Looking back I sure missed out on a lot of sex, because I thought women didn't like it, because they played hard to get, and I was raised to respect women, and not push or intrude.
To young women it wasn't ABOUT the raw sex, it was about shopping around for a person that has an interest, not in the mechanics but in the person. "Who" are you? is pretty sexy talk, and explaining is sexy too. "What do you think about this-subject or that?" while "Want to invest, waste time and energy, on a person that is ONLY interested in the mechanics?", without knowing--is he a worthy investment of limited resources (one evening), and likely to have collection of unwanted infectious diseases? Doesn't appeal, not to everyone. Shopping is a pretty important endeavor
Yep. I know what young women want. What all young women want. Some one that can provide and protect the them and their offspring. Except in countries with arranged marriages
Only in the west do you find women, who can choose their own mate look for a man like you described And even then, as I said look around in a single wide trailer park and you will more than likely see the best looking woman paired up with the scruffiest, tattooed, loud mouth with big biceps
And when it comes to the rich and famous, well look at Melania and Trump, or Murdoch or any of his wives.
If you lived in the rural south and Midwest in the 19th Century, even the early 20th Century, pickings were slim. Your nearest neighbor was a quarter section (quarter mile) away.
Here is how it worked. My grandparents were born 1882 and 1883. They only socialized at church. There were parties on Xmas eve, a purpose of those parties were to provide a space and an opportunity for bachelors and maidens or spinsters to meet. And that is where they and another couple met. And were soon married on 24 Dec 1903. In fact in researching genealogy. The most common dates of marriage I have found is either 24 Dec or 25 Dec.
Fathers were eager to unload their daughters, as sons helped around the farm or plantation.
Um, re characterizing why women would accept invitations to meet with, speak to, and possibly get intimate with young men? I think curious, and learning to be adults, and happy from natural surge of energy that causes young people to be in love with LIFE. Young people want to be OUT and about, they know they feel in LOVE with living. Call it horny and it sounds negative, empty, base--what it really is seems positive--LIFE, love, testing the waters, going with ones same-sex friends, to meet people who might become one's life-partner, never know. Something nice about it.
Yes, brave. As a Vietnam combat veteran, I got a tear from this story too. When I read Giff had gone to Vietnam, I immediately feared he had died there. ... We all have done good and done evil, without knowing the results of our actions. You were blessed to see him again ... and you were forgiven. ....thanks
Aside from his signing DOMA & DADT, I am more pissed at Bill Clinton for firing Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders for encouraging adolescents to masturbate as a Safe Sexual Release. I discovered "self-abuse" at age 12 in 1956 and suffered the whole guilt trip that went with it at the time.
That is close to something Alfred Kinsey discovered in 1948, and yet it wasn't taught to adolescents a decade later. I don't recall any sex ed in high school in the early '60s. In my late teens mom just handed me a little book written by an M.D. that told me all these little secrets of sexuality of which I had been curious for years. I suppose it was when she discovered my stiff socks & sheet stains in the laundry.
A renowned civil engineering and engineering mechanics professor, Bruce Irons of the University of Calgary, once said in his seminal book on Finite Elements: "Like a venereal disease, everyone talks about computer programs suffering from roundoff error, but no one admits to having it themselves."
George Bush Sr. just threw them out of the Capital office. They have been a pest to many presidents including Lincoln. He said...ask not what God can do for you but what you can do for God. This is the main reason we have a secular country.
If you want to make something more attractive, make it a forbidden fruit. Mother Nature determined the timing of the raging hormones. The result was inevitable.
I agree. And, enlightened self-interest is another manifestation of the compulsion to survive individually, communally and as a species. The context can change, but the DNA driver remains constant. However, life isn't a constant, and never will be. Hence the imperatives for survival. I am not ware that a stone resists decomposing into sand. Not sure, however. Just because we can't sense it directly or via our clever machines, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
true. there is nothing that guarantees that civilization will avoid collapse, at which point we all revert to our primitive state in which life revolves around killing and fornication. let's hope we make it through this crisis.
Nearly all religions, the bases of civilizations, have prohibitions against killing and rampant fornication (notable exceptions being early Mormons and Fijians). Beyond that, I'd say the field is open to a wide variety of rules that constitute different civilizations. But, I think there are a multitude of books on the subject, so I'll stop here. ;)
You mean like the Puritans? Of course that was more about a need to control others with fear than self-control. I admire the character Hester Prynne. She received hatefulness and yet lived a life of love. I guess we each have our own standards, which sometimes change with life experience. I regret believing that I needed to be a virgin bride. I don’t recommend it. Just choose carefully and use precaution. And remember sexual attraction does not equal love.
There were two types of Puritans on the Mayflower. The moderate Puritans who were picked up in Plymouth England and the radical right, the Brownists, who had fled to Leiden, Holland who called themselves saints and which Bradford their leader wrote in his journal as Pilgrims, they numbered 32 our of 102
There were four sects of Puritans that resented the corruption and rituals of the Church of Henry VIII, aka the Church of England or Anglicans. The Puritans had their own version as to how to purify the Church Henry founded.
These are Christian Taliban, and they sent out missionaries in the 18th and 19th Century in tent revivals know as the Great Awakening,sucked in a bunch ignorant farmers, including my ancestors.
IF the "why not" was NOT... ah... tongue-in-cheek (given your other thoughts, seems it might have been), would like to belatedly add my perspective on the birds and bees and the HIVs if you/anyone care(s) to read it. :)
Acquiring this perspective involved spending a decade and 72 billons of your tax dollars (2004-2014) attempting to mitigate the effects of consenting adults just 'having a good time' without sufficient information, self/other control, or public health 'precautions' (you may choose one or more).
Even IF there were NO fatal and disfiguring STDs (and, believe me there really ARE - & half of the top 8 are incurable) which are bad enough to endure, and yet more horrible to pass onto loved ones and children, and then for those who lose at roulette watch as your family dies a slow wasting and stigmatized death, ... there are STILL the multi-generational-lives-changing impacts of 'merely' getting pregnant when one is not economically and emotionally prepared to provide for a family.
And lastly, to which I can speak personally, the hormone driven emotional, psychological, and social 'unintended consequences' of what may be just 'having a good time' for one of the parties to the party, can lead to depression and suicide for the other.
Sex is delightfully and horribly potent.
There are deep reasons then, perhaps deeper than the thinking of some here it would seem, that all enduring cultures have lots of traditions, rules, superstitions, and sober advice about how, when, where, and with whom to have a good time. My own fore-bearers didn't dance, wore black, settled Nantucket Island and sent the horny young men to sea to chase whales. Oh, you guessed!
I 'm an old doc, and survived the deadly-innocent 60's as a teenager myself. Figured by 2023 most adults would appreciate the sheer mindlessness of the fantasy of a 'zipless' f***.
Puritanism aside, having sex with someone whose behavior for the past year(s) you aren't familiar and comfortable with, is simply not an individual's best play in the game of life.
In every aspect of our relationships with others, we should, exactly as you put it, 'learn to respect and treat people with love and kindness'.
This includes getting a sex education before sexing and a driver's license before driving.
Suspect the world would be better if people had to get a license before sexing, too, one that demonstrates they had an above C understanding of biology, hygiene, contraception, self-control, family economics, cultural and religious differences, ethics, compassion, literature, and psychology. And which, once tattooed on their forehead, assures to all in their orbit they are well aware of how powerful of a vehicle sex is for arbitrarily changing one's world - for better or for worse - in a moment.
In our species, sex is 'nature's go to tool' for a hard over-ride of such silly humanity-based understanding, compassion, culture and individual self-preservation, in the species' greater interest of somewhat more random chromosomal pairing - diversity remains the essential and vital substrate of natural selection.
Nature does not exactly favor allowing prudish human judgement regarding fidelity, hygiene, wisdom or compassion, to interfere with random exuberant sex among the fittest - and less sex with and among the rest of us – even if our enlightened self-interest may differ.
Think Flamenco! Humanity and human nature co-exist in a high tension dance.
But for a primal primer, suggest re-watching the episode of 'The Office' where 'Robert California' interviews for the position of manager. ;)
Priceless.
And so, “Why not?”: stigma, pain, poverty, disfiguring disease, and death.
Norman: You can't do that!!!! Oops. Too late. You already did. Can you synopsize his pithy, usually humorous wisdom for those of use who haven't read "Letters from the Earth? Thanks for the the convert referral.
The briefest of summaries, not at all worthy of even the tiniest comparison with Twain’s wonderful treatment, is that Christianity abhors sex and fun and drinking and carousing and all the things from which humans really and truly in their hearts take pleasure —and, if you toe the line 100 percent for your entire life and prove yourself worthy and have no fun whatsoever, you can be absolutely assured of getting to heaven, where there is absolutely no sex and no fun and no drinking and no carousing FOR ALL ETERNITY.
The book is available on Kindle and well worth the (very quick) read.
Hm, okay, so. Little humor in "Letters From the Earth," or call Mark Twain's wry humor (humor a little twisted from the norm, bitter, ironic, disdainful, sarcastic), like growling--at strange interest by culture or individuals in reading scripture. In it the word sex appears 15 times (F3 key to find in online copy of Letters From the Earth), and one reference, just for instance, says there is no sex in heaven (the afterlife), not mentioned in our Bible anyway, notes Twain. "His heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not a single feature in it that he actually values. It consists--utterly and entirely--of diversions which he cares next to nothing about, here in the earth, yet is quite sure he will like them in heaven. Isn't it curious? Isn't it interesting?" ... "To wit, that the human being, like the immortals, naturally places sexual intercourse far and away above all other joys--yet he has left it out of his heaven!" ... "From youth to middle age all men and all women prize copulation above all other pleasures combined, yet it is actually as I have said: it is not in their heaven; prayer takes its place."
Various commentary about the collection, "Letters from the Earth, (fiction, essays, notes) by Mark Twain, published posthumously. Compiled 1939, by Twain's 2nd literary executor, De Voto. Publication was held up until 1962 by Twain's daughter Clara." "A somber collection written after the death of Mark Twain's wife and one of his daughters. Satan writes a probing letter to his fellow archangels Michael and Gabriel about the inconsistencies of human religious faith." "During a difficult time in Twain's life, deep in debt, wife and one of his daughters having died. The book is a series of short stories, most deal with God and Christianity, from the point-of-view of a dejected angel on Earth. This title story is observations on the curious proceedings of earthly life and the nature of man's religions. By analyzing the idea of heaven and God that is widely accepted by those who believe in both, Twain is able to take the silliness that is present and study it with the common sense that is absent. Not an attack but a cold dissection. Other short stories in the book include a bedtime story about a family of cats Twain wrote for his daughters, and an essay explaining why an anaconda is morally superior to Man. Twain's writings in Letters From the Earth find him at perhaps his most quizzical and questioning state ever."
"Mark used a device which he had often used, in The Mysterious Stranger and later in "Letters from the Earth"--a traveler making observations on the illogicalities and absurdities of human civilization."
Read Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents," his last book. Basically, it says that humans evolved by honing a desire to kill perceived threats and a very strong desire to reproduce. Civilizations arose to curb those urges so that people could live in groups.
Janet, - No, Freud did not base his hypothesis on Greek stories; he based them on what he considered empirical information gleaned from his patients during treatment. He then used his clinical impressions to point out where Greek legends and stage plays might reflect his clinically-based findings.
