women are resources
for men's consumption. Another is that men sould be the center of
attention, and if they're not then there's something wrong with them.
(i.e. They are 'boring' or inadequate in some way.)
In my experience that hasn't been the case at all. I've wound up
ignoring some very fascinating men.
Ellen
Brad Booth
In article <BuDJB...@news.larc.nasa.gov>, klu...@grissom.larc.nasa.gov (Scott Dorsey) writes:
> In article <1992Sep10.1...@bcrka451.bnr.ca> bbo...@x400gate.bnr.ca (Brad Booth) writes:
> >> >>pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
> >> >>>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
> >> >>> the man gets ignored entirely.
> >
> >I've seen this too. *I* think one of the reasons is that men tend to be more
> >abrasive/rough sexually than women. It seems that when women are in a group,
> >they enjoy the gentler/softer sex that can be offered by women.
>
> generalizations. I've seen this happen too, in cases where gentleness
> was certainly not the issue. And, as I have pointed out, it's also the
> case for men (although you can make the opposite argument that men enjoy
> the less gentle sex that can be offered by men, but I don't buy that either).
I said *tend to be*, not that they *are*... men can be gentle and tender, but
the hair on our faces makes us more abrasive. ;) My wife's comments on the
differences between me and her lover are: physical size, muscle tone and stuble.
Just my comments,
__o Brad Booth | "If somebody feels really good
_`\<,_ Bell-Northern Research | about who they are, they don't
(*)/ (*) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada | feel threatened by what other
---------- bbo...@x400gate.bnr.ca | people are." - Dr. M. Rubenstein
Nick Nicholas
and I don't care what anyone else says; I don't care if I'm seen as letting
down my bi comrades, or being a het-oriented sleaze; Eric, now that he's
actually clarified what he was talking about (and granted, it was not
clear at first) speaks for me completely. I certainly couldn't have verbalised
the anger I felt about the thread as well as he.
(Well, ok, maybe I could have done a bit better on the grammar :)
And if that means that *I* get flamed too, tough. Before I stand for what
the groups I am aligned with believe in, I must stand for what I believe in.
My being me takes priority over my being bi. And my being me entails that
I will resent rejection. Even if it's not at all rational, I will say that.
Whether it win me fans or derision. I could have no respect for myself if
all I allowed myself to feel about this thread (which dammit, has kept me
up at nights) was "Yes dear, you know best, and men deserve to be ignored,
too." Well maybe they do. But I'm not going to be blissful about it.
---
Nick Nicholas: [s]h[r]ug-osexual. Greek, short, greasy, romantic, and as
B1 f+ t- w s-? e- r-- dr+(+) bi as he wants to be. [ObMauveHeptagon]
n...@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au (IRC: nicxjo). Likes Cavafy, Mahler, and cashews.
Mike Lloyd
binaries
ews i
l
78 articles
Muffy Barkocy
> My being me takes priority over my being bi. And my being me entails that
> I will resent rejection. Even if it's not at all rational, I will say that.
> Whether it win me fans or derision. I could have no respect for myself if
> all I allowed myself to feel about this thread (which dammit, has kept me
> up at nights) was "Yes dear, you know best, and men deserve to be ignored,
> too." Well maybe they do. But I'm not going to be blissful about it.
*SIGH*...Here's the original article:
<Newsgroups: soc.bi
<From: pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary)
<Subject: Re: trainspotting (no longer)
<Date: Sun, 06 Sep 92 05:04:57 GMT
<wood...@latcs2.lat.oz.au (Joe P Woodhouse) wrote...
<>"Firefighters called in to rescue an Australian man found bound & naked
<>on a hot tub deck".
<> [and other previous stuff about being summarily ravished...]
<You know Joe, it occurs to me that you might want to bring another
<man along for this get together. It's been my experience that when
<there's one man with a group of women, the man gets ignored entirely.
<(Or wasn't I supposed to mention that? ... ;-) )
<Ellen
Ellen did *NOT* say that the man was intentionally ignored, much less
"rejected." Yes, *IF* someone were suggesting that a man in a group
which was otherwise composed of women *SHOULD* be ignored/rejected, THEN
you would have cause for anger. In this case, however, there was a
friendly, chatty sort of thread going on and Ellen made an observation
clearly designed to be humorous (note the ";-)"). She did *NOT* say
that he *should* be ignored or that they would *try* to ignore him.
So, what exactly are you angry about?
Muffy
--
Muffy Barkocy | mu...@mica.berkeley.edu | wi....@wizvax.methuen.ma.us
~Little round planet/in a big universe/sometimes it looks blessed/
sometimes it looks cursed/Depends on what you look at, obviously/
But even more it depends on the way that you see~ - Bruce Cockburn
Sults
>I've seen this too. *I* think one of the reasons is that men tend to be more
>abrasive/rough sexually than women. It seems that when women are in a group,
>they enjoy the gentler/softer sex that can be offered by women.
And of course, sweetie, you are quite right. All women do when we
are in bed together is hold hands and stare lovingly into each others
eyes, though occasionally, we might get around to a little bit of
stroking and ever so gentle caressing. Of course being the gentler
sex we never wrestle with each other or pin each other down.
We never fuck each other till our brains spill on the floor, with fists,
dildos, even bigger dildos or what ever else comes to hand.
Iseult.
Mike Lloyd
In article <922550...@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>, n...@ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick
Nicholas) writes:
|> Eric, now that he's
|> actually clarified what he was talking about (and granted, it was not
|> clear at first) speaks for me completely.
Hmm. Hopefully I'm not wasting bandwidth or flogging a dead horse
if I ask you to explain what you think he was saying. Personally,
I see little cause for all the bile being spilt into this discussion
(by some participants) - but then, I'm not the sort to get angry.
It doesn't jar particularly with my world-view to observe that a
man would, in many circumstances, be ignored in a group of women.
You can read sexism, rudeness, Illuminati conspiracy, or whatever
you like into it, but no such readings are necessarily true.
How about the idea that people are just socialized to interact
more easily with their own gender? This would produce the effect,
without any need for blame, outrage or anger over the motivations
of the people involved.
So I see nothing provocative in Ellen's observation - I even suspect
it's true. I also (naively) hope that most of this storm was just
stirred up by Eric's poor phraseology. In the hope that that is
true, I offer e-hugs to any participants who want them, be they
in hot-tubs suffering from societal gender hangups or not.
Mike, somewhat bemused by the whole thing
Mike Lloyd, retro hippy, blah blah .. rest of .sig lost in cocktail
of lethargy and ether
c...@vax.oxford.ac.uk
bbo...@x400gate.bnr.ca (Brad Booth) writes:
>pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
>>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
>> the man gets ignored entirely.
>
> I've seen this too. *I* think one of the reasons is that men tend to be more
> abrasive/rough sexually than women. It seems that when women are in a group,
> they enjoy the gentler/softer sex that can be offered by women.
*laugh* Oh, boy. I think not. I don't know why it happens, when it does, but
no way is it because the women want to be sweet and gentle with each other and
can't cope with all the resources of a man...
Where did this "women have softer & gentler sex" idea originate??
Tanaqui
Ciaran McHale
(Scott Dorsey) writes:
>>[...]
>Whoa, whoa! Stop right there, while we are on the subject of offensive
>generalizations.
Yes, folks. It is true. Scott Dorsey and I are the one and the same
person. Shit! I knew I shold have remembered to post that article under
the "Ciaran" username, but I slipped up bad.
Ciaran McHale
>Where did this "women have softer & gentler sex" idea originate??
I think it comes from the supression of women's sexuality, i.e., women
don't have a sexuality, but rather are a "passive" tool used by men to
express _their_ sexuality. (I'm sure that there is an extensive body of
literature written about this but I don't have any refs.)
Iseult parodied this brilliantly with her images of "holding hands and
smiling", as if women knew no other way of expressing their non-existent
(so society would have us believe) sexuality.
Ciaran McHale
something about it which jars with me a bit.
Ellen Clary writes:
>>>>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
>>>> the man gets ignored entirely.
Eric C. S. Dynamic:
>>>It must be he's boring, or they're ignoring circumstances.
>>>Sorry. Were I there [and was a woman], I would [go for the man]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Note that I've added in Eric's clarifications
Saying "If I were a bi woman in a mixed group-sex situation then I
would go for the man" is simply stating a personal preference, and is
in no way offensive.
Well, it wouldn't be, if it wasn't for the line which preceeds it in
Eric's posting. My interpretation of that previous line is "Unless the
man is boring, the women are ignoring a golden opportunity."
So let's join these two lines together and see what we get:
Unless the man is boring, the women are ignoring a golden
opportunity. Were *I* a bi women there, I would go for the man.
NOTE: I'm not sure if this is what Eric meant. If it isn't then I hope
he will clarify it. *If* my interpretation of it _is_ valid...
...then it is falling for the classic stereotype that a bi woman would
dump a female partner as soon as a man comes along, i.e., bi women are
really straight and just fool around with other women out of sexual
frustration when there are no men about to "really satisfy" them.