You are right that Freud was a product of his time - we all are, the moment we utter a sentence. But he was much more than that: his greatest contribution was his attitude and methodology: he saw humans as productes of their childhood development (and thus, in part, their family of origin), and he discovered ways of tapping into the content and meaning of this developemental trajectory.
We are right in being critical of specific aspects of Freud's theories. But he was not simple-minded: he didn't simply construct his theories out of classical Greek stories.
It's interesting how early university learning can shape one's views in years to come. As a psychologist in two very different Australian university departments, I was initially trained in Social Learning Theory which was a combination of 'behaviourism' (broadly speaking), as applied to social psychology. Through my 40+ years as a clinical psychologist, I almost viscerally used the social learning framework. Academically, I received very little training in Psychoanalysis - either its history or veracity. In my practice, though, I was aware that my understanding of some aspects of my patients' attitudes and behaviours could be enriched by parallel thinking: thinking along both Skinner's model and Freud's. I therefore concluded that the two were useful and complimentary.
One thing I disliked about both of them was that they were deterministic - or, at least, claimed and seemed to be. I was attracted to Sartre's dictum, "We are condemned to be free", so in this respect I sometimes go beyond both theories. - I've also taken a passing interest in David Davidson's concept of 'weakness of will'. - But of course both theories might raise the question, "Why does the notions of 'freedom' and humanity's 'condemnation' towards it, attract me so much?"
As you say, this is not the forum to explicate - to present a full thesis.
I have actually seen a transcription of a letter where (a very young) Freud wrote to his mentor Charcot that he had felt the “lump in your throat” resulting from movement of the vagina when you are emotionally upset. I have no reply to that.
The Sexual revolution, an interesting concept considering sex has been anything but revolutionary. Whoever designed the act in the beginning messed up by adding an orgasm as the incentive. Maybe something a little less soul wrenching for a start. They should have known what was already in place was more than adequate. Eight billion people on this planet and almost all of them got here by their parents doing the same thing. How do you revolutionize something that is evidently perfect. I guess we will just have to live with the idea that sex is on everybody's mind all the time. Men love it, women love it, 8 billion might be the "_ucking" beginning of the end.
Without the orgasm there would be no people. Our four legged friends mate because of hormones. Humans needed something different,especially when it takes a human child at least 15 years to become self sustaining, meaning it needs to be cared for, cleaned, cultured until it can stand on it's own. Horses can run, just minutes after they are plopped on the ground from their mothers vagina.
That expanse of time, requires nurturing and protecting from both parents, even same sex parents.
People will always disagree with a hypothesis that they feel is harmful to their own ego and Id, that which comprises their sense of identity.m Especially if it is religious or political.
We're "obsessed" with sex, because, Darwinianly speaking, that's our sole purpose for being. As a species, in order to survive and prevail, we must reproduce. Those men and women most obsessed with this imperative are the ones who fought hardest for their mates, and survived. Those distracted by studying and thinking poetic thoughts about flora and other fauna, didn't fair as well in the impregnating game. Biology is "Just" Biology when we have the luxury of civilization.
I hate movies with sex scenes regardless of type. It is like those old cowboy movies riding on horses and shooting for at least half an hour. No talking and a waste of time.
Im ready to toss my TV cable. I get so few good programs and movies. Not worth the money. Yes Netflix has gotten gross. Dark movies almost black you can barely see the actors, etc. So many foreign movies. I don't want Japanese dragon\monster movies. Etc. Many good movies and old series you have to pay more for, etc. Movies TV with my cable company Infinity are old and worthless. Blonde and gangster movies? The news full of lies and rush into wars. I read news on my pad. Too many ads on TV news and panels who are worthless. I know more than they do...special lawyers, political consultants, etc. Good ones who tell the truth are put off the air. Diversity is more important than the story. Who are some of these huge, over weight women in tight dresses? Body parts flowing out every where. Not sexy or stylish. Certainly not a Kate Smith talent. No it is not beautiful as they dance around or shout into the TV camera. Right after it is an ad to lose weight. LOL
Big fake eye lashes are ugly. One pretty Asian journalist with big fake eyelashes you can barely see her eyes. Bright red lipstick with very white teeth. Black big rim glass don't look good on anyone. Big glasses are out for everyone. Hire new wardrobe people TV channel news.
Remember when TV was free with little advertising? Cable cheap. Now it has as many as four commercials (same ones over and over) every 15 minutes. Limited movies and no good news programs. If I see one more Medicare Advocate and drug ad I'm going to scream. They are year round on so many stations. They are the same over and over.
I'm not needing to play with my grandchildren. When they are ten they are gone and don't know who you are. Send money. No thank you note. I want a drug which is affordable and doesn't kill me of something else.
The Abrahamic religions are obsessed with sex. It is the one human activity that the men who use god as a sock puppet are obsessed with. Control human sexual activities, and desires and you control the flock.
Something to consider, Why do we call pastors, priests shepherds?
The job of a shepherd is to tend the flock, keep it together till it is time for the fleecing and slaughter. The same as the job of the farmer or rancher, to keep the herd safe and corralled until it is time for the slaughter.
George Bernard Shaw said that the test of a first rate intelligence is to be able to hold two opposing ideas and still be able to function.,you qualify
I was a college student at St.Lawrence U starting in the fall of 67, just a few years later, but ‘in loco parentis’ still applied. One spring night after talking into the wee hours of the morning a classmate and I escaped the freshman dorm by climbing out the laundry room window just to breath in the spring air! The front door was locked of course. We threw stones on the window of a pal in the Junior dorm but he didn’t hear us!! The dorm officer did however. Unable to get back in, we wandered around the town of Canton, NY ( about 10 bars, a supermarket and a few gas stations all closed of course) we discretely returned to the dorm after 8 am, only to find a welcome committee waiting for us. There was a trial and to the prudish senior woman’s question “didn’t you know what you had done was against the rules”, I replied, “Some rules need to be broken!” Just imagine! I was punished with 1hour and a half ‘automatic’ ( my curfew for sophomore year earlier than the others). My friend was smart. She transferred to Columbia. I had a scholarship from the university and couldn’t really leave but I went on the Junior year abroad program a year later in France and never went back. Still live in France....
What an uncertain time in a young man's life, hormones, achene, fear, and of course girls. I remember the first-time things hinted at the activity you have suggested. My heart was beating so hard and so fast I was afraid my partner would hear it pounding against the walls of my chest. I began to shake uncontrollably with anticipation of what was to come. I was asked "Are you all right?" Verbal communication was becoming a problem because my shaking was distorting my speech. I kept saying to myself, "Men have been doing this for years and lived to tell of the deed, and I'm not a Praying Mantis there will be a tomorrow." Then she bit me in the neck. Great story Robert, it's. a wonder we made it through those times. I guess we as men owe it all to young women with steadier nerves, and a smile that we couldn't resist. My Grandfather told me of such a time, he advised me to seek the assistance of a good doctor and describe my problem, he'll prescribe two prescriptions. One is for "Sulfa-denial" the other, regrettably, is for "No-Ass-A-Toll." He was a wise man.
Amazing outcome! I am enchanted, from the graduating class of 1969 of a State University. Co-ed, but the “rules” so archaic in retrospect. I’ll never go back! Rallying cry for election 2024.
Judith, yes, the rules were archaic and there are many in the Trump crowd who want to go back to those days where white men get to set the rules while they claim it is best for everyone. The attitudes were archaic too. The way the bussed women were targets of male rudeness, the female students on my campus were ogled and measured by the men at the larger university across the street that was mostly male at the time. I was a "1" on their scale and didn't mind a bit since I didn't like any of them either.
I would like to see the faces of Aileen Cannon, Boebert,MTG and all of the MAGAt females, if Trump wins and turns back the clock to 1850 in his Republic of Gilead.
William, I, too would like to see the reaction of those "ladies" when they find that no one cares if their family members die in childbirth or some other condition because ah well, too bad, they are just women. However, those pathetic Trumpettes would bow and scrape in their slavery as long as their Baby Donnie told them to do it. I am guessing it would last about a month before depression and other mental illnesses set in, just as they did for women 200 years ago, trying to be hubby's slaves.
I might have mentioned but my hobby is genetic genealogy, and I've got 61 years of research, and I am horrified by what I have discovered, from records, Not books, not opinions, but the records.
Men marrying two or three times, with each wife having 9, 10, 11 children, and the date of birth of the last of their children coinciding with their date of death, if not the same day then shortly thereafter.
This is what those MAGAt women have to look forward to the Republic of Gilead.
What puzzled me is why would women be misogynistic, but the same question for Clarence Thomas, Candace Owns, Tim Scott, Herschel Walker, Kanye, et al..the answer for that one seems obvious, everyone has a white spouse or girlfriend, and enjoy the benefits of being the white mans pet. The same applies to MAGA women. They are reaping benefits from being a foot stool, and as such are useful.
In one sense we are all victims of biology, In so much as there is little we can do about hormonal driven instincts, However we are also "victims" of culture.
In my view there is biological DNA and cultural DNA, there is one thing that distinguish us from the other animals. The ability to reason. We can alter and reject our cultural DNA, and contain and override our biological DNA.
Biological DNA and hormones, females to breed, yet many a woman overrides that need, such as my wife of 30 years, she never wanted a child, although she is great with other peoples children and likes them, but not for herself.
On the other hand, my 1st wife, mother of my children, wanted six children, and as a lowly enlisted man I could not afford six children, much less pay for the girls weddings and college for those that wanted it. I stopped at three with a vasectomy she never knew about.
Men, on the other hand, are motivated by sex and the pursuit of sex, and that leads to competitive behavior and violence. The need to acquire bright shiny things, like some birds, the need to dominate the female, and keep other males in check by being the alpha.
Kings waged war because the wanted a neighboring kings property. Men do the same thing today. If it is too costly, too much trouble to steal another's property, too hazardous to try and directly control it, not to mention the military and administrative nightmare and demands of the people, then make it a satrap, that you can extract resources, and control the titular ruler or government.
There you go, human behavior is driven by the reproductive imperative and it is biological, from that we get the territorial imperative, religion, politics.
We are slaves to hormones and genes but not all. Some can choose not to be slaves, then again we are slaves to something. Priests and Nuns forego biological imperatives, but then become slaves to their religion.
I suspect that if Pope Benedict VIII had not forbid priest to marry, there would not have been a reformation.
The motivation for the edict, was that when priests die, their estate goes to the Vatican treasury, if married the estate goes to the wife. dowers rights, or the male heir.
William, so very interesting! You point out well that human beings are complex and that we do have options. We don't have to go along with the crowd. We can make choices, that is if we are not forced to live under the thumb of a bunch of men who think they are smarter, wiser, more talented, more powerful than everyone else. They are usually smart enough but rarely brilliant. They just never had to grow up, so they, like a poorly parented toddler want what they want with no opposition. Why anyone wants to live under the thumb of a toddler is beyond comprehension, but it is clear they do. Trump is a good example, but he is certainly not the only one. There have always been women who are desperate to be part of the club so will sacrifice their being to men so they can be included or at least not abused as badly as when not included (a fantasy, of course). People of color in a white-dominated society will often do that too so they can be what they think is included. The people in power are not in the business of including those they don't like or respect. They are in the business of dominating and making those people think they're getting something special. I am not sure about people being enslaved to religion but I guess it can happen if the religion demands total loyalty and for its members to perform acts of destruction against others whether they are in or out of the faith. That's when people decide to turn their personal decision-making over to someone, usually one who cares nothing for them. Cults form when people come to believe their "leader" is somehow supernaturally endowed and will save them from those scary people. The cult leaders are so often toddler-adults who live in a fantasy world they are able to transmit to desperate people who find life too difficult to navigate. Trump has learned to use this with his cult members and has hooked so many of our media into assisting. If We the People had the will, we could stop a lot of this, but we have decided freedom of speech has no limits for Republicans these days. After all, they have the money and positions within states, communities, and our Congress and courts to make it so. I find it fascinating when Trump supporters are asked why they support Trump, they say something like "He stands for what I stand for" or "He gets things done" or some other such nonsense. On the rare occasions when there is a follow-up question, they can't name anything or will say immigration. One can't seem to get them to explain what they mean by that. We who care need to do more to get people to use their ability to think and reason. Now, how do we do that?
How dare they judge women on basis of appearance? Interest was not in our brains 🧠; suspect they will learn a lesson or two in 2024. I love to take courage and initiative in singing 🎶 along to the lyrics karyoke style on YouTube to “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy “hear me roar in numbers too big to ignore” my campaigning tool! 🎤🎼🎵🎶
Judith, I sure do wish we could reach those women who have been so brainwashed by white men to believe they were made to do whatever a man tells them to do. When they are in the throes of this insanity, they will follow nearly any man if he is loud and whiny enough. Just like the Trump they are clinging to. I guess they expect so little of men they will cling to someone who neither sees nor cares about those women, well, unless they are his type, then he can rape or use them in some other way to advance his political ambitions. How sad!
Anxiety in women, low self-concept, plus, can't pretend to ignore cash-ola, a woman that seemed to have little apparent capacity (or desire) for earning, learned to earn as quiet, possibly still-anxious, ornament. It's not for everyone. Whether a 10 that night, on the Freshman ("not affiliated with RR") scale, was not a lucky person, no one was. The ability to "get along" and then also not get chucked-out of university or college for sort of, acting your age, very confusing, all of it. Glad those times are gone for everyone, except maybe men, women, and girls on that-type-of far right.
Women judge men on their perceived ability to protect them support them and produce progeny that will survive and be successful.
Men judge women on their ability to produce healthy mini me's.
That is why you see emphasis on breasts, hips, bubble butts, and facial attractiveness.
The rest settle, for what they can get.
Like it or not. Men size women up for sexual attraction, that is why you see men in a supermarket staring at an attractive and sexy woman.
Women do the same, but they look for signs that the man is strong, as defined by their class. Trailer Visit a trailer park, the kind with single wides, knock on doors and you will find the most attractive woman living with the most tattooed, muscled loud mouth in the park.
Check out the rich and famoous, and you will see the wifes of Rupert Murdoch and TFG and his mail order "model".
William - uhhhh... Maybe you've watched too many of the super salacious and OMG hideous TV shows about "The Wives of former Olympic Bob Sledders" But now 70 plus years into the women's revolution - Women cannot believe the backlash against our leveling up on the global playing field. finally having the ability to not only have sex and enjoy the hell out of it -and 2nd by controlling if and when we get pregnant if you and your body want to stay pregnant. The biggest backlash of all is towards "Half The Sky" or what NY Times columnist and author Nicholas Kristoff described them - half of the worlds population have gained the power to self determination - and half the sky for this big beautiful world is NOT going back. Women are great leaders, they have ambition beyond what to make for dinner. We're way beyond what we would like as a stud muffin or who looks to be the best provider...
Hormones move our lives and turn our heads for an intense period of time. But most of us just want the respect women deserve and paid the equal wage to me which is what we've earned. And these days -we just want to lead the world to a better place - and its time you trusted us to stand by your side to do it.
“Rules” were archaic at my “Sweet Home Alabama.” Could not wear slacks of any kind outside dormitory, or rooms. Not even to jog over to Student Union to get mail. Always skirts, dresses or the savior, a raincoat over all. From 1965 until 1969.
Let’s not forget going out with a gentleman caller. Signing out at the dorm house mother’s office when leaving and checking back in. Bed check every night. Judiciary council.
We woman have always been treated like we can't be trusted. Some couldn't but every society has young like that. At college you are mostly over eighteen years old. A responsible adult.
We learn more from our mistakes than from our adherence to the rules. Experience truly is the best teacher. It is also the most expensive. Thank you for sharing.
A great story of the times and place. I had a related situation when a pre- med student was failing my Physics undergraduate course. He complained he would be going to Vietnam if I gave him an F. I took my concern to the Dean who responded - don't worry Frank, he is failing all of his courses; and away he went.
It's incredible when you look at the changes in society that have happened within living people's lifetimes.
I'm not sure undergraduates today would believe the restrictions that existed on their parents or grandparents. My mother (born 1938) talks about the fact that married women weren't allowed to work in the public service, nor could any woman get a bank account, sign contracts, or get a mortgage without a male guarantor (father, husband etc). Although, to be fair to Australia, it was very early in allowing women the vote. The rights of indigenous people remain a disgrace, sadly, although things have improved for LBQTQI people.
The fact that "fornication" was the basis for college expulsion would be seen as bizarre and a violation of human rights.
On a wider perspective, I still don't think that many people realise that we are still living through an absolutely unprecedented time in human history, thanks to the invention of the oral contraceptive pill.
Never in history have woman, and families, had effective control over if or when they reproduce.
The ramifications of this in the economy, societal and family structure, etc are still reverberating today.
Much of the reactionary rhetoric of the "make America great again" movement is as much a dog whistle to putting women "back in their place" prior of the Pill as it is to racism and xenophobia. The fact they make common cause with their fellow travellers in the evangelical Christian movement who take a (IMHO) frankly misogynistic view of the role of husband and wife in marriage thus comes as no surprise.
Margaret, I whole heartedly agree with you!! The far right women want all of us to be like the Stepford wives for heavens sake!! There is no way I would do that! We women that have brains need to protest and chant Hell no we want go!!
Perhaps showing anything other than low self esteem would get them killed. “Uppity” women who don’t know their place. You need allies to escape from bondage.
I've been doing genealogy since 1962, and can't count the number of times that I have seen men using wives as breed cows, more than one case of a man who literally screwed his first wife to death, died in the birth of her 11th child, he remarried and did he same to his second wife, she died and remarried again wash, rinse repeat. Very common in the 19th Century, and many a woman died in child birth, very common.
It’s impossible for me to believe that such men don’t understand what they’re doing. It’s more than egoism. It’s sadistic. Thank goodness for the pill.
Not sadistic it was the norm at the time. Women were considered breed cows, nanny's sexual and domestic servants.
Until the middle of the 19th Century ,and not universal even then, fathers were responsible for tutoring their sons, girls were not tutored as they were expected to get married and serve a husband. The 10% would tutor their daughters and send them off to finishing school to learn how to act like a gracious host, read poetry and play a harpsichord , there purpose was to entertain her husbands associates and people that he needed to impress.
When the father died, the children were considered orphans and were disposed of by an Orphans Court, if one was not established or available within a days ride in an oxen or horse drawn wagon, then they were divided up among relatives and neighbors who used them as free labor.
One of my distant cousins, 4th cousin two or three times removed if I remember correctly died. His widow had to go to court to prove that she had the resources to tutor her children, she won, and kept her own children.
I absolutely agree Mary. My wife and I have a great relationship, we love and need each other and neither doubts it.
Contrary to stereotypes she is the expert in so many thing. She is a retired building official., was a building inspector, a journey man carpenter, plumber, electrician and pest applicator., and contractors are amazed at what she does with dry walling, no slapping on tape and covering it with popcorn, she sands, applies, sands again until the walls and window sills are smooth and flawless, just as they used to do, decades ago, back when they were craftsmen,not tradesmen rushing from job to job.
When I am stuck in a task I call on her, and before I even try something unfamiliar I call on her, in turn she relies on me to take care of administrative stuff like paying the bills (done a good job, we have no debts, mortgages or car payments), wills and administration and keeping the check book balanced.
Stephen, you are so right about the changes. My grandmother had 5 kids during the depression when she couldn't even afford to feed one; my grandfather was often out of work. My mom was an amazing woman who could have done anything as far as jobs go, but because her family had no money, she had to go through the secretarial program in high school, no college. There were few jobs available to women and when they married, most of the time white women, even poor ones were supposed to pop a bunch of babies and care for them and the hubby as their life's work. Raising kids is critically important to our society but it should be a shared task. Men somehow secretly know how hard it is so don't want to do it. If they keep women down, barefoot and pregnant, over and over for decades, the men can take back everything they think they have lost with women in the work force. Hey foolish white men, and the others, it isn't going to happen. Women have always found ways to work around their men. Now we have more tools and a bunch of other women willing to help. So, how do we get white Republican women to realize they don't have to swallow the BS and that despite their claims, men are no better than women, possibly not even as capable.
" So, how do we get white Republican women to realize they don't have to swallow the BS ..." Your dealing with fear. Fear of being held accountable for your actual worth, IMO.
Religion has a lot to do with it for many I think. When “God“ is described as all powerful and loving, but throws moral people into an eternal hell because they don’t bow down and worship him, it prepares the psyche for all kinds of paradoxical beliefs and behaviors.
Grove City. In 2012, The Princeton Review listed Grove City College as the 2nd most LGBT-unfriendly school in the United States. In 2013 Grove City was at #1 in the Princeton Review’s rankings of most LGBT-unfriendly schools in America. As of 2016, they were ranked 9th. By refusing to accept federal funds and so-called Title IV financial aid (from the Higher Education Act of 1965), Grove City is not required to adhere to various federal guidelines that (i) prevent sex-based and many other forms of discrimination (e.g., Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972), (ii) regulate investigations into accusations of sexual abuse, (iii) require the collecting and sharing of information about crimes on campus (Clery Act), and (iv) set standards for disciplinary proceedings (Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act).
My uncle was a Southern Baptist preacher he constanly lectured on the evils you mention Daniel. When it came to alcohol, I asked him about Jesus drinking wine and even turning water into wine (which was the favorite trick of Dionysos, the Greek god of wine and celebrated on Dec 25 with the Dionysia (Roman Bacchanalia).
He waived me off by saying that it was grape juice not wine. All of them from Rabbi, Priest to Imam, make up their own rules, using a sock puppet they call god, Jesus or Allah.
Capitalism isn’t friendly to the production of children; there’s no profit in it. Once cheap contraception became available, the birth rate in the USA started an inevitable decline, so that now our population growth is negative. Like the biblical Eve, once women take a bite of the apple, there’s no going back.
Key problem: do Republican men want to pay for anything related to women? No. Remember those b**t**ds in Congress who were upset that their insurance premiums included coverage for women's health?
Don't forget about the many ads for peyronies "disease". Women have received and continue to receive bottom of the barrel status FOREVER globally, yet we are the majority gender. Time to step up, ladies!
Right you are Gloria. It isn't about babies, they don't give a shit about them after their born, they actually want to gut out SNAP and WIC.
The real motive is that they are pissed and afraid of women rejecting their sperm, and becoming independent. They only way they can get it up is with viagra, so they want to push women back to 1850, so they don't have to rely on pills for an erection.