It might also be supporting the claim that it is the duty of (bi) women
to service the (sexual) needs of men. (This can be more clearly seen if
we re-paraphrase "golden opportunity" as "duty.")
Is this reading of your posting accurate, Eric? Or have I misinterpreted
you yet again?
In reply to "The Swamp Thing" (Sara), you say:
>Here's an ardent flame for you: looks like your "resources" might equate to
>your pussy, and you have put a price on it: Behave thus, or none of This.
Am I correct in thinking that you are "accusing" Sara of being a
prositute? (i) I fail to understand how you came to the conclusion that
she has put a price on having sex with her. (ii) Perhaps you could
explain to me why you think the term "prostitute" is insulting.
Brad Booth
Gosh, a lot of you are truly hyped up on this whole issue. Ellen made a comment
about her experiences with a group of women and one man. I agreed with her that
I had seen this happen too and gave *my* views on what *I've* noticed. I wasn't
trying to infer that this is necessarily what always happens, just what I have
seen and my interpretation of it. I was not trying to infer the women are the
gentler/softer sex. And I was not trying to infer that women always have softer
& gentler sex. What I was trying to get across is that in all case *I've* seen
where there is a group of women and one man, that man gets ignored because he
tends to be more physical and sexually abrasive/rough. Maybe part of the reason
this has happened is because the man involved has usually been het... or maybe
it's because sometimes it's the women's first time together. I didn't think that
this idea would be so hard for those in soc.bi to comprehend... and I certainly
didn't think it would be so misinterpreted.
e-mail me if you have comments, so we can kill this thread.
Lori Cotton
>sex we never wrestle with each other or pin each other down.
>We never fuck each other till our brains spill on the floor, with fists,
>dildos, even bigger dildos or what ever else comes to hand.
Oh my *blush* so early in the morning! Iseult, you make me want to go
home and it's only 9:30 a.m. on Friday. ;^)
To me gentler sex only comes after we're too weak to pin each other down
anymore. Now, where did I put those handcuffs...
--
lori....@west.Sun.COM | "If I can't be trusted with a choice, then
SunSoft, Inc. | how can I be trusted with a child."
Los Angeles, CA | Source -- Bumper Sticker
Swamp Thing
>In reply to "The Swamp Thing" (Sara), you say:
>>Here's an ardent flame for you: looks like your "resources" might equate to
>>your pussy, and you have put a price on it: Behave thus, or none of This.
>Am I correct in thinking that you are "accusing" Sara of being a
>prositute? (i) I fail to understand how you came to the conclusion that
>she has put a price on having sex with her. (ii) Perhaps you could
>explain to me why you think the term "prostitute" is insulting.
I was somewhat surprised by Eric (Quantum Chromo) Dynamic's response
here; all I said was "And that's all my resources you get", in which I
thought it was clear enough (OK OK I know this is usenet and often our
postings don't contain the clarity we think they do) that I meant that
my *posting* was all the resources he was going to get. Neither did I
say I was going to charge him for my posting. Neither was I telling him
how to behave; I was merely saying what I thought of his posting, which
wasn't much. Neither has my view changed with all this ballyhoo. And I
didn't even want to grant him as much resources as *this* posting
either.
If you ask me (or even if you don't) the whole thing is one of those
ridiculous storms in teacups that certainly shouldn't be wasting
peoples' valuable sleeping resources.
Sara
--
>{8-) Sara Hopkins (-8}< _____^__
Geography Dept. Edinburgh Uni. Drummond St. \ OOO/ / The Thing
Edinburgh, EH8 9XP, UK. +44 (0/31) 650 2662 \++/ / From
>{8-) sa...@geovax.ed.ac.uk (-8}< ** nice ** \/\/ The Swamp
Swamp Thing
>binaries
Yes, dear, that's very interesting ...
>{8-)
Stephanie Moore-Fuller
In article <iw.716170611@tosser i...@tosser.Rational.COM (Sults) writes:
> And of course, sweetie, you are quite right. All women do when we
> are in bed together is hold hands and stare lovingly into each others
> eyes, though occasionally, we might get around to a little bit of
> stroking and ever so gentle caressing. Of course being the gentler
> sex we never wrestle with each other or pin each other down.
> We never fuck each other till our brains spill on the floor, with fists,
> dildos, even bigger dildos or what ever else comes to hand.
>
>
> Iseult.
What a wonderful image -- it's enough to make one close one's eyes
and shiver.
And of course women would _never_ tie each other down, or use nipple
clamps, or talk 'dirty' to each other, or spank each other till the
skin is glowing gently.......
stephanie
heather e blair
about Jungian archetypes.
--
- Heather Blair h4...@midway.uchicago.edu
heather e blair
>In <1992Sep10.1...@tfs.com> ec...@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
>
>>Here I put myself in the role of a woman; I say "consume the resources",
>>which in this case is the man.
>
>That's not what some of us read in your article. Since the name "Eric"
>is usually a male name and you explicitly said "Were I there" rather
>than "If I a woman and was there", your posting came across as
>objectifying women (referring to them as "resources" for your
>"consumption"). The rest of your original posting seemed to back up
>this arrogant, sexist interpretation.
>
>
>Ciaran.
M Lloyd
>mll...@sor-2.stern.nyu.edu (Mike Lloyd) writes:
[garble deleted]
>Yes, dear, that's very interesting ...
> >{8-)
*sheepish*grin* Sorry 'bout that. I have >no< >idea< how the right-hand
half of a header from comp.binaries.mac got exchanged for my post ...
I do know xrn core-dumped in the ensuing clean-up, but it just seems
to do that to me. Ever had that feeling of being the most knowlegeable
person on a system, while not having a clue about it ... ?
Anyhow, I think this thread has passed it's Use By date, so it was
almost certainly better off without whatever got trashed.
Ho hum
Mike, the apologetically confused
Eric C. S. Dynamic
>
>ec...@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
>> sa...@castle.ed.ac.uk (Swamp Thing) writes:
>> >ec...@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
>> >>pcl...@mushroom.csc.calpoly.edu (Ellen Clary) writes:
>> >>>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
>> >>> the man gets ignored entirely.
>
>I've seen this too. *I* think one of the reasons is that men tend to be more
>abrasive/rough sexually than women. It seems that when women are in a group,
>they enjoy the gentler/softer sex that can be offered by women.
I have Venus in Pisces, which characterizes my affectional energy as
feminine and sensitive - extremely sensitive, which is true.
That is one reason I dislike ATTACKS by women on men for being rude, crude
& etc. - for they are being hypocrites (to ATTACK, they use the very
attitude they are criticizing.)
Credence Astrology, and consider this: Mars and Venus are the two primary
indicators of the M,F energy. With fire and air signs = M and earth and
water = F, there are four possible types of Person, then you look at their
gender.
I "luck out" having Mars in Sagittarius (fire) so M = M, and Venus in
Pisces (water) so F = F. A woman at work is the reverse, and she is much
more aggressive than I am in the 'female' sense, having Venus in Sag.
Even the simple astrological analysis shows that gender stereotypes are
unfair, in this case to 3 out of 4 people.
If you wonder at things I have written here, my Mars and Venus are
'squared', i.e. they don't like each other. Surprise! She thinks he's
too crude, and he thinks she's hiding behind her sensitivity. On the
way to reconciling this I wrestle with the issue projected on the world
stage. But in fact it IS also 'out there'.
Eric C. S. Dynamic
>Eric Dynamic writes...
>
>and I don't care what anyone else says; I don't care if I'm seen as letting
>down my bi comrades, or being a het-oriented sleaze; Eric, now that he's
>actually clarified what he was talking about (and granted, it was not
>clear at first) speaks for me completely. I certainly couldn't have verbalised
>the anger I felt about the thread as well as he.
>
>(Well, ok, maybe I could have done a bit better on the grammar :)
This is confusing, "bi comrades" etc. is not my authorship. Just so we
understand the ellipsis (...) is the entirety of what I wrote - thru the
end!
>
>And if that means that *I* get flamed too, tough. Before I stand for what
>the groups I am aligned with believe in, I must stand for what I believe in.
>My being me takes priority over my being bi. And my being me entails that
>I will resent rejection. Even if it's not at all rational, I will say that.
>Whether it win me fans or derision. I could have no respect for myself if
>all I allowed myself to feel about this thread (which dammit, has kept me
>up at nights) was "Yes dear, you know best, and men deserve to be ignored,
>too." Well maybe they do. But I'm not going to be blissful about it.
It's my big theme now (due to events in my local e-mail) to pull women
up and say, if you don't like how men have treated you, it's more than a
bit cynical to use "their" tactics on them, then deny you are other than
holy.
All I see men doing is trying to reconcile. Their largest "crime" seems
to be waving their cocks out the window saying "wanna share??" - it may
be crude, but it hasn't the intention to hurt. Women say "crude assholes
suck off!" and that DOES have the intention to hurt - and the reply is
the response is "justified", further there seems to be no notion that
the women making this response have any responsibility to see the irony
of it.
I have yet to see (not that that proves anything) men abusing women in
this or similar ways in the net, but be assured I would attack them just
as viciously as I already had done here. I'm attacking the ATTACKER.
-ec "mr. high-minded moral virtue" sd
Eric C. S. Dynamic
>Ellen did *NOT* say that the man was intentionally ignored, much less
>So, what exactly are you angry about?
This has all been cleared up, presumably. (Am I really trying to get
out of this newsgroup...?)
I said I fucked up because - I think I recall, not an Ellen note,
but a quote in another letter of her last two lines. And there's
copious mail including my apology.
At work I read my mail spool file directly, usually back to front,
so people get answered in reverse order of what they sent thru time.
The famous Muffy, indeed. Famous "net-wide".
Yea, & oh shit - read it as a compliment. Happy sprinkling
of smileys all over the place ... :) :) etc.
Eric C. S. Dynamic
chase the man. This is answered by saying that being a 'het' I did not
think of bi-women - E.Z., okay? Let me requit myself anywhere before
requitting myself everywhere, etc.
Regarding my reply to Sara. Read my response FIRST, then her note which
I was replying to, I think you can see my mindset. Hey sorry, I'm hair-
trigger touchy about being coerced thru threat of the withholding of
affection. You-all should also be aware that I make no distinction between
sex and love. I've been told "too bad for you" about it, which is true;
I talk sex but I mean sex=love, and I have little luck enjoying sex
on its own w/o refernce to partner's feelings and our interrelation,
which I rather wish to 'cure' - but it also shows me how shallow the
"men just want sex" thing is. I want UNION.
My mother's love was conditional upon my behavior on the one hand.
On the other, she was interested in me for as long as she was, without
reference to my needs. Oh my darling, until her attention shifted.
So there you have it: you get love(=sex nowadays) if you behave the way
I want you. And this IS a common theme in the larger society.
No, I don't accuse Sara of BEING a prostitute. I attck the notion of
coercion (because I dis{agreed,liked} what you said, I reduce your
ration of {love,attention}).
And no, it's your jump to 'prostitution is insulting' -
In context from above, the woman has the man in a relationship up to
some point and THEN things become conditional, is the scenario I am
attacking. A prostitute says, the rate is X, yes or no, and that's
honest. She doesn't offer it free and at the end say, oh, that'll be $100
(now that you're committed). The theme I attack is manipulating the
partner after there is emotional connection (bait & switch), where I
know both men and women injured this way.
Elizabeth Holden
> the hair on our faces makes us more abrasive. ;) My wife's comments on the
> differences between me and her lover are: physical size, muscle tone and stub
>
>
I find that size (weight particularly) makes a difference. I also find
that sometimes men just don't know their own strength and end up being
rougher than they mean to be. Not a problem, just a difference.
Namaste,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth Holden
> So I see nothing provocative in Ellen's observation - I even suspect
> it's true. I also (naively) hope that most of this storm was just
> stirred up by Eric's poor phraseology. In the hope that that is
> true, I offer e-hugs to any participants who want them, be they
> in hot-tubs suffering from societal gender hangups or not.
Yeah, take a few e-hugs from me, too. I never quite understood this
thread, though I could see that some people were getting upset by it.
Personally, I'd have to do a lot of in-depth study in hot tubs with
various demographic components to figure out who would "naturally"
interact with whom and how....
>
> Mike, somewhat bemused by the whole thing
>
Me, I'm bemused, confused, amused and defused by the whole thing....
>
>
> Mike Lloyd, retro hippy, blah blah .. rest of .sig lost in cocktail
> of lethargy and ether
>
Ether? What kind of drug is that?
Namaste,
Elizabeth
M Lloyd
>a relationship up to some point and THEN things become conditional,
>is the scenario I am attacking.
But Eric, EVERYTHING is conditional. Since when did Sara owe you
any more attention than she gave? If someone behaves like an
asshole towards me, I'll withdraw my affection. Why shouldn't I?
I don't owe anyone unconditional, doormat-like behaviour.
My God, I'm not about to start my first ever soc.bi kill file, am I?
Mike
Colin Dente
|> mll...@sor-2.stern.nyu.edu (Mike Lloyd) writes:
|>
|> Yes, dear, that's very interesting ...
Indeed - but he's cute enough to be forgiven such minor slip-ups <blatant flirt>
|> >{8-)
It just struck me that anyone reading your smiley the "right way" up would
probably conclude that you were very unhappy, had an up-turned moustache,
wore glasses, and had a propellor beanie on.
Forgive me - it's 1:30am on a Friday night (and no, I haven't been drinking :-( )
Colin
Colin Dente | JANET: de...@uk.ac.manchester
Manchester Computing Centre | ARPA: de...@manchester.ac.uk
University of Manchester, UK | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!manchester!dente
... Blatantly Bisexual ... | B3/4 f+ c g+(+) k(+) r s
heather e blair
>I find that size (weight particularly) makes a difference. I also find
>that sometimes men just don't know their own strength and end up being
>rougher than they mean to be. Not a problem, just a difference.
>
>Namaste,
>Elizabeth
Yes, and that's true of women, too. My ex-girlfriend is probably 50 lbs
heavier than me, and wasn't very careful about whether she was squishing
me or not. My most recent male lover is 10 lbs lighter than me, so we
never had that problem.
heather e blair
I'm finding this thread very disturbing. The tone of the messages from
ecsd seems to be "no woman has a right to reject the sexual overtures of
a man". I say "tone" because the arguments are hard for me to dig out
of the prose, so I will restrict myself to commenting on the "subtext"
rather than the "text".
>
>It's my big theme now (due to events in my local e-mail) to pull women
>up and say, if you don't like how men have treated you, it's more than a
>bit cynical to use "their" tactics on them, then deny you are other than
>holy.
>
>All I see men doing is trying to reconcile. Their largest "crime" seems
>to be waving their cocks out the window saying "wanna share??" - it may
>be crude, but it hasn't the intention to hurt.
If I take this statement at face-value, it's extremely disturbing. You're
describing rather nasty sexual harassment. Literally this happened to
a friend of mine. A man masturbated at her while she was driving down the
highway, everywhere she turned to get away, he followed her in his car.
Nope, no license plate.
>Women say "crude assholes
>suck off!" and that DOES have the intention to hurt -
What would you say to a sexually threatening person? You have to be
ferocious or you could end up raped.
>and the reply is
>the response is "justified", further there seems to be no notion that
>the women making this response have any responsibility to see the irony
>of it.
Do you mean that it's "ironic" that we have to use violence to repell
violence? I don't think so; the "tone" again seems to be that women
must always be nice, even when they believe themselves to be in danger.
And the above kind of gesture is certainly threatening enough that if it
happened to me, I'd consider myself in danger, and gear up for flight or
fight.
>
>I have yet to see (not that that proves anything) men abusing women in
>this or similar ways in the net, but be assured I would attack them just
>as viciously as I already had done here. I'm attacking the ATTACKER.
Now this statement makes me wonder how the "waving the cock out the
window" example was meant to be taken in some special metaphorical sense.
But what that sense is, is totally obscure. "I'm attacking the ATTACKER"
again sounds like "women must always be nice, never turn down requests for
sex, and if they do, I'll verbally blast them."
>
>-ec "mr. high-minded moral virtue" sd
What's extra disturbing is I have sometimes felt almost as angry about
being rejected by women. The cure is to step back and tell myself
that there will be people who like me in that way, and people who don't.
It is ALWAYS ok to say no to somebody. And you don't have to have a
reason.
Elizabeth Holden
> Yes, and that's true of women, too. My ex-girlfriend is probably 50 lbs
> heavier than me, and wasn't very careful about whether she was squishing
> me or not. My most recent male lover is 10 lbs lighter than me, so we
> never had that problem.
>
>
> --
>
> - Heather Blair h4...@midway.uchicago.edu
Yes, that's it exactly.... It STILL isn't the gender that makes the
difference, but the individual configuration.
Namaste,
Elizabeth
Nick Nicholas
>n...@ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas) writes:
>> My being me takes priority over my being bi. And my being me entails that
>> I will resent rejection. Even if it's not at all rational, I will say that.
>> Whether it win me fans or derision. I could have no respect for myself if
>> all I allowed myself to feel about this thread (which dammit, has kept me
>> up at nights) was "Yes dear, you know best, and men deserve to be ignored,
>> too." Well maybe they do. But I'm not going to be blissful about it.
>which was otherwise composed of women *SHOULD* be ignored/rejected, THEN
>you would have cause for anger. In this case, however, there was a
>friendly, chatty sort of thread going on and Ellen made an observation
>clearly designed to be humorous (note the ";-)"). She did *NOT* say
>that he *should* be ignored or that they would *try* to ignore him.
>So, what exactly are you angry about?
And Mike Lloyd asks pretty much the same.