I suspect that the ruling class wants cheap labor; and they want parents, not corporations, to pay for child care. Fewer women than ever buy into that bargain. Isn’t that why the birth rate has fallen?
Actually it is when women become educated, that's why the Taliban and Islam halt women's education. Where they can I wonder if the UN, NGO's or Red Cross have investigated women's education in Gaza or the West Bank, I don't think so.
All males and females in the Gaza Strip enjoy public education through 12th grade and many men and women attend the several four year universities there. Of note, all students study English for their entire 12 years of public education.
Nine years service at US embassy Tel Aviv, four of them working exclusively in the Gaza Strip, four years as Political Counselor, and one year as Senior Advisor for the Peace Process. Constant monitoring of situation since 1991, and private visits to Gaza of up to three months. Regular communications to this day with a wide variety of Gazans of various political persuasions.
It isn’t capitalism that persuaded women to have fewer children. Birth control in all its forms allowed women the freedom to choose when and if they wanted to be mothers. Prior to birth control, celibacy was the only guaranteed way to limit when or if a woman had a child.
Agreed: capitalists don’t argue for fewer children, and neither do socialists. A few years ago, I learned that the German Nazi regime awarded medals to women who birthed 4+ children. The gold medal went to mothers of 8+ kids. Hitler’s goal was to have plenty of soldiers in the breach. The USA has no such program although, except for the Marines, the Department of Defense recruiting numbers continue to fall short of their goal. The socialist side of the US economy (the DoD) that would benefit from an increased birth rate — as would the capitalist side, which always seeks the cheapest labor. I understand that having kids is a primal issue, and that relegating it to some sort of economic question is an overreach. However, we do have a declining birth rate, and I suspect the cause is economic rather than primal urge.
Yes, of course. In the 1980s, I got acquainted with Catholic German women who as children couldn’t join the Hitler Youth and were disappointed. No judgement here: we’re all shaped by our environment.
Not in the Protestant Churches. Sorry to offend our Catholic brothers and sisters, but the insistence (until the current Pope agreed to contraception) of no contraception drove poor Catholics into increasing poverty.
I believe that contraception should be free to all women.
Watching a show about Life on This Planet that chronicles the hundreds of billions of years life has come and gone and come back again — one of the great extinctions was apparently precipitated by a combination of climate elements and an overabundance of PLANKTON, with a great die-off and resulting cataclysm.
Who thinks an overabundance of human beings NOT taking care of our atmosphere could precipitate a cataclysm? Show of hands …
So, what do we think about the advisability of encouraging more kids and less birth control…
The Pill, the BCP, was invented by a good Catholic who lived his whole life with sense he did a good thing. He felt it's GOOD, people that love each other can avoid dread of what it means to have sex. He got told no, some arbitrary reason. A bunch of guys decided. A coworker was getting married Catholic, the pastor told her, "And you won't be using contraception." She said that she said, "I will." "You won't." "But, I will." He didn't respond to her final assertion, and there was a wedding. Catholics aren't against contraception. I mean, SHE is a Catholic. PS A woman does not NEED a menstrual period, but manufacturers put in 7 days of sugar-pills to allow for break-through bleeding, shedding a lining, to (I don't know but imagine) seem sort of normal.
I agree with your beliefs, but your assertion that all protestants accept contraception is incorrect. There’s a growing movement in white evangelical, protestant churches that contraception equals abortion.
There is more than talk. There is outright, chilling activism that is most visible in the forced-birth movement and attempts to overturn, invalidate, or ignore the overwhelming support the voters have shown for ensuring abortion access in states that have put out ballot measures since our billionaire-donor owned SCOTUS became so overt in legislating from the bench in favor of the donors who own them.
Reading @Jessica Valenti’s Abortion Every Day coverage on Substack is one of the best ways I have found to ensure I understand exactly how Republicans and the evangelical wingnut-o-sphere frame their messaging and their efforts to destroy the rights of women and undermine democracy in general. https://open.substack.com/pub/jessica?r=1pfwwf&utm_medium=ios
All RW churches opposing abortion and interfering in our lives for their own agenda should lose tax exempt status. Separation of church and state. Supreme Court violates it.
Justice Thomas seems to be in that school of opinion too - 'thought' would be too strong a word. The prospect of more Thomases should be a real selling incentive for all forms of contraception.
And those were the days of Mrs. [Husband's first name] [Husband's last name]. My mother and many others referred to themselves that way for years. Back when I was young in the 1960s and 1970s it was an everyday thing. I see it now occasionally and it is truly jarring.
I was compiling my church membership roll from its inception in 1927, and the Session records (into the late 60s for sure)without exception listed women who joined the church as “Mrs. so-and-so” — there was no way to ascertain a woman’s first name.
That is such a shame, isn't it. The woman is not seen as a separate person from her husband. I suppose if finding the women's names were an important consideration (and I would think it probably ought to be) you could start with a check of last names at findagrave.com and legacy.com, and then do some digging through the newspaper obituaries for the ones who don't turn up on the web.
My mother was born in 1914 and attended a small women's college for one year before the stress of The Great Depression resulted in her leaving. She had to remain in her dorm room one weekend for simply calling a hello to a woman friend walking below her window. I sometimes wondered if she transferred her feelings of injustice to me, in order that my fight for justice would also validate injustices she endured.
Not misogynistic with Christians. But Paul in the New Testament explains the hierarchy very well. We follow the scriptures. But there are always the bullies that masquerade as Christians and abuse their wives. That by any man is an abomination in my eyes.
Sorry, but misogyny under the banner of religion is still misogyny, whether it's a husband's dominion in a covenant marriage, a burkha in Islam or an honour killing in Hinduism.
Stephen it is Islamics that kill their daughter in the name of honor. The Hindu practice was immolating the wife, when the husband died. Forbidden by law, but it still happens the practice is called sati a former practice in India whereby a widow threw herself on to her husband's funeral pyre.
Thanks for the update. Come to think of it I was thinking of Pakistan, but now that you brought it up, Pakistan and India were once the same country So maybe it is a cultural thing,
Phil, Paul said that they should not speak and if they want to learn anything ask their husbands. I have read the bible cover to cover, first at age 12, then age 40, and turn to it frequently to make sure I am correct.
Those are not bullies masquerading as Christians, they are indeed Christians following their Gospels.
I have also studied Islam, the Quran, haddiths and biography of Mo by ibn Ishaq, and was called an apostate Muslim by one, because by their reckoning someone who knows their "scriptures" so well, HAS to be a Muslim.
Aunt taught high school chemistry in the '60s, when there was a women's pay scale and a men's pay scale. Understanding was, men had families to look after. My aunt had 3 children, 1950s, and a husband that was a physician until mental health failed, probably starting when he was in university but not understood. Aunt raised children and helped him on a less-than males' salary. Took his own life 70s. The house she rented (in small town with high school teaching job, 50s to 70s), the landlord was a spinster after the war, arms-length transaction, not friend or family, never raised the rent for 20+ years from the day they moved in! Aunt had 5 uncles survive (post war), their wives, and her own mother, ensured they were visited and looked after. It wasn't a man's world, they smoked, drank, and suffered PTSD. And it wasn't a woman's world. The 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, was maybe not great for anyone except maybe for young kids (unless father had PTSD and treated kids not well).
In the 70s my father left my mother with nothing but a mortgage, he took their investment certificates from her jewelry box. There was zero credit-rating for a woman, her name was Missus and then his first and last name. There was nothing for women.
When I remarked on grandmother and 5 aunts all being landlords in converted homes, my brother explained, it was called "a widow's pension" to own property ... and be able to survive by running boarding house, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, that fed and housed spinsters, widows, singles from farms to urban for work, and to wounded veterans. I was born in a retirement town, from ages mid-life to elderly, men, missing a limb, was not uncommon.
In the 1950's my mother worked as a bank anaylst. Her pay $1 an hour. She was responsible for training new hires, which were men of course. Come time for annual pay raise, The man she had trained got a raise. She didn't. When she complained that she trained the man, she was told. Well he has a family . She said "do so I", her boss responded find a husband to support you.
When I went to university the male professor said he disapproved of women in his science classes. We stayed anyway. Few women went into science. It was mostly men. I liked working with men better than women. My salary was better, etc. Women didn't support each then. Since many lived at home they took lower salaries, etc.
I was a freshman in college in 1967. Freshmen had to live in the dorms. Girls had “hours” (I once got a 15 second late slip.) but boys didn’t. Girls had to make their own beds, but boys didn’t. BCPs were for married women only and abortion was illegal. Girls were expected to become teachers and nurses. I had wanted to do something in computers but had been told that the only thing girls could do was keypunch. My daughter graduated from Purdue University with a degree in chemical engineering. She had a really hard time imagining what life had been like for me at her age. btw, I went back to school and became a programmer and retired after 30+ years in all aspects of IT from programming on punched cards through web design and ended my career as an IT director. I have no intention of letting people limit my granddaughters.
I remember those darned punch cards. I went to college in the mid 70's after that period. College for me was fun, a little wild, but my growing up time. I had no regrets.
I took a course in "Computer Operations" in 1970 when mainframe computers had their own air conditioned room (which was NO SMOKING when ppl still endured second hand smoke in offices). Got a certificate that I only used in one job, key punching cards. Then I dropped out and didn't come back to computers until 1995 when I got my first PC.
I remember punch cards, and the sorting machine that was in 1958, that's what NASA used to send man to the moon, and the Air Force used for North American Defense
I think this article is so sad, even the fornication part and the penetrating question. I know some of you will find it funny. I just think it's horrifying.
I felt such sadness, too, Maria - for everyone involved! I'm so very glad that times changed! I was in my teens in the '60s and recall it being such a difficult and confusing time in so many ways. Despite the excitement of those years, I wouldn't go back there for all the tea in China and I'm glad I didn't have to raise my son in those times.
Maria, I am sure Professor Reich was not attempting to make anyone sad. Sometimes we have to look at situations with a bit of levity so that the really scary stuff can be handled.
Yes, it IS very sad - especially the part about being "deported" (that's what I would call it!) to Vietnam! But without black humor, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to survive!
I have a bad feeling when I read praise for the story. No doubt the writing is good, but I agree, it's sad that Dr. Reich was so eager to be a "big man on campus" that he resorted to using young women that way. I think he has that insight now.
He had another similar revelation about those days last year or so here and I posted how I was relieved at least he learned from his mistakes. It seems there are a lot of men who don't.
I don't think what Prof. Reich did under the circumstances was wrong. I think he reacted to the circumstances based on his elected position. It could have turned out much worse but evidently didn't. The same things were happening around the nation and led to needed changes. These "men" were being drafted and many killed. They certainly knew what might be in store.
I don't know that women, with the opportunity to get together with young guys, felt used. The times were same as always, doing something daring and youthful, age appropriate, young women didn't feel used. Making friends with guys, I don't think anyone thought it would necessarily end up with sex (without consent, "assault," even then). Guys can talk, and chat and laugh with women, try to be admired, enjoy admiring, even then, even without thinking "this" has to end with a conquest. People were happy, cheerful, enjoyed each other's company. It wasn't sex, it was age appropriate get-togethers. People do that even now sometimes. Gatherings, banter, chips, and playing mild games like pool? Don't young people still do stuff like that?
Maybe in another world, VJ. A kinder, civilized world. Universities across the nation do everything in their power to suppress the percentages of young women raped on their campuses, to the point to these women do not have legal recourse outside of the matter being "dealt with" by the schools. Meantime their rapists are still attending classes. 🤨
I went to Mount Holyoke. Freshman in 1971. I was on one of those busses to Dartmouth for a “mixer” once. Hearing us rated on the scale of 1-10 was both horrifying and disgusting! I got off the bus though. Some young man decided to follow me the entire evening despite my attempts to get as far away as possible. A week or so later, I got a letter declaring his love also stating he would throw himself off if a balcony if it weren’t reciprocated. A year later I decided to transfer to a coed college closer to my home.
That's so sad. I'm sorry for your experience. Stalking laws help a bit, but don't change the underlying cause. I hope your experience at a college closer to home was a positive one.
I didn’t dislike my first year and a half at MHC. I’m from GA. I just needed to be a little closer to home and to get there faster should I want or need to. I still keep up with a friend I made there. Also, NE is beautiful! I’d move there if I could afford to do so.
A beautifully told, poignant story. While reading it, I thought that although Giff physically survived the Vietnam War, I doubt that he did so without undergoing a painful transformation relative to his own mortality that he wouldn’t have been forced to endure unless he had been expelled from the collegial cocoon. However, it also occurs to me that your role in his expulsion ignited your own inner war--one that compelled you to confront your own fragile humanity. Much respect for having the courage to share it here.
Some like a friend of mine went to Vietnam and then to university after that. I encouraged him cause he was smarter than he thought. He almost didn't get into the eye doctorate program because of his age. Vietnam put a lot of young men out of the work and college world experience. Their benefits not as good as the WWII generation for education, housing, jobs, care, etc. He joined but we still had the draft. Another lie of a war like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sir, your stories move me & your daily commentary may even calm me when I fear the state of our country & the world. Thank you for your voice & most importantly, your heart.
I commend you for writing this story. It made me cry as I remembered experiences I had as a woman, just for being a woman. I also remember meeting sweet, shy guys, but as a shy one myself, I cringe at the memory of not having any skills to know how to approach and interact with these guys. I was never supposed to be the initiator in that era, but I somehow recognized it was a mutual challenge. And now, as a parent of a kind, but introverted 19-year-old living on his college campus, I'm not sure we have made much progress with creating opportunities for young people to learn communication skills or in reassuring them that they will get past their awkwardness with more practice. (Alcohol takes that place, unfortunately.) I've tried with my son, but can't compete with social media. And that is another topic altogether. Thanks for your honest and poignant share. As always, your posts/newsletters reverberate for me and touch my heart and brain!
It’s been quite a ride for all of us. I was a young woman who was rated daily 1-10 when I dared to get lunch outside my workplace. We’ve all come a long way (I hope). Thank you for recognizing what a wrong that was and pointing out the ridiculous hypocrisy of that era.
It is obvious to me that women rate men too. I always seemed to end up with a "friend zone" rating! I found that women with a low rating compensated by being much more interesting and fun to be with.
I’ll be more clear. The men would stand on a sidewalk with large cards printed with numbers 1-10 and flash group ratings as women walked by. If they thought she was unattractive, they’re flash a low number and hoot and laugh. This took place on the busiest street in town-it was almost impossible to avoid them without adding too much time to a short lunch break. It went on for months. I can’t remember exactly what shut them down. As I recall, some women got together and started rating them and they didn’t like it-some stopped and it eventually stopped.
No, women do not rate men--not the same. I think women feel competitive, so seeing or chatting with someone attractive requires keeping it quiet, taking time and opportunities to see if "he" notices her value as well, so they both can appreciate that "who" she is, and not what she looks like, is that which is attractive.
Men, eye women for sexual attractiveness and really don't care about who she is, maybe later in life. The unattractive and/or low IQ males settle. Unless they are a Trump, then their money will "buy" as many wmen as they can afford.
As Trump said, if you are rich and famous, you can grab them by the p......y.
Dorks that can't find an American women, find a mail order bride, whose interest is totally monetary.
Interesting that it was a Go/No-Go decision for women. I wonder where the 1-10 scale came from. As I think back 50+ years, the Go/No-Go scale was used by me and my friends as a default, unconsciously.
Stan, I think women do rate us men, but they have just a two-point scale, 0 or 1. We are much more discerning with our 10-point system. [just kidding].
One can hardly call it a 'Get On The Bus' moment... but transport yourself back to the time of Y2K: of all of the entrepreneurial ideas that had collided with The Internet, what would one least expect from the men in a college engineering honors society (to say nothing of the one just across the street from Professor Reich's office at U.C. Berkeley)? Truth be told, 'amihotornot.com' was a faithful reproduction of real-world objectification - and, in going on to survive for more than a decade, proved to be quite resilient to reprisal (which, given an 85/15 gender split, would likely have been difficult).
History really does repeat itself - in so many ways ("the more things change, the more they stay the same" they say)...
Your touching story warmed the cockles of my heart. I do not believe yours was political hypocrisy, for it is not up to human beings to be of such singularity of mind to fight off and solve every contradiction we are faced with, it’s probably not even possible without destructive bias to one or the other side. Those contradictions belong to life itself; you did not invent them and you cannot resolve them. Ordinarily they are solved by history (as was the case with this issue), not by a young class president. You obliged the students (the busloads), you obliged the handbook (the expulsions), the brutal inconsistency lies in the world, not in your flawed behavior.
I agree, and I had a great time in college! But Giff's story reminded me of my high school friends who couldn't afford to go to college. Several went to Vietnam and came back with PTSD. Two returned in a coffin.
Beautiful story, from a beautiful man, and i hope you inform the Moth radio hour podcast so that millions can hear it told. I'd love to hear if you eventually connected more deeply with Giff. Someone should edit stories like this from famous progressives like yourself, with all the profits going to fund organizers to work in swing states through (sorry for this shameless promotion), AdoptAnOrganizer (bit.ly/AAAOA)
Beautiful and brave writing. Thank you.
I agree. I enjoyed this essay, and reprieve from the news. One question, how did you get the women to come to the campus?
We were horny too!
If I only knew......
It seems a strange time, does it not, as we look back on it.
Were we REALLY thinking and doing like that?
Again: You Were Horny!
🤣🤣🤣
But all that over-control from the school was so much misogynistic b.s.
How were young people supposed to learn how to deal with being horny, if we were not allowed to work it through? ….. !!??
Looking back I sure missed out on a lot of sex, because I thought women didn't like it, because they played hard to get, and I was raised to respect women, and not push or intrude.
To young women it wasn't ABOUT the raw sex, it was about shopping around for a person that has an interest, not in the mechanics but in the person. "Who" are you? is pretty sexy talk, and explaining is sexy too. "What do you think about this-subject or that?" while "Want to invest, waste time and energy, on a person that is ONLY interested in the mechanics?", without knowing--is he a worthy investment of limited resources (one evening), and likely to have collection of unwanted infectious diseases? Doesn't appeal, not to everyone. Shopping is a pretty important endeavor
I am 77 and have never heard a man describe a woman as worthy or unworthy. Fascinating to think the knights of the round table stuff is still with us.
Yep. I know what young women want. What all young women want. Some one that can provide and protect the them and their offspring. Except in countries with arranged marriages
Only in the west do you find women, who can choose their own mate look for a man like you described And even then, as I said look around in a single wide trailer park and you will more than likely see the best looking woman paired up with the scruffiest, tattooed, loud mouth with big biceps
And when it comes to the rich and famous, well look at Melania and Trump, or Murdoch or any of his wives.
If you lived in the rural south and Midwest in the 19th Century, even the early 20th Century, pickings were slim. Your nearest neighbor was a quarter section (quarter mile) away.
Here is how it worked. My grandparents were born 1882 and 1883. They only socialized at church. There were parties on Xmas eve, a purpose of those parties were to provide a space and an opportunity for bachelors and maidens or spinsters to meet. And that is where they and another couple met. And were soon married on 24 Dec 1903. In fact in researching genealogy. The most common dates of marriage I have found is either 24 Dec or 25 Dec.
Fathers were eager to unload their daughters, as sons helped around the farm or plantation.
Um, re characterizing why women would accept invitations to meet with, speak to, and possibly get intimate with young men? I think curious, and learning to be adults, and happy from natural surge of energy that causes young people to be in love with LIFE. Young people want to be OUT and about, they know they feel in LOVE with living. Call it horny and it sounds negative, empty, base--what it really is seems positive--LIFE, love, testing the waters, going with ones same-sex friends, to meet people who might become one's life-partner, never know. Something nice about it.
LOL!
Hah! ‘Tis so!
LOL!!
Most of us WANTED to go! We had desires, too
Yes, brave. As a Vietnam combat veteran, I got a tear from this story too. When I read Giff had gone to Vietnam, I immediately feared he had died there. ... We all have done good and done evil, without knowing the results of our actions. You were blessed to see him again ... and you were forgiven. ....thanks
Hear, hear!!
Why brave.
Aside from his signing DOMA & DADT, I am more pissed at Bill Clinton for firing Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders for encouraging adolescents to masturbate as a Safe Sexual Release. I discovered "self-abuse" at age 12 in 1956 and suffered the whole guilt trip that went with it at the time.
Hollywood Squares Contestant: Paul Lynde to block.
Peter Marshall: Paul, according to doctors, it's the most abused and neglected part of the body.
Paul Lynde: Mine may be abused, but it certainly isn't neglected. 😉
My sex Ed teacher in 1965 said it best… 90% of people admit to masterbating… the other 10% lie about it.
That is close to something Alfred Kinsey discovered in 1948, and yet it wasn't taught to adolescents a decade later. I don't recall any sex ed in high school in the early '60s. In my late teens mom just handed me a little book written by an M.D. that told me all these little secrets of sexuality of which I had been curious for years. I suppose it was when she discovered my stiff socks & sheet stains in the laundry.
A renowned civil engineering and engineering mechanics professor, Bruce Irons of the University of Calgary, once said in his seminal book on Finite Elements: "Like a venereal disease, everyone talks about computer programs suffering from roundoff error, but no one admits to having it themselves."
LOL! I never felt guilty. But then I had a loving and tolerant Mother.
I had the same guilt at around 10 or so! (I did a TERRIBLE job at it at first to get that release, so don't feel TOO bad!XD)
Age 10.? Well my sister was humping a pillow at age 8.
Clinton was in fear of the religious right.
George Bush Sr. just threw them out of the Capital office. They have been a pest to many presidents including Lincoln. He said...ask not what God can do for you but what you can do for God. This is the main reason we have a secular country.
Clinton was in fear of himself.
Mark your comment was a stupid non sequitur.
William, my son said I should frame yours!
If you want to make something more attractive, make it a forbidden fruit. Mother Nature determined the timing of the raging hormones. The result was inevitable.
we are not born with self-control; we are in fact animals. The formation of civilization is merely enlightened self-interest. ;)
I agree. And, enlightened self-interest is another manifestation of the compulsion to survive individually, communally and as a species. The context can change, but the DNA driver remains constant. However, life isn't a constant, and never will be. Hence the imperatives for survival. I am not ware that a stone resists decomposing into sand. Not sure, however. Just because we can't sense it directly or via our clever machines, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Sand was once stone, so it "decomposes" slowly over millions of years from external action.