OK, time for me to explain myself. Fortunately I've had time to cool off,
and a wunnerful 21st birthday party, so I needn't go off the deep end like
I did before.
I didn't notice Ellen's response to Joe; I first saw it, stripped of context,
in Eric's posting. I interpreted Eric's posting as Ciaran did. But I also,
like Moz, was irritated at seeing Ciaran in holier than thou mode. (I'm
not particularly interested in justifying why I did feel so...) And I saw
in Ellen's posting as quoted, rejection. In fact, all my current personality
defects, from my tendency to act the clown through to my persistent homophobia,
stem from my fear of rejection. Coupled with that, I've spent the past year
punishing myself for being a man. My different-sex attraction is sleazy; I am
violent and boorish; lesbians are Uebermenschen, etc etc.
Well I've had my fill of feeling guilty, and I've had my fill of feeling
rejected. How the fuck am I supposed to be proud to be bi, if I'm cringing
at being male? I'll have no more of that shit. I'll be proud to be bi,
proud to be Greek, proud to be male, and proud to be human. I will be proud,
period.
And to get there, to attain happiness, I've got to reclaim my feelings.
I know there was no rational reason for me to feel despondent at what
Ellen said, and I apologise for taking it personally. But I will no longer
apologise for or suppress my feelings. If I want to feel offended, however
irrationally, I will. I am allowed to feel. And my feelings are as valid
as Ellen's, or Iseult's, or Ciaran's, or Mike's, or anybody's. My feelings
are valid; it's using them to hurt others that is wrong. If I did manage
to hurt anyone out there, I unreservedly apologise.
And something else. For the past... oh, ages, I've been lurking here,
venerating you lot. Well, I will no longer. It's not fair to you, and it's
not fair to me. You lot aren't horny gods with semiannual epiphanies in
hottubs in Britain. You're human. You are not my betters, you are not
my superiors. In fact, you're as fallible as monosexuals (even if friskier :)
And it's an act of self-definition when I stand apart from you lot, and say:
"This is *my* pain, and I don't care if telling you about it lowers my image
in your eyes. I can live without your respect, because my business now is
to earn *self*-respect."
I apologise to Ellen, and to all participants in this sorry thread, for
being irrational and trigger-happy. I see my response as being only somewhat
more irrational than speaking of "terrible breeds", or preferring horses to
straights. It was, however, dumping my feelings all over the net, without
regard to what anyone else was saying. But I will allow myself to do so
(well, within reason, of course). Because my feelings are nothing to be
ashamed of. Not any more.
And, while I speed to distance myself from what Eric said subsequently,
a lot of what he said in his longer response to Ciaran agreed with me.
The politics of exclusion is wrong - it's wrong for me, anyway. Of course,
what Ellen said originally was little to do with exclusion. But then, I
don't think the thread, as distorted through our respective subtexts
(Eric's, Ciaran's, Mike's, Sara's, mine) was really about hottubs.
We may well have learnt something from this mess, but buggered if I know
what (wishful thinking :) Once more, apologies, and in true soc.bi style,
*licks* all round :) .
Um... I hope we can put this thread to rest, I really do. If anyone would
like to tell me to fuck off or such, please take it to email.
Yours both sheepishly and defiantly,
---
Nick Nicholas: [s]h[r]ug-osexual. Greek, short, greasy, romantic, and as
B1 f+ t- w s-? e- r-- dr+(+) bi as he wants to be. [ObMauveHeptagon]
n...@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au (IRC: nicxjo). Likes Cavafy, Mahler, and cashews.
c...@vax.oxford.ac.uk
> This is answered by saying that being a 'het' I did not
> think of bi-women - E.Z., okay? Let me requit myself anywhere before
> requitting myself everywhere, etc.
Jeez - what is this "requit" thing? & if you're het and female-identified, why
are you so eager to join in female hot-tub japes? Or if het and male, why do
you think women who have expressed their interest in other women while a man
was present will find you so all-fired wonderful? etc. oh, hell...
> Regarding my reply to Sara. Read my response FIRST, then her note which
> I was replying to, I think you can see my mindset. Hey sorry, I'm hair-
> trigger touchy about being coerced thru threat of the withholding of
> affection.
Jeez. You have no right to anyone's love: anyone who witholds it from you is
not acting to mess up your solipsistic little world, but acting according to
their nature. I can't see your mindset at all, nor would I want to live in
something at once so small and so confused. I cannot see how she could possibly
even conceive of coercing you: she is one of the least possessive people I know.
> You-all should also be aware that I make no distinction between
> sex and love.
It should be obvious that sex involves a little more physical effort.
> I've been told "too bad for you" about it, which is true;
> I talk sex but I mean sex=love, and I have little luck enjoying sex
> on its own w/o refernce to partner's feelings and our interrelation,
> which I rather wish to 'cure' - but it also shows me how shallow the
> "men just want sex" thing is. I want UNION.
...badly enough to make a ludicrously fumbled hit on people.
> So there you have it: you get love(=sex nowadays) if you behave the way
> I want you. And this IS a common theme in the larger society.
Not interested.
Tanaqui
Albert Lunde
>And of course, sweetie, you are quite right. All women do when we
>are in bed together is hold hands and stare lovingly into each others
>eyes, though occasionally, we might get around to a little bit of
>stroking and ever so gentle caressing. Of course being the gentler
>sex we never wrestle with each other or pin each other down.
>We never fuck each other till our brains spill on the floor, with fists,
>dildos, even bigger dildos or what ever else comes to hand.
And men are never romantic or sentimental; we never want to just be
held or cuddled; *real* men are strong and brash and perform
on demand. Men's sex is always brief, violent, and impersonal.
;)
--
Albert Lunde | Interfaith | *Y*Y* "A branch on the
Albert...@nwu.edu | Bisexual | *Y* tree of life"
alu...@nuacvm.bitnet | Feminist |.......|.........................
Ciaran McHale
>But I also, like Moz, was irritated at seeing Ciaran in holier than
>thou mode.
I tend to post in one of several modes. Sometimes I engage in honest,
serious discussion, other times I post humour. When I am really pissed
at someone I tend to either adopt a blunt, "fuck off" approach (as
directed at Ted recently) or a smug self-righteous stance (as evidenced
in a lot of my responses to Eric.)
While I am sure that my self-righteous, pool-cue-up-the-butt (-;-)
stance will annoy some people, I find it quite an effective tool to
help me articulate my anger in a (usually) constructive manner. It
usually results in shorter flame wars than a "fuck off" approach.
Which approach I choose depends on the exact context and also the mood
that I am in.
>And something else. For the past... oh, ages, I've been lurking here,
>venerating you lot. Well, I will no longer. It's not fair to you, and it's
>not fair to me. You lot aren't horny gods with semiannual epiphanies in
>hottubs in Britain. You're human. You are not my betters, you are not
>my superiors. In fact, you're as fallible as monosexuals (even if friskier :)
>And it's an act of self-definition when I stand apart from you lot, and say:
>"This is *my* pain, and I don't care if telling you about it lowers my image
>in your eyes. I can live without your respect, because my business now is
>to earn *self*-respect."
Bravo! That's one of the best things I've read on soc.bi in ages.
Congratulations on figuring out it out and having the guts to say it.
>Yours both sheepishly and defiantly,
I hope the sheepishly bit wears off soon.
BTW, did I ever tell you that you're sexy when you are angry?
Eric C. S. Dynamic
>ec...@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
>
>I'm finding this thread very disturbing. The tone of the messages from
>ecsd seems to be "no woman has a right to reject the sexual overtures of
>a man". I say "tone" because the arguments are hard for me to dig out
>of the prose, so I will restrict myself to commenting on the "subtext"
>rather than the "text".
>
I'm saying no woman or man has the right to make another person
wrong about their native desires.
>>
>>It's my big theme now (due to events in my local e-mail) to pull women
>>up and say, if you don't like how men have treated you, it's more than a
>>bit cynical to use "their" tactics on them, then deny you are other than
>>holy.
>>
>>All I see men doing is trying to reconcile. Their largest "crime" seems
>>to be waving their cocks out the window saying "wanna share??" - it may
>>be crude, but it hasn't the intention to hurt.
>
>If I take this statement at face-value, it's extremely disturbing. You're
>describing rather nasty sexual harassment. Literally this happened to
>a friend of mine. A man masturbated at her while she was driving down the
>highway, everywhere she turned to get away, he followed her in his car.
>Nope, no license plate.
>
It's a metaphor.
>>Women say "crude assholes
>>suck off!" and that DOES have the intention to hurt -
>
>What would you say to a sexually threatening person? You have to be
>ferocious or you could end up raped.
I know what I read and hear versus what I experience locally "on the
ground". Locally, I don't know any men who threaten women sexually,
so I'm operating in that context with the above.
>
>>and the reply is
>>the response is "justified", further there seems to be no notion that
>>the women making this response have any responsibility to see the irony
>>of it.
>
>Do you mean that it's "ironic" that we have to use violence to repell
>violence? I don't think so; the "tone" again seems to be that women
>must always be nice, even when they believe themselves to be in danger.