Bingo, clap,clap, clap. I must remember that line. So true.
true. there is nothing that guarantees that civilization will avoid collapse, at which point we all revert to our primitive state in which life revolves around killing and fornication. let's hope we make it through this crisis.
Nearly all religions, the bases of civilizations, have prohibitions against killing and rampant fornication (notable exceptions being early Mormons and Fijians). Beyond that, I'd say the field is open to a wide variety of rules that constitute different civilizations. But, I think there are a multitude of books on the subject, so I'll stop here. ;)
Animals are way more civilized than many humans. Think war, road rage, greed, etc.
You mean like the Puritans? Of course that was more about a need to control others with fear than self-control. I admire the character Hester Prynne. She received hatefulness and yet lived a life of love. I guess we each have our own standards, which sometimes change with life experience. I regret believing that I needed to be a virgin bride. I don’t recommend it. Just choose carefully and use precaution. And remember sexual attraction does not equal love.
There were two types of Puritans on the Mayflower. The moderate Puritans who were picked up in Plymouth England and the radical right, the Brownists, who had fled to Leiden, Holland who called themselves saints and which Bradford their leader wrote in his journal as Pilgrims, they numbered 32 our of 102
There were four sects of Puritans that resented the corruption and rituals of the Church of Henry VIII, aka the Church of England or Anglicans. The Puritans had their own version as to how to purify the Church Henry founded.
The Brownists were radicals, the modern equivalent are Christian Reconstructionists or Dominionists https://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/fundienazis/royal_race.htm
These are Christian Taliban, and they sent out missionaries in the 18th and 19th Century in tent revivals know as the Great Awakening,sucked in a bunch ignorant farmers, including my ancestors.
IF the "why not" was NOT... ah... tongue-in-cheek (given your other thoughts, seems it might have been), would like to belatedly add my perspective on the birds and bees and the HIVs if you/anyone care(s) to read it. :)
Acquiring this perspective involved spending a decade and 72 billons of your tax dollars (2004-2014) attempting to mitigate the effects of consenting adults just 'having a good time' without sufficient information, self/other control, or public health 'precautions' (you may choose one or more).
Even IF there were NO fatal and disfiguring STDs (and, believe me there really ARE - & half of the top 8 are incurable) which are bad enough to endure, and yet more horrible to pass onto loved ones and children, and then for those who lose at roulette watch as your family dies a slow wasting and stigmatized death, ... there are STILL the multi-generational-lives-changing impacts of 'merely' getting pregnant when one is not economically and emotionally prepared to provide for a family.
And lastly, to which I can speak personally, the hormone driven emotional, psychological, and social 'unintended consequences' of what may be just 'having a good time' for one of the parties to the party, can lead to depression and suicide for the other.
Sex is delightfully and horribly potent.
There are deep reasons then, perhaps deeper than the thinking of some here it would seem, that all enduring cultures have lots of traditions, rules, superstitions, and sober advice about how, when, where, and with whom to have a good time. My own fore-bearers didn't dance, wore black, settled Nantucket Island and sent the horny young men to sea to chase whales. Oh, you guessed!
I 'm an old doc, and survived the deadly-innocent 60's as a teenager myself. Figured by 2023 most adults would appreciate the sheer mindlessness of the fantasy of a 'zipless' f***.
Puritanism aside, having sex with someone whose behavior for the past year(s) you aren't familiar and comfortable with, is simply not an individual's best play in the game of life.
In every aspect of our relationships with others, we should, exactly as you put it, 'learn to respect and treat people with love and kindness'.
This includes getting a sex education before sexing and a driver's license before driving.
Suspect the world would be better if people had to get a license before sexing, too, one that demonstrates they had an above C understanding of biology, hygiene, contraception, self-control, family economics, cultural and religious differences, ethics, compassion, literature, and psychology. And which, once tattooed on their forehead, assures to all in their orbit they are well aware of how powerful of a vehicle sex is for arbitrarily changing one's world - for better or for worse - in a moment.
In our species, sex is 'nature's go to tool' for a hard over-ride of such silly humanity-based understanding, compassion, culture and individual self-preservation, in the species' greater interest of somewhat more random chromosomal pairing - diversity remains the essential and vital substrate of natural selection.
Nature does not exactly favor allowing prudish human judgement regarding fidelity, hygiene, wisdom or compassion, to interfere with random exuberant sex among the fittest - and less sex with and among the rest of us – even if our enlightened self-interest may differ.
Think Flamenco! Humanity and human nature co-exist in a high tension dance.
But for a primal primer, suggest re-watching the episode of 'The Office' where 'Robert California' interviews for the position of manager. ;)
Priceless.
And so, “Why not?”: stigma, pain, poverty, disfiguring disease, and death.
Mark Twain had it right about sex in "Letters from the Earth."
Norman: You can't do that!!!! Oops. Too late. You already did. Can you synopsize his pithy, usually humorous wisdom for those of use who haven't read "Letters from the Earth? Thanks for the the convert referral.
Re: Letters from the Earth
The briefest of summaries, not at all worthy of even the tiniest comparison with Twain’s wonderful treatment, is that Christianity abhors sex and fun and drinking and carousing and all the things from which humans really and truly in their hearts take pleasure —and, if you toe the line 100 percent for your entire life and prove yourself worthy and have no fun whatsoever, you can be absolutely assured of getting to heaven, where there is absolutely no sex and no fun and no drinking and no carousing FOR ALL ETERNITY.
The book is available on Kindle and well worth the (very quick) read.
Norm
Hm, okay, so. Little humor in "Letters From the Earth," or call Mark Twain's wry humor (humor a little twisted from the norm, bitter, ironic, disdainful, sarcastic), like growling--at strange interest by culture or individuals in reading scripture. In it the word sex appears 15 times (F3 key to find in online copy of Letters From the Earth), and one reference, just for instance, says there is no sex in heaven (the afterlife), not mentioned in our Bible anyway, notes Twain. "His heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not a single feature in it that he actually values. It consists--utterly and entirely--of diversions which he cares next to nothing about, here in the earth, yet is quite sure he will like them in heaven. Isn't it curious? Isn't it interesting?" ... "To wit, that the human being, like the immortals, naturally places sexual intercourse far and away above all other joys--yet he has left it out of his heaven!" ... "From youth to middle age all men and all women prize copulation above all other pleasures combined, yet it is actually as I have said: it is not in their heaven; prayer takes its place."
Various commentary about the collection, "Letters from the Earth, (fiction, essays, notes) by Mark Twain, published posthumously. Compiled 1939, by Twain's 2nd literary executor, De Voto. Publication was held up until 1962 by Twain's daughter Clara." "A somber collection written after the death of Mark Twain's wife and one of his daughters. Satan writes a probing letter to his fellow archangels Michael and Gabriel about the inconsistencies of human religious faith." "During a difficult time in Twain's life, deep in debt, wife and one of his daughters having died. The book is a series of short stories, most deal with God and Christianity, from the point-of-view of a dejected angel on Earth. This title story is observations on the curious proceedings of earthly life and the nature of man's religions. By analyzing the idea of heaven and God that is widely accepted by those who believe in both, Twain is able to take the silliness that is present and study it with the common sense that is absent. Not an attack but a cold dissection. Other short stories in the book include a bedtime story about a family of cats Twain wrote for his daughters, and an essay explaining why an anaconda is morally superior to Man. Twain's writings in Letters From the Earth find him at perhaps his most quizzical and questioning state ever."
"Mark used a device which he had often used, in The Mysterious Stranger and later in "Letters from the Earth"--a traveler making observations on the illogicalities and absurdities of human civilization."
Wow! That's more info than I had hoped for. Thank you VJ Grimes. It's number one on my "to read ASAP" list. Thanks a heap.
Read Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents," his last book. Basically, it says that humans evolved by honing a desire to kill perceived threats and a very strong desire to reproduce. Civilizations arose to curb those urges so that people could live in groups.
A few years later, he collaborated with career diplomat William C. Bullitt on a hatch job on Woodrow Wilson, who in so many ways deserved it ..
Janet, - No, Freud did not base his hypothesis on Greek stories; he based them on what he considered empirical information gleaned from his patients during treatment. He then used his clinical impressions to point out where Greek legends and stage plays might reflect his clinically-based findings.
You are right that Freud was a product of his time - we all are, the moment we utter a sentence. But he was much more than that: his greatest contribution was his attitude and methodology: he saw humans as productes of their childhood development (and thus, in part, their family of origin), and he discovered ways of tapping into the content and meaning of this developemental trajectory.
We are right in being critical of specific aspects of Freud's theories. But he was not simple-minded: he didn't simply construct his theories out of classical Greek stories.
Janet, - Thank you for your comment.
It's interesting how early university learning can shape one's views in years to come. As a psychologist in two very different Australian university departments, I was initially trained in Social Learning Theory which was a combination of 'behaviourism' (broadly speaking), as applied to social psychology. Through my 40+ years as a clinical psychologist, I almost viscerally used the social learning framework. Academically, I received very little training in Psychoanalysis - either its history or veracity. In my practice, though, I was aware that my understanding of some aspects of my patients' attitudes and behaviours could be enriched by parallel thinking: thinking along both Skinner's model and Freud's. I therefore concluded that the two were useful and complimentary.
One thing I disliked about both of them was that they were deterministic - or, at least, claimed and seemed to be. I was attracted to Sartre's dictum, "We are condemned to be free", so in this respect I sometimes go beyond both theories. - I've also taken a passing interest in David Davidson's concept of 'weakness of will'. - But of course both theories might raise the question, "Why does the notions of 'freedom' and humanity's 'condemnation' towards it, attract me so much?"
As you say, this is not the forum to explicate - to present a full thesis.
I have actually seen a transcription of a letter where (a very young) Freud wrote to his mentor Charcot that he had felt the “lump in your throat” resulting from movement of the vagina when you are emotionally upset. I have no reply to that.
His last book is considered his best, and is worth reading. It's only about 100 pages long.
The Sexual revolution, an interesting concept considering sex has been anything but revolutionary. Whoever designed the act in the beginning messed up by adding an orgasm as the incentive. Maybe something a little less soul wrenching for a start. They should have known what was already in place was more than adequate. Eight billion people on this planet and almost all of them got here by their parents doing the same thing. How do you revolutionize something that is evidently perfect. I guess we will just have to live with the idea that sex is on everybody's mind all the time. Men love it, women love it, 8 billion might be the "_ucking" beginning of the end.
Without the orgasm there would be no people. Our four legged friends mate because of hormones. Humans needed something different,especially when it takes a human child at least 15 years to become self sustaining, meaning it needs to be cared for, cleaned, cultured until it can stand on it's own. Horses can run, just minutes after they are plopped on the ground from their mothers vagina.
That expanse of time, requires nurturing and protecting from both parents, even same sex parents.
People will always disagree with a hypothesis that they feel is harmful to their own ego and Id, that which comprises their sense of identity.m Especially if it is religious or political.
We're "obsessed" with sex, because, Darwinianly speaking, that's our sole purpose for being. As a species, in order to survive and prevail, we must reproduce. Those men and women most obsessed with this imperative are the ones who fought hardest for their mates, and survived. Those distracted by studying and thinking poetic thoughts about flora and other fauna, didn't fair as well in the impregnating game. Biology is "Just" Biology when we have the luxury of civilization.