>And the above kind of gesture is certainly threatening enough that if it
>happened to me, I'd consider myself in danger, and gear up for flight or
>fight.
We are no longer in the context of what I was writing.
>
>>
>>I have yet to see (not that that proves anything) men abusing women in
>>this or similar ways in the net, but be assured I would attack them just
>>as viciously as I already had done here. I'm attacking the ATTACKER.
>
>Now this statement makes me wonder how the "waving the cock out the
>window" example was meant to be taken in some special metaphorical sense.
>But what that sense is, is totally obscure. "I'm attacking the ATTACKER"
>again sounds like "women must always be nice, never turn down requests for
>sex, and if they do, I'll verbally blast them."
The metaphor is "men as big shaggy lovable dogs". They may be crude in
expression but their heart is in the right place.
I don't understand how I am suggesting that women are not supposed to
refuse sexual requests. If it's a cumulative misunderstanding starting
from an unclear statement I make in the opening, I will have to more
careful to be precise to avoid misunderstandings.
>>
>>-ec "mr. high-minded moral virtue" sd
>
>What's extra disturbing is I have sometimes felt almost as angry about
>being rejected by women. The cure is to step back and tell myself
>that there will be people who like me in that way, and people who don't.
>
>It is ALWAYS ok to say no to somebody. And you don't have to have a
>reason.
To refer this to the theme I was working, rejecting someone is fine.
Pursuing and hounding the person for asking in the first place is not.
"No" is fine, "No, and you haven't any right to consider me sexually,
and I'm going to make you miserable for asking" is not, when the approach
is not crude or threatening. The general idea is that it needs to be made
safe for nice people to express sexual interest in each other.
That's about all I was driving at.
lisa.j.elser
>ec...@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
>>
>I'm saying no woman or man has the right to make another person
>wrong about their native desires.
stuff deleted
>
>>What would you say to a sexually threatening person? You have to be
>>ferocious or you could end up raped.
>
>I know what I read and hear versus what I experience locally "on the
>ground". Locally, I don't know any men who threaten women sexually,
>so I'm operating in that context with the above.
>
>>
Where is this locale? I'd be interested to visit. It sure isn't any
place on earth I've ever been.
I'm a fairly femme looking lesbian with a brown belt in karate. I'm
small, thin, rather pretty, and extremely "out" about my lesbianism.
When the man at work commented to a co-worker of mine that he felt he
could "change" me and then went out of his way to hang around,
that was threatening. When my neighbor kept coming over to ask
me out, that was threatening.
The fact that I could whip the piss out of them doesn't change the
threat--it only makes it less effective :-) If they find me attractive,
that's their business but to insist on forcing their desires
on me when they know perfectly well that I am unreceptive is wrong.
In some ways, I find these people more threatening than overt
harassment by strangers. I know how to respond to that--I can walk
away, or I can decide that I am in physical danger and defend
myself. Harassment by people I deal with daily is much trickier.
and sometimes the only thing to do is what worked with my neighbor:
tell him you think he's an asshole and that he's no longer welcome
on your property. Then follow through by calling the police.
Your "native desires" are not my problem.
Lisa Elser
UNIX System Labs
Summit, NJ
l...@usl.com
Swamp Thing
>In article <25...@castle.ed.ac.uk>, sa...@castle.ed.ac.uk (Swamp Thing) writes:
>|> >{8-)
>It just struck me that anyone reading your smiley the "right way" up would
>probably conclude that you were very unhappy, had an up-turned moustache,
>wore glasses, and had a propellor beanie on.
That is the *wrong* way up! (Thinks: drat! He's sussed my alter ego
...)
Sara >{8-) (-8}<
the Crisco Kid
>If you wonder at things I have written here, my Mars and Venus are
>'squared', i.e. they don't like each other. Surprise! She thinks he's
>too crude, and he thinks she's hiding behind her sensitivity. On the
>way to reconciling this I wrestle with the issue projected on the world
>stage. But in fact it IS also 'out there'.
Sorry, Eric, but Virgos don't believe in astrology a damn.
Kay (whose birthday is on Wednesday)
--
6'2", dark short hair, blue eyes, bisexual and horny as ....
Kay Dekker, Dept of Industrial Design, Coventry University, Coventry UK
37 Old Winnings Road, Keresley Village, Coventry |B0 f t+ g++ k++! s+ e r p!
Phone: +44 203 838668 (work) +44 203 337865 (home) |Deflowerer-of-innocents
Eric C. S. Dynamic
>...
>Well I've had my fill of feeling guilty, and I've had my fill of feeling
>rejected. How the fuck am I supposed to be proud to be bi, if I'm cringing
Here is the first (?) person to quote me back accurately. Thank you.
>...
>"This is *my* pain, and I don't care if telling you about it lowers my image
>in your eyes. I can live without your respect, because my business now is
>to earn *self*-respect."
And again.
>And, while I speed to distance myself from what Eric said subsequently,
I already apologized for being a jerkshit in hassling people about things
they weren't saying. Can we please turn things around to begin asking
what people mean, if we are not sure? Hostility notwithstanding, a thorough
investigation of my philosophy will show that I like people, I love people,
I want to be loved, I hate people who hurt people, and so far as I still
do (hurt people) out of ignorance of whatever kind, I feel I must address
those things in myself. I also feel that being bashed by a person who is
not in touch with their OWN feelings is not fair, and that I'm not
responsible for THEIR lack of awareness. My writing may be difficult,
and my metaphors bizarre (to some, anyway), but I know what my values are
and they aren't things people would distance themselves from, I don't
figure.
Attitudes misconstrued out of things I said may have been (things to
distance oneself from), but then I'm not the original author of the new
(misconstrued) images.
>a lot of what he said in his longer response to Ciaran agreed with me.
>The politics of exclusion is wrong - it's wrong for me, anyway. ...
I want to start bringing males back to themselves, my impression is here
is one person prompted by what I wrote. That is fantastic! And I feel I
have made a worthwhile contribution.
You might consider I am in Berkeley CA, rife with Political Correctness,
which in some manifestations is the politics of X being free to characterize
to others what Y said (and don't bother to listen to Y about it), and then
taking them to task for it. It stifles debate.
Swamp Thing
>OK, time for me to explain myself. Fortunately I've had time to cool off,
>and a wunnerful 21st birthday party, so I needn't go off the deep end like
>I did before.
Happy birthday!
>I didn't notice Ellen's response to Joe; I first saw it, stripped of context,
>in Eric's posting. I interpreted Eric's posting as Ciaran did. But I also,
>like Moz, was irritated at seeing Ciaran in holier than thou mode. (I'm
>not particularly interested in justifying why I did feel so...) And I saw
>in Ellen's posting as quoted, rejection. In fact, all my current personality
>defects, from my tendency to act the clown through to my persistent homophobia,
>stem from my fear of rejection. Coupled with that, I've spent the past year
>punishing myself for being a man. My different-sex attraction is sleazy; I am
>violent and boorish; lesbians are Uebermenschen, etc etc.
Fear of rejection is something that anyone, bi, gay or straight has to
put up with. Why should it be any worse for you than the rest of us?
You're preaching to the converted here mate; no one here is rejecting
you for being a bi man.
>Well I've had my fill of feeling guilty, and I've had my fill of feeling
>rejected. How the fuck am I supposed to be proud to be bi, if I'm cringing
>at being male? I'll have no more of that shit. I'll be proud to be bi,
>proud to be Greek, proud to be male, and proud to be human. I will be proud,
>period.
God for you! Go for it.
>And to get there, to attain happiness, I've got to reclaim my feelings.
>I know there was no rational reason for me to feel despondent at what
>Ellen said, and I apologise for taking it personally. But I will no longer
>apologise for or suppress my feelings. If I want to feel offended, however
>irrationally, I will. I am allowed to feel. And my feelings are as valid
>as Ellen's, or Iseult's, or Ciaran's, or Mike's, or anybody's. My feelings
>are valid; it's using them to hurt others that is wrong. If I did manage
>to hurt anyone out there, I unreservedly apologise.
But you took something that was directed at Eric as being directed at
you; you took it personally. Hey, *you* didn't say that if you were in
the hot tub you would consume the resources! Can you really not see what
was wrong with the rubbish he was (is) talking? Whatever you think of
Ciaran's, or anyone else's response to all this codswallop, disagreeing
with Eric's detractors hardly means you agree with him. Does it? If you
perceive something anti-male or anti-bi going on here then it's not
myself, Ellen, Iseult, Ciaran or Mike who is perpetrating it. Really.
You are allowed to feel your emotions, of course you are, but there may
be circumstances where it is the kind and sensitive and *right* thing to
apologise for your actions (these include your words, especially since
words are the action around here). Not that I'm asking you to apologise
to anyone now, just not to exclude the possibility from your future
should the need arise.