Most of the problem lies within this religious mumbo-jumbo that they preach. It’s all about control and who has it.
I hate movies with sex scenes regardless of type. It is like those old cowboy movies riding on horses and shooting for at least half an hour. No talking and a waste of time.
My rant:
Im ready to toss my TV cable. I get so few good programs and movies. Not worth the money. Yes Netflix has gotten gross. Dark movies almost black you can barely see the actors, etc. So many foreign movies. I don't want Japanese dragon\monster movies. Etc. Many good movies and old series you have to pay more for, etc. Movies TV with my cable company Infinity are old and worthless. Blonde and gangster movies? The news full of lies and rush into wars. I read news on my pad. Too many ads on TV news and panels who are worthless. I know more than they do...special lawyers, political consultants, etc. Good ones who tell the truth are put off the air. Diversity is more important than the story. Who are some of these huge, over weight women in tight dresses? Body parts flowing out every where. Not sexy or stylish. Certainly not a Kate Smith talent. No it is not beautiful as they dance around or shout into the TV camera. Right after it is an ad to lose weight. LOL
Big fake eye lashes are ugly. One pretty Asian journalist with big fake eyelashes you can barely see her eyes. Bright red lipstick with very white teeth. Black big rim glass don't look good on anyone. Big glasses are out for everyone. Hire new wardrobe people TV channel news.
Remember when TV was free with little advertising? Cable cheap. Now it has as many as four commercials (same ones over and over) every 15 minutes. Limited movies and no good news programs. If I see one more Medicare Advocate and drug ad I'm going to scream. They are year round on so many stations. They are the same over and over.
I'm not needing to play with my grandchildren. When they are ten they are gone and don't know who you are. Send money. No thank you note. I want a drug which is affordable and doesn't kill me of something else.
The Abrahamic religions are obsessed with sex. It is the one human activity that the men who use god as a sock puppet are obsessed with. Control human sexual activities, and desires and you control the flock.
Something to consider, Why do we call pastors, priests shepherds?
The job of a shepherd is to tend the flock, keep it together till it is time for the fleecing and slaughter. The same as the job of the farmer or rancher, to keep the herd safe and corralled until it is time for the slaughter.
George Bernard Shaw said that the test of a first rate intelligence is to be able to hold two opposing ideas and still be able to function.,you qualify
I was a college student at St.Lawrence U starting in the fall of 67, just a few years later, but ‘in loco parentis’ still applied. One spring night after talking into the wee hours of the morning a classmate and I escaped the freshman dorm by climbing out the laundry room window just to breath in the spring air! The front door was locked of course. We threw stones on the window of a pal in the Junior dorm but he didn’t hear us!! The dorm officer did however. Unable to get back in, we wandered around the town of Canton, NY ( about 10 bars, a supermarket and a few gas stations all closed of course) we discretely returned to the dorm after 8 am, only to find a welcome committee waiting for us. There was a trial and to the prudish senior woman’s question “didn’t you know what you had done was against the rules”, I replied, “Some rules need to be broken!” Just imagine! I was punished with 1hour and a half ‘automatic’ ( my curfew for sophomore year earlier than the others). My friend was smart. She transferred to Columbia. I had a scholarship from the university and couldn’t really leave but I went on the Junior year abroad program a year later in France and never went back. Still live in France....
What an uncertain time in a young man's life, hormones, achene, fear, and of course girls. I remember the first-time things hinted at the activity you have suggested. My heart was beating so hard and so fast I was afraid my partner would hear it pounding against the walls of my chest. I began to shake uncontrollably with anticipation of what was to come. I was asked "Are you all right?" Verbal communication was becoming a problem because my shaking was distorting my speech. I kept saying to myself, "Men have been doing this for years and lived to tell of the deed, and I'm not a Praying Mantis there will be a tomorrow." Then she bit me in the neck. Great story Robert, it's. a wonder we made it through those times. I guess we as men owe it all to young women with steadier nerves, and a smile that we couldn't resist. My Grandfather told me of such a time, he advised me to seek the assistance of a good doctor and describe my problem, he'll prescribe two prescriptions. One is for "Sulfa-denial" the other, regrettably, is for "No-Ass-A-Toll." He was a wise man.
Hahahahaha! Donald, I spit out my coffee laughing so hard!! What a great story!!
Peggy--Life is full of them. LOL. I hope you had enough for another cup. Thanks for the like. Have a Happy Thanksgiving.
Thank you, Donald! Happy Thanksgiving to you, too!
Peggy--Be careful, I've always had a thing for younger women. Have a great day, "Young lady."
Trust me, Donald, I looked at young in the rearview mirror!! Thank you anyway!!
Hahaha.
Glad to know some of the guys were worse off than some of us girls.
The story REALLY brings me back. [Class of ‘68 from some college or other back then…. Freshman in ‘64-65 — The Wonder Years.]
Pat--You were the cause of it all. ------------------------------------Thank you.
😎 Ha!!! 🫣
Pat--Love that estrogen.
Ha!!! again …
Guys with no sisters haven't a clue.
Judith--I have 4 of them, does that mean I have four clues?
Four women who helped you relate to women...I hope.
Judith--I grew up in a family composed of 5 women and I was the only X/Y. Estrogen holds a special place in my heart.
Amazing outcome! I am enchanted, from the graduating class of 1969 of a State University. Co-ed, but the “rules” so archaic in retrospect. I’ll never go back! Rallying cry for election 2024.
Judith, yes, the rules were archaic and there are many in the Trump crowd who want to go back to those days where white men get to set the rules while they claim it is best for everyone. The attitudes were archaic too. The way the bussed women were targets of male rudeness, the female students on my campus were ogled and measured by the men at the larger university across the street that was mostly male at the time. I was a "1" on their scale and didn't mind a bit since I didn't like any of them either.
I would like to see the faces of Aileen Cannon, Boebert,MTG and all of the MAGAt females, if Trump wins and turns back the clock to 1850 in his Republic of Gilead.
William, I, too would like to see the reaction of those "ladies" when they find that no one cares if their family members die in childbirth or some other condition because ah well, too bad, they are just women. However, those pathetic Trumpettes would bow and scrape in their slavery as long as their Baby Donnie told them to do it. I am guessing it would last about a month before depression and other mental illnesses set in, just as they did for women 200 years ago, trying to be hubby's slaves.
I might have mentioned but my hobby is genetic genealogy, and I've got 61 years of research, and I am horrified by what I have discovered, from records, Not books, not opinions, but the records.
Men marrying two or three times, with each wife having 9, 10, 11 children, and the date of birth of the last of their children coinciding with their date of death, if not the same day then shortly thereafter.
This is what those MAGAt women have to look forward to the Republic of Gilead.
What puzzled me is why would women be misogynistic, but the same question for Clarence Thomas, Candace Owns, Tim Scott, Herschel Walker, Kanye, et al..the answer for that one seems obvious, everyone has a white spouse or girlfriend, and enjoy the benefits of being the white mans pet. The same applies to MAGA women. They are reaping benefits from being a foot stool, and as such are useful.
In one sense we are all victims of biology, In so much as there is little we can do about hormonal driven instincts, However we are also "victims" of culture.
In my view there is biological DNA and cultural DNA, there is one thing that distinguish us from the other animals. The ability to reason. We can alter and reject our cultural DNA, and contain and override our biological DNA.
Biological DNA and hormones, females to breed, yet many a woman overrides that need, such as my wife of 30 years, she never wanted a child, although she is great with other peoples children and likes them, but not for herself.
On the other hand, my 1st wife, mother of my children, wanted six children, and as a lowly enlisted man I could not afford six children, much less pay for the girls weddings and college for those that wanted it. I stopped at three with a vasectomy she never knew about.
Men, on the other hand, are motivated by sex and the pursuit of sex, and that leads to competitive behavior and violence. The need to acquire bright shiny things, like some birds, the need to dominate the female, and keep other males in check by being the alpha.
Kings waged war because the wanted a neighboring kings property. Men do the same thing today. If it is too costly, too much trouble to steal another's property, too hazardous to try and directly control it, not to mention the military and administrative nightmare and demands of the people, then make it a satrap, that you can extract resources, and control the titular ruler or government.
There you go, human behavior is driven by the reproductive imperative and it is biological, from that we get the territorial imperative, religion, politics.
We are slaves to hormones and genes but not all. Some can choose not to be slaves, then again we are slaves to something. Priests and Nuns forego biological imperatives, but then become slaves to their religion.
I suspect that if Pope Benedict VIII had not forbid priest to marry, there would not have been a reformation.
The motivation for the edict, was that when priests die, their estate goes to the Vatican treasury, if married the estate goes to the wife. dowers rights, or the male heir.
William, so very interesting! You point out well that human beings are complex and that we do have options. We don't have to go along with the crowd. We can make choices, that is if we are not forced to live under the thumb of a bunch of men who think they are smarter, wiser, more talented, more powerful than everyone else. They are usually smart enough but rarely brilliant. They just never had to grow up, so they, like a poorly parented toddler want what they want with no opposition. Why anyone wants to live under the thumb of a toddler is beyond comprehension, but it is clear they do. Trump is a good example, but he is certainly not the only one. There have always been women who are desperate to be part of the club so will sacrifice their being to men so they can be included or at least not abused as badly as when not included (a fantasy, of course). People of color in a white-dominated society will often do that too so they can be what they think is included. The people in power are not in the business of including those they don't like or respect. They are in the business of dominating and making those people think they're getting something special. I am not sure about people being enslaved to religion but I guess it can happen if the religion demands total loyalty and for its members to perform acts of destruction against others whether they are in or out of the faith. That's when people decide to turn their personal decision-making over to someone, usually one who cares nothing for them. Cults form when people come to believe their "leader" is somehow supernaturally endowed and will save them from those scary people. The cult leaders are so often toddler-adults who live in a fantasy world they are able to transmit to desperate people who find life too difficult to navigate. Trump has learned to use this with his cult members and has hooked so many of our media into assisting. If We the People had the will, we could stop a lot of this, but we have decided freedom of speech has no limits for Republicans these days. After all, they have the money and positions within states, communities, and our Congress and courts to make it so. I find it fascinating when Trump supporters are asked why they support Trump, they say something like "He stands for what I stand for" or "He gets things done" or some other such nonsense. On the rare occasions when there is a follow-up question, they can't name anything or will say immigration. One can't seem to get them to explain what they mean by that. We who care need to do more to get people to use their ability to think and reason. Now, how do we do that?
How dare they judge women on basis of appearance? Interest was not in our brains 🧠; suspect they will learn a lesson or two in 2024. I love to take courage and initiative in singing 🎶 along to the lyrics karyoke style on YouTube to “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy “hear me roar in numbers too big to ignore” my campaigning tool! 🎤🎼🎵🎶
Judith, I sure do wish we could reach those women who have been so brainwashed by white men to believe they were made to do whatever a man tells them to do. When they are in the throes of this insanity, they will follow nearly any man if he is loud and whiny enough. Just like the Trump they are clinging to. I guess they expect so little of men they will cling to someone who neither sees nor cares about those women, well, unless they are his type, then he can rape or use them in some other way to advance his political ambitions. How sad!
You have in mind Aileen Cannon, Boebert, MTG and all of them female MAGAts, especially the bitch with the bullhorn in front of the Capitol.