>And something else. For the past... oh, ages, I've been lurking here,
>venerating you lot. Well, I will no longer. It's not fair to you, and it's
>not fair to me. You lot aren't horny gods with semiannual epiphanies in
>hottubs in Britain. You're human. You are not my betters, you are not
Britain??? Good grief, where are we going to get hot tubs around here?
I can assure you that all the much discussed hot tub activity took place
in California, where the weather is rather more clement.
>my superiors. In fact, you're as fallible as monosexuals (even if friskier :)
And so are you. We are all fallible. I've never asked for veneration
(in fact I think I'm rather young to be venerated, why I'm still in my
twenties ...).
>And, while I speed to distance myself from what Eric said subsequently,
>a lot of what he said in his longer response to Ciaran agreed with me.
>The politics of exclusion is wrong - it's wrong for me, anyway. Of course,
>what Ellen said originally was little to do with exclusion. But then, I
>don't think the thread, as distorted through our respective subtexts
>(Eric's, Ciaran's, Mike's, Sara's, mine) was really about hottubs.
Look, I don't have an exclusion policy on the grounds of sex, age, race,
or sexual orientation, but on the grounds of *whether or not I like
somebody*. Eric got my goat because he said he would consume the
resources. He attempts to assure us in his near incomprehensible
fashion that he didn't mean that if he were a man sharing a hot tub with
a bunch of women he would gain the attention of all of them, but that is
what it looked like to me, as it did to others. My comments were
intended purely to indicate that were he really as egotistical as that
post suggested then this is one woman who would be ignoring him.
Subsequently a few bazillion misinterpretations of what I said, of what
others said, plus a few more carelessly crafted works of nonsense from
the good Mr Eric Fluid Dynamic have flown around the net to confuse the
issue some more. This hardly seems a reason to assume that there is
some genuine attempt to exclude men from participation in group
activities.
>Um... I hope we can put this thread to rest, I really do. If anyone would
>like to tell me to fuck off or such, please take it to email.
No desire to aim the f word at you in such an aggressive fashion, Nick
...
>Yours both sheepishly and defiantly,
But if you're being defiant then I think that quiet email responses are
a bit much to hope for. I would say that your post is somewhat akin to
an ateempt to put out the fire with gasoline. And so the rant thread
continues ...
Sara
Swamp Thing
>Regarding my reply to Sara. Read my response FIRST, then her note which
>I was replying to, I think you can see my mindset. Hey sorry, I'm hair-
>trigger touchy about being coerced thru threat of the withholding of
>affection. You-all should also be aware that I make no distinction between
When did anyone suggest coercion? I merely pointed out that if you
really were the complete egocentric prat that your post suggested then I
would have no interest in wasting any of my "resources" on you. Just to
clarify what I considered "resources" to mean in that context: attention
of any kind. I would be inclined to ignore you. Unless I found myself,
as I do now, so irritated with you that I felt it necessary to attempt
to get some inkling of a Clue into what passes for a brain in your case.
>So there you have it: you get love(=sex nowadays) if you behave the way
>I want you. And this IS a common theme in the larger society.
*Why* should anyone waste time and attention on someone they don't like,
unless they're in the situation of being employed to give them
time/attention of some kind? Coercion? I don't give a fuck what you do,
Mr Eric Stupid Bloody Name Dynamic, and neither do I owe you one iota of
attention.
>In context from above, the woman has the man in a relationship up to
>some point and THEN things become conditional, is the scenario I am
>attacking. A prostitute says, the rate is X, yes or no, and that's
>honest. She doesn't offer it free and at the end say, oh, that'll be $100
>(now that you're committed). The theme I attack is manipulating the
>partner after there is emotional connection (bait & switch), where I
>know both men and women injured this way.
That was a context purely of your own devising that was never there
before you put it there. However, even in that situation (one in which
there is already an emotional connection), it is perfectly justifiable
for someone to decide they don't want to talk to someone or give them
attention of whatever form if that someone has pissed them off in
someway. This is not being manipulative, it is simply acting so as to
protect oneself.
Swamp Thing
> Kay (whose birthday is on Wednesday)
Oooh, another birthday boy! Advance <snuggles> <hugs> and <birthday
kisses> ...
Muffy Barkocy
> I can assure you that all the much discussed hot tub activity took place
> in California, where the weather is rather more clement.
True. However, hot tubs are actually at their best in ice, snow, dismal
rain, cold, fog, and all those less-clement weather features. It's
really fun to step out of the hot tub into freezing air and make little
curls of steam in the air, not minding being naked in the snow because
your body has absorbed so much heat. It's also fun being rained on
while sitting in the hot tub, with little cold splats on hot skin. Snow
would probably be even better, but I haven't had the chance to
experience that yet.
Muffy
--
Muffy Barkocy mu...@mica.berkeley.edu
~Little round planet/in a big universe/sometimes it looks blessed/
sometimes it looks cursed/Depends on what you look at, obviously/
But even more it depends on the way that you see~ - Bruce Cockburn
Joe P Woodhouse
At this point, I'd like to add that as the person originally addressed
by the "maybe bring a man of your own" comment :
I think at the time I understood what was behind it when it was said.
Even if I *had* taken it personally, it would've been as a comment
about me rather than about my gender...as it was, I had in fact said
much the same thing myself to Karina when we'd been talking about our
impending visit to the US. 8->
I too have been very bothered by some of the things that have come
out in this thread, so much so that I've been quite unable to follow
it up until now. 8-<
...I do hope no-one's confused anything that's been said with what
might be *my* position on this matter...
Joe.
/ Joe Woodhouse / I'm just a sweet bisexual... / Hello, there.
/ Latrobe University / (think - Rocky Horror) / Threesomes are fun.
/ Melbourne, Australia / Music. Magic. Mathematics. Me. / I like cats! (miaow!)
Joe P Woodhouse
Heather -
What you said.
TDO
(Brad Booth) wrote:
["What I *didn't* mean..." stuff deleted]
> What I was trying to get across is that in all case *I've* seen
> where there is a group of women and one man, that man gets ignored
> because he tends to be more physical and sexually abrasive/rough.
Dear, how do you *know* why the man is being ignored? Have you gone around
and asked each of the women present in such a group what her reasons were
for ignoring him? Or are you making assumptions about their motivations
without any direct knowledge of the specifics involved?
> __o Brad Booth
TDO (wary of generalizations, and suspecting that the reasons for
such a situation arising are as various as the participants...)
--
#include "StdDisclaimer.h"
Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious
moments can you win from life in addition to the pain? -- Lois McMaster
Bujold, _Barrayar_
Brad Booth
TDO wrote:
> Brad Booth wrote:
> > What I was trying to get across is that in all case *I've* seen
> > where there is a group of women and one man, that man gets ignored
> > because he tends to be more physical and sexually abrasive/rough.
>
> Dear, how do you *know* why the man is being ignored? Have you gone around
> and asked each of the women present in such a group what her reasons were
> for ignoring him? Or are you making assumptions about their motivations
> without any direct knowledge of the specifics involved?
That's kind of a silly question... but the truthful answer is that my
wife told me. Her female lovers have also told me the same information.
I've also been in the situation where I've been that one man. I was
talking on the basis of what *I've* seen... if it contradicts what you've
seen, then so be it. I'm sorry that I can't provide video/audio tapes,
book references or source material to back it up... so, you'll just have
to live with my interpretation.
__o Brad Booth | "I want you
_`\<,_ Bell-Northern Research | to know me only as
(*)/ (*) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada | what I believe I am."
---------- bbo...@x400gate.bnr.ca | ... Fiftyfour-40
Peter Flynn, Official Muffin-sampler
>
> Sorry, Eric, but Virgos don't believe in astrology a damn.
Rubbish, I'm afraid.
> Kay (whose birthday is on Wednesday)
But have a very happy birthday :-)
///Peter
M Lloyd
[all kinds of problems ...]
>stem from my fear of rejection. Coupled with that, I've spent the past year
>punishing myself for being a man.
Been there, done that. No fun. It would appear that I came out of
it a different way, to whit:
>Well I've had my fill of feeling guilty, and I've had my fill of feeling
>rejected. How the fuck am I supposed to be proud to be bi, if I'm cringing
>at being male? I'll have no more of that shit. I'll be proud to be bi,
>proud to be Greek, proud to be male, and proud to be human. I will be proud,
>period.
Pride never did it for me - or certainly not pride in the labels people
could attach to me, like so much product. If I could split a hair, I'd
say I was happy to be male, but I'm never proud to be a man. The latter,
to me, refers to society's expectations of me. I'm (roughly) unavoidably
male, and comfortable with that. I just don't want the package that
gets pushed at me under the name "manhood", and am never proud when
I see myself acting that way.
It's not just gender; I'm not proud to be white, I'm not proud to be
English, nor am I proud of my American heritage. I'm not proud to be
an educated member of the middle-classes. I don't hate myself for these
things - that would be pointless. Still, I take no pride in them.
I take pride in myself, when I'm me, when I fulfil my potential and
live. I do what I can to make the labels irrelevant. I'd rather
make my own reasons to be proud of myself.
Maybe it's a small point, but it matters to me.
Still, at least this thread is returning to reality. For what it's
worth, Nick, you're welcome here - at least, have an e-hug from me.
No veneration is expected or deserved.
Mike, in another philosophical mood, hoping that the air is clearing
heather e blair
>Sorry, Eric, but Virgos don't believe in astrology a damn.
>
> Kay (whose birthday is on Wednesday)
Happy B-day!
And on the topic of astrology: I've often wondered how the astrologers
handled new astronomical discoveries and incorporated "new" planets -
Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, into their "science".
[PS - don't tell my aunt I'm a sceptic. And she's in England for the
year so shhhhhhhh].
heather e blair
>>In fact, all my current personality
>>defects, from my tendency to act the clown through to my persistent
>>homophobia,
>>stem from my fear of rejection. Coupled with that, I've spent the past year
>>punishing myself for being a man.
>>My different-sex attraction is sleazy; I am
>>violent and boorish; lesbians are Uebermenschen, etc etc.
You know, I've felt like that sometimes. But being a woman, I'm afraid that
my same-sex attraction is "boorish" "objectifying women" - I worry that
if I tell a woman I'm interested, I'm just adding another sexual annoyance
to her life. But some of this is, I think, my own version of internalized
homophobia.
[Sara writes:]
>Fear of rejection is something that anyone, bi, gay or straight has to
>put up with. Why should it be any worse for you than the rest of us?
>You're preaching to the converted here mate; no one here is rejecting
>you for being a bi man.
>
Yep. Double-yep.
heather e blair
>>Now this statement makes me wonder how the "waving the cock out the
>>window" example was meant to be taken in some special metaphorical sense.
>>But what that sense is, is totally obscure. "I'm attacking the ATTACKER"
>>again sounds like "women must always be nice, never turn down requests for
>>sex, and if they do, I'll verbally blast them."
>
>The metaphor is "men as big shaggy lovable dogs". They may be crude in
>expression but their heart is in the right place.
>
cock out of a window, a strange and threatening gesture, and a happy
slobbering, big shaggy dog getting his/her/its muddy paws all over you.
I knew Big Shaggy Dog. Big Shaggy Dog was my friend. etc.
[Me:]
>>It is ALWAYS ok to say no to somebody. And you don't have to have a
>>reason.
>
[Eric:]
>To refer this to the theme I was working, rejecting someone is fine.
>Pursuing and hounding the person for asking in the first place is not.
>"No" is fine, "No, and you haven't any right to consider me sexually,
>and I'm going to make you miserable for asking" is not, when the approach
>is not crude or threatening. The general idea is that it needs to be made
>safe for nice people to express sexual interest in each other.
>That's about all I was driving at.
Then why did you use a crude and threatening example? You could have used
a different one like: "Gee, Josephine, I really like you, I'd like to
go out with you." Unless the speaker is Josephine's boss or dissertation
advisor, this would be neither crude nor threatening. [And remember, I'm
preaching to myself as well].
- Heather,
who has learned how to deal with obscurity by reading lots of bad
philosophy.
heather e blair
>
>I'm a fairly femme looking lesbian with a brown belt in karate. I'm
>small, thin, rather pretty, and extremely "out" about my lesbianism.
>When the man at work commented to a co-worker of mine that he felt he
>could "change" me and then went out of his way to hang around,
>that was threatening. When my neighbor kept coming over to ask
>me out, that was threatening.
Neither of these men cared about your feelings in the matter. If the
neighbor had asked you out once, and after you declined, left it alone,
that would be ok.
>
>The fact that I could whip the piss out of them doesn't change the
>threat--it only makes it less effective :-) If they find me attractive,
>that's their business but to insist on forcing their desires
>on me when they know perfectly well that I am unreceptive is wrong.
>In some ways, I find these people more threatening than overt
>harassment by strangers. I know how to respond to that--I can walk
>away, or I can decide that I am in physical danger and defend
>myself. Harassment by people I deal with daily is much trickier.
>and sometimes the only thing to do is what worked with my neighbor:
>tell him you think he's an asshole and that he's no longer welcome
>on your property. Then follow through by calling the police.
>
Yep. Sometimes you have to be fierce.
>Your "native desires" are not my problem.
Nope.
>
>Lisa Elser
>UNIX System Labs
>Summit, NJ
>l...@usl.com
Roy S. Rapoport
->
->I'm saying no woman or man has the right to make another person
->wrong about their native desires.
*blink* Surely you're not serious, Eric?
Now, if you were to say that "no woman or man has the right to make another
person wrong about their native desires as long as these native desires
don't impinge on other people's freedom/privacy/choice," I'd agree ... but
you opened yourself quite widely.
Hmm ... let's see.
Suppose, for example, you wanted to rape me. (Not that you would ... I
*know* you wouldn't want to rape me. Very few people would *wide grin*).
Do I not have the right to make you wrong about your native desire to rape
me? Perhaps not. I do have the right to defend myself physically if you try
... or argue with you and try and convince you that you're wrong, if you try
to claim that this is a native desire of yours and as such is right.
Of course, we may be a bit unclear on the concept of "native desires"
here...
->I know what I read and hear versus what I experience locally "on the
->ground". Locally, I don't know any men who threaten women sexually,
->so I'm operating in that context with the above.
Hmm ... locally, I assume, is in the bay area, because you work at TFS ...
You're right, Eric ... I don't know of any men who threaten women personally
either ...
I do know what rape has done to three of my friends (one of which male, who
had to witness it while his ribs were being cracked) ... so I know of some
men who have threatened women ... because I know these women.
It does happen, Eric. And I know that it's happened in the bay area,
because it's happened in U.C. Berkeley.
->The metaphor is "men as big shaggy lovable dogs". They may be crude in
->expression but their heart is in the right place.
Heh ... then you know very few men, Eric ...
Not all men's hearts are in the right place. Not all men have a heart. And
if I I were a woman (which in this society, I'm thankful I'm not), I'd
certainly worry more about these men than about the harmless men... because
harmless men are, well, harmless ... the other ones are most definitely
not. Sounds a bit misanthropic (assuming misanthropic is the right word
here ... what's a word for a person who hates the male gender?) of me?
Perhaps.
->refuse sexual requests. If it's a cumulative misunderstanding starting
->from an unclear statement I make in the opening, I will have to more
->careful to be precise to avoid misunderstandings.
That sounds like a splendid idea, Eric.
->"No" is fine, "No, and you haven't any right to consider me sexually,
->and I'm going to make you miserable for asking" is not, when the approach
->is not crude or threatening.
*grin* Eric, who is to define "crude or threatening?" The person making the
approach, or the person being approached? I'd think it would have to be
whoever had the lowest tolerance/threshhold ...
->The general idea is that it needs to be made
->safe for nice people to express sexual interest in each other.
->That's about all I was driving at.
Weeell ... some caveats here ...
A) For nice people to _politely_ express sexual interest in each other.
B) In the right circumstances and locations, that's true ... I don't know
what kind of atmosphere is maintained in Ellen's hottub, and whether
that's the type of atmosphere that would be conducive to such expressions
of sexual interest (nor am I going to make a conejecture for fear of
making more of a fool of myself in front of 60,000 of my closest friends
:) ) , but expressing sexual interest there is inherently different from
expressing sexual interest down here at my cluster, where doing so would
be frowned upon (to say the least) by the person being approached,
probably (wouldn't know ... never happened to me), and the general staff,
definitely (do know ... I've had to deal with it as staff).
I was going to finish by saying that women do need places where they know
they won't be advanced upon by men with sexual offers ...
Then I looked down at myself and realized that my knowledge of women is
highly limited, and speaking for them is probably not the best idea in the
world ... so I'm going to let the (decisively vocal, thank God) female part
of this group to take care of the rest (and Mike ... though he's sort of
honorary female by now, I'd think ... or at least deserving of it).
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roy S. Rapoport r...@soda.berkeley.edu wi....@wizvax.methuen.ma.us
Disclaimer: "It wasn't me!! Must have been a fake posting or something!! I
would NEVER say something like that!!"
Angi Lamb
|> Britain??? Good grief, where are we going to get hot tubs around here?
|> I can assure you that all the much discussed hot tub activity took place
|> in California, where the weather is rather more clement.
|True. However, hot tubs are actually at their best in ice, snow, dismal
|rain, cold, fog, and all those less-clement weather features. It's
|really fun to step out of the hot tub into freezing air and make little
|curls of steam in the air, not minding being naked in the snow because
|your body has absorbed so much heat. It's also fun being rained on
|while sitting in the hot tub, with little cold splats on hot skin. Snow
|would probably be even better, but I haven't had the chance to
|experience that yet.
I've swum in the middle of London in a heated outdoor pool when it's
been raining and snowing. Yummy :-) And you get the pool to yourself :-)
Angi
Angi Lamb
|Pride never did it for me - or certainly not pride in the labels people
|could attach to me, like so much product. If I could split a hair, I'd
|say I was happy to be male, but I'm never proud to be a man. The latter,
|to me, refers to society's expectations of me. I'm (roughly) unavoidably
|male, and comfortable with that. I just don't want the package that
|gets pushed at me under the name "manhood", and am never proud when
|I see myself acting that way.
Substitute woman for man here and i could have said this. I aim to be
me and want others to be themselves without fear and with joy. I relish
others' individuality and diversity.
Angi
Sults
>n...@ee.mu.OZ.AU (Nick Nicholas) writes:
>And something else. For the past... oh, ages, I've been lurking here,
>venerating you lot. Well, I will no longer. It's not fair to you, and it's
>not fair to me. You lot aren't horny gods with semiannual epiphanies in
>hottubs in Britain. You're human. You are not my betters, you are not
>my superiors. In fact, you're as fallible as monosexuals (even if friskier :)
I am not horny, frisky or dumb enough to get into an outdoor hottub in
Britain. You may call me Goddess though.
Iseult.
James F. Gray
jim
M Lloyd
[long, sensible Eric-rebuttal removed]
>Then I looked down at myself and realized that my knowledge of women is
>highly limited, and speaking for them is probably not the best idea in the
>world ...
Well, I don't think anyone is going to accuse your reasonable self
of overstepping these bounds. After all, the subject matter (the
right of women to treat men like assholes when they behave like assholes)
does relate to both men and women. If we're going to invoke
party lines (which I'm clearly against), those of us who are male
should have *more* to talk about here, on what we can do to change
"maleness" so that harassment is no longer acceptable (much less
encouraged, as it is now).
>so I'm going to let the (decisively vocal, thank God) female part
>of this group to take care of the rest (and Mike ... though he's sort of
>honorary female by now, I'd think ... or at least deserving of it).
Gee, Roy, you say the sweetest things ... *beam*
Unfortunately, I don't know that it's a fair title. I may be a
frothing-at-the-mouth Millie Tant feminist [joke], but that doesn't
take away any male privilege.
Still, I claim honorary Irishness after 12 years in Dublin, so
maybe I could be honorary female if I spent the next decade as
a cross-dresser ...
Hugs'n'stuff, from a recently rejuvenated
Mike
Chris Von Hendy
In article <1992Sep10.1...@bcrka451.bnr.ca> (soc.bi), bbo...@x400gate.bnr.ca (Brad Booth) writes:
> > >ec...@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
> > >>>It's been my experience that when there's one man with a group of women,
> > >>> the man gets ignored entirely.
>
> I've seen this too. *I* think one of the reasons is that men tend to be more
> abrasive/rough sexually than women. It seems that when women are in a group,
> they enjoy the gentler/softer sex that can be offered by women.
Am I the only one who read Ellen's comment as being in a social setting
rather than a sexual one?
>
> > >>It must be he's boring, or they're ignoring circumstances.
> > >>Sorry. Were I there, I would consume the resources.
>
> Doesn't necessarily mean the guy is boring. And if the resources didn't want
> consuming, what would you do??
Not to mention the fact that I have met some absolutely fascinating men
with whom I had no desire to have sex. Then there are times when my
attention is entirely taken up by one person and I just don't notice
anyone else (of either gender.) I try not to let this happen in a
group sex situation, since (for me) part of the fun is in having sex
with everyone. For the record, I've never really tried sex with more
than three at any given time.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Von Hendy "If we shadows have offended,
Escondido, California Think but this, and all is mended,
ncr-sd!blkhole!chris or That you have but slumbered here,
ch...@unicorn.resun.com While these visions did appear." Puck
Bethan Davies
And who isn't currying birthday wishes, no, not at all!
May it be a furry, cuddlesome sort of birthday....
<HUG>
<HUG>
Bethan
M Lloyd
Mike checks clock, realises it's Wednesday back home in Blighty,
and so sends truckloads of birthday wishes in the general direction
of Kay.
May your day be suffused with happiness and good cheese!
:-)
Coe Salzgeber
>Sara (Swamp Thing, apparently partial to sunny swamps) said...
>> Britain??? Good grief, where are we going to get hot tubs around here?
>> I can assure you that all the much discussed hot tub activity took place
>> in California, where the weather is rather more clement.
>
>True. However, hot tubs are actually at their best in ice, snow, dismal
>rain, cold, fog, and all those less-clement weather features. It's
>really fun to step out of the hot tub into freezing air and make little
>curls of steam in the air, not minding being naked in the snow because
>your body has absorbed so much heat. It's also fun being rained on
>while sitting in the hot tub, with little cold splats on hot skin.
I was thrilled about moving here because this part of the state actually
_gets_ rain... now, the idea of enjoying that rain while sitting in my
hot tub... wow! The most cozy feeling comes when you're warm and comfy
and the rest of the world seems cold and dismal :^)
So, Muffy, wanna come enjoy the rain in the hot tub?
-Coe
--
cjoh...@nyx.calpoly.edu
Muffy Barkocy
>mu...@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) said...
>>[...] It's also fun being rained on
>>while sitting in the hot tub, with little cold splats on hot skin.
>So, Muffy, wanna come enjoy the rain in the hot tub?
Well, I'd love to, but considering the five-year drought, it may be a
while...*grin*...maybe we could just set up a sprinkler or something?
(No, no, waste of water!)
fen...@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu
> Kay (whose birthday is on Wednesday)
Happy birthday!
**hugs**
-- Fenthe (whose birthday is eight days later than Kay's, as if
anyone cared.. <grin> )
--
Daniel Mitchell |fen...@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu| 18, High St
aka |m91...@ecs.ox.ac.uk | Earls Colne
Fenthe Marten |dmit...@cix.compulink.co.uk| Essex CO6 2PA
`---bisexual furry juggler----' ENGLAND
David Parsons
|All I see men doing is trying to reconcile. Their largest "crime" seems
|to be waving their cocks out the window saying "wanna share??" - it may
|be crude, but it hasn't the intention to hurt.
Like hell it doesn't. Activities like this are why there are laws
against harassment. (The alternative solution - lopping the offending
organs off with a knife - may be more gratifying, but would tend to
produce overly complicated legal questions.)
|Women say "crude assholes
|suck off!" and that DOES have the intention to hurt
I'd say, just from this comment, that you've got a fatally flawed sense
of proportion.
|I have yet to see (not that that proves anything) men abusing women in
|this or similar ways in the net, but be assured I would attack them just
|as viciously as I already had done here. I'm attacking the ATTACKER.
Walk over to soc.motss and read some of the posts from B*b S*rv*r and
his ilk. Or, alternatively, look at almost any post in soc.men.
|-ec "mr. high-minded moral virtue" sd
This shit makes me embarrassed to be a man. Why don't you go away until
you can find a clue?
____
david parsons \bi/ o...@pell.chi.il.us
\/
Roy S. Rapoport
->
->In article <194cig...@agate.berkeley.edu> r...@soda.berkeley.edu (Roy S. Rapoport) writes:
->> In article <1992Sep14.1...@tfs.com> ec...@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
->> ->I know what I read and hear versus what I experience locally "on the
->> ->ground". Locally, I don't know any men who threaten women sexually,
->> ->so I'm operating in that context with the above.
->> Hmm ... locally, I assume, is in the bay area, because you work at TFS ...
->> You're right, Eric ... I don't know of any men who threaten women personally
->> either ...
->
-> Well, I hate to break it to you roy, and I'm usually not a name
->dropper, but you know peter shipley, right? In your area and all (also
->at tfs)... he certainly threatens another person you know, muffy. He
->choked her and broke her hand, and then continued later to harass her.
->I think that qualifies as a man threatening a woman.
OK ... unless there's an overwhelming desire but everyone involved (I would
assume also including Peter) to discuss this particular incident, which I
know very little about, I'd think soc.bi is probably not the best place to
discuss this.
-> Of course, the most common response when she tells this to someone is
->"well, what did you do to provoke him?", which might explain why women
Well, if she brought it up, I'd ask her something along the lines of "Well,
did you do anything to provoke him?" ... small semantic difference, perhaps
...
->absurdity among sentient beings. I see harassment and threatening
->behavior towards women quite frequently... I think that since it is a
->problem that is usually not discussed openly, that unless you know what
->you're looking for you might just let it slide right past you. Keep
->your eyes and mind open, and you might see more than you bargained for.
Dan, surely you didn't miss the part of my post that said
-------
I do know what rape has done to three of my friends (one of which male, who
had to witness it while his ribs were being cracked) ... so I know of some
men who have threatened women ... because I know these women.
It does happen, Eric. And I know that it's happened in the bay area,
because it's happened in U.C. Berkeley.
--------
I've dealt with at least two cases where women were threatened/harassed by
men. I've seen it happen, Dan ... And, since you started this article with
"I hate to break it to you," I'm taking this whole article to be pointed to
me, As such, I just figured I'd let you know I probably am not one of the
people out there in need of conversion.
I may be though ... I don't know.