MTG did that yet no one mentions her sedition.
Anxiety in women, low self-concept, plus, can't pretend to ignore cash-ola, a woman that seemed to have little apparent capacity (or desire) for earning, learned to earn as quiet, possibly still-anxious, ornament. It's not for everyone. Whether a 10 that night, on the Freshman ("not affiliated with RR") scale, was not a lucky person, no one was. The ability to "get along" and then also not get chucked-out of university or college for sort of, acting your age, very confusing, all of it. Glad those times are gone for everyone, except maybe men, women, and girls on that-type-of far right.
Not limited to white men.
Women judge men on their perceived ability to protect them support them and produce progeny that will survive and be successful.
Men judge women on their ability to produce healthy mini me's.
That is why you see emphasis on breasts, hips, bubble butts, and facial attractiveness.
The rest settle, for what they can get.
Like it or not. Men size women up for sexual attraction, that is why you see men in a supermarket staring at an attractive and sexy woman.
Women do the same, but they look for signs that the man is strong, as defined by their class. Trailer Visit a trailer park, the kind with single wides, knock on doors and you will find the most attractive woman living with the most tattooed, muscled loud mouth in the park.
Check out the rich and famoous, and you will see the wifes of Rupert Murdoch and TFG and his mail order "model".
William - uhhhh... Maybe you've watched too many of the super salacious and OMG hideous TV shows about "The Wives of former Olympic Bob Sledders" But now 70 plus years into the women's revolution - Women cannot believe the backlash against our leveling up on the global playing field. finally having the ability to not only have sex and enjoy the hell out of it -and 2nd by controlling if and when we get pregnant if you and your body want to stay pregnant. The biggest backlash of all is towards "Half The Sky" or what NY Times columnist and author Nicholas Kristoff described them - half of the worlds population have gained the power to self determination - and half the sky for this big beautiful world is NOT going back. Women are great leaders, they have ambition beyond what to make for dinner. We're way beyond what we would like as a stud muffin or who looks to be the best provider...
Hormones move our lives and turn our heads for an intense period of time. But most of us just want the respect women deserve and paid the equal wage to me which is what we've earned. And these days -we just want to lead the world to a better place - and its time you trusted us to stand by your side to do it.
The thing -
Judith L Hubbard, hell no we won't go!
What state university was archaic?
“Rules” were archaic at my “Sweet Home Alabama.” Could not wear slacks of any kind outside dormitory, or rooms. Not even to jog over to Student Union to get mail. Always skirts, dresses or the savior, a raincoat over all. From 1965 until 1969.
Let’s not forget going out with a gentleman caller. Signing out at the dorm house mother’s office when leaving and checking back in. Bed check every night. Judiciary council.
We woman have always been treated like we can't be trusted. Some couldn't but every society has young like that. At college you are mostly over eighteen years old. A responsible adult.
Exactly; many students now live as adults in apartments. Much preferable I think.
Oh, and curfew was ? Early. Cannot recall. A very long time ago.
Vive la liberté ? 🤔
Wonderful story. Where in France do you live?
Ahh. The excesses of youth exceeded only by the excesses of authority.
Glad you survived it.
We learn more from our mistakes than from our adherence to the rules. Experience truly is the best teacher. It is also the most expensive. Thank you for sharing.
A great story of the times and place. I had a related situation when a pre- med student was failing my Physics undergraduate course. He complained he would be going to Vietnam if I gave him an F. I took my concern to the Dean who responded - don't worry Frank, he is failing all of his courses; and away he went.
That’s incredibly sad.
Agree.
It's incredible when you look at the changes in society that have happened within living people's lifetimes.
I'm not sure undergraduates today would believe the restrictions that existed on their parents or grandparents. My mother (born 1938) talks about the fact that married women weren't allowed to work in the public service, nor could any woman get a bank account, sign contracts, or get a mortgage without a male guarantor (father, husband etc). Although, to be fair to Australia, it was very early in allowing women the vote. The rights of indigenous people remain a disgrace, sadly, although things have improved for LBQTQI people.
The fact that "fornication" was the basis for college expulsion would be seen as bizarre and a violation of human rights.
On a wider perspective, I still don't think that many people realise that we are still living through an absolutely unprecedented time in human history, thanks to the invention of the oral contraceptive pill.
Never in history have woman, and families, had effective control over if or when they reproduce.
The ramifications of this in the economy, societal and family structure, etc are still reverberating today.
Much of the reactionary rhetoric of the "make America great again" movement is as much a dog whistle to putting women "back in their place" prior of the Pill as it is to racism and xenophobia. The fact they make common cause with their fellow travellers in the evangelical Christian movement who take a (IMHO) frankly misogynistic view of the role of husband and wife in marriage thus comes as no surprise.
Yes, and I can't believe there are women who would want to go back to the pre-pill days just to be baby machines. They must have very low self esteem.
Margaret, I whole heartedly agree with you!! The far right women want all of us to be like the Stepford wives for heavens sake!! There is no way I would do that! We women that have brains need to protest and chant Hell no we want go!!
Perhaps showing anything other than low self esteem would get them killed. “Uppity” women who don’t know their place. You need allies to escape from bondage.
I've been doing genealogy since 1962, and can't count the number of times that I have seen men using wives as breed cows, more than one case of a man who literally screwed his first wife to death, died in the birth of her 11th child, he remarried and did he same to his second wife, she died and remarried again wash, rinse repeat. Very common in the 19th Century, and many a woman died in child birth, very common.
It’s impossible for me to believe that such men don’t understand what they’re doing. It’s more than egoism. It’s sadistic. Thank goodness for the pill.
Not sadistic it was the norm at the time. Women were considered breed cows, nanny's sexual and domestic servants.
Until the middle of the 19th Century ,and not universal even then, fathers were responsible for tutoring their sons, girls were not tutored as they were expected to get married and serve a husband. The 10% would tutor their daughters and send them off to finishing school to learn how to act like a gracious host, read poetry and play a harpsichord , there purpose was to entertain her husbands associates and people that he needed to impress.
When the father died, the children were considered orphans and were disposed of by an Orphans Court, if one was not established or available within a days ride in an oxen or horse drawn wagon, then they were divided up among relatives and neighbors who used them as free labor.
One of my distant cousins, 4th cousin two or three times removed if I remember correctly died. His widow had to go to court to prove that she had the resources to tutor her children, she won, and kept her own children.
Yes & relevant role models.
Or they have no clue. I suspected that’s some of it. Do people like Nikki Haley, MTG, and Lauren Boebert think they’re immune? Fat chance!
I think partners, male or female, who have to be the boss, are weak and insecure.
I absolutely agree Mary. My wife and I have a great relationship, we love and need each other and neither doubts it.
Contrary to stereotypes she is the expert in so many thing. She is a retired building official., was a building inspector, a journey man carpenter, plumber, electrician and pest applicator., and contractors are amazed at what she does with dry walling, no slapping on tape and covering it with popcorn, she sands, applies, sands again until the walls and window sills are smooth and flawless, just as they used to do, decades ago, back when they were craftsmen,not tradesmen rushing from job to job.
When I am stuck in a task I call on her, and before I even try something unfamiliar I call on her, in turn she relies on me to take care of administrative stuff like paying the bills (done a good job, we have no debts, mortgages or car payments), wills and administration and keeping the check book balanced.
Agree
Absolutely Margaret, that and they think that their bread is better buttered, by being a camp follower.
Brainwashed.
Stephen, you are so right about the changes. My grandmother had 5 kids during the depression when she couldn't even afford to feed one; my grandfather was often out of work. My mom was an amazing woman who could have done anything as far as jobs go, but because her family had no money, she had to go through the secretarial program in high school, no college. There were few jobs available to women and when they married, most of the time white women, even poor ones were supposed to pop a bunch of babies and care for them and the hubby as their life's work. Raising kids is critically important to our society but it should be a shared task. Men somehow secretly know how hard it is so don't want to do it. If they keep women down, barefoot and pregnant, over and over for decades, the men can take back everything they think they have lost with women in the work force. Hey foolish white men, and the others, it isn't going to happen. Women have always found ways to work around their men. Now we have more tools and a bunch of other women willing to help. So, how do we get white Republican women to realize they don't have to swallow the BS and that despite their claims, men are no better than women, possibly not even as capable.
" So, how do we get white Republican women to realize they don't have to swallow the BS ..." Your dealing with fear. Fear of being held accountable for your actual worth, IMO.
Religion has a lot to do with it for many I think. When “God“ is described as all powerful and loving, but throws moral people into an eternal hell because they don’t bow down and worship him, it prepares the psyche for all kinds of paradoxical beliefs and behaviors.
You don't, at least not until their hubby leaves them for a younger or more attractive model, that makes them feel like a man.
Many college educated women have left the party. Our major problem is with non college educated voters, mainly white men and women.
Meanwhile, even today there are some colleges with parietal hours. No singing, no dancing on campus. No tobacco, booze. Here's my ol' pappy's alma mater. https://www.geneva.edu/about-geneva/identity/history-heritage#:~:text=Geneva%20College%20was%20founded%20and,academic%2C%20athletic%20and%20student%20activity.
Grove City. In 2012, The Princeton Review listed Grove City College as the 2nd most LGBT-unfriendly school in the United States. In 2013 Grove City was at #1 in the Princeton Review’s rankings of most LGBT-unfriendly schools in America. As of 2016, they were ranked 9th. By refusing to accept federal funds and so-called Title IV financial aid (from the Higher Education Act of 1965), Grove City is not required to adhere to various federal guidelines that (i) prevent sex-based and many other forms of discrimination (e.g., Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972), (ii) regulate investigations into accusations of sexual abuse, (iii) require the collecting and sharing of information about crimes on campus (Clery Act), and (iv) set standards for disciplinary proceedings (Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act).
My uncle was a Southern Baptist preacher he constanly lectured on the evils you mention Daniel. When it came to alcohol, I asked him about Jesus drinking wine and even turning water into wine (which was the favorite trick of Dionysos, the Greek god of wine and celebrated on Dec 25 with the Dionysia (Roman Bacchanalia).
He waived me off by saying that it was grape juice not wine. All of them from Rabbi, Priest to Imam, make up their own rules, using a sock puppet they call god, Jesus or Allah.
Capitalism isn’t friendly to the production of children; there’s no profit in it. Once cheap contraception became available, the birth rate in the USA started an inevitable decline, so that now our population growth is negative. Like the biblical Eve, once women take a bite of the apple, there’s no going back.
If the Republicans really wanted women to have children, they would pay for childcare and family leave.
Key problem: do Republican men want to pay for anything related to women? No. Remember those b**t**ds in Congress who were upset that their insurance premiums included coverage for women's health?
Yet they demand that insurance pays for penis surgery, viagra, and testosterone drugs.
Don't forget about the many ads for peyronies "disease". Women have received and continue to receive bottom of the barrel status FOREVER globally, yet we are the majority gender. Time to step up, ladies!
Right you are Gloria. It isn't about babies, they don't give a shit about them after their born, they actually want to gut out SNAP and WIC.
The real motive is that they are pissed and afraid of women rejecting their sperm, and becoming independent. They only way they can get it up is with viagra, so they want to push women back to 1850, so they don't have to rely on pills for an erection.
Sounds trite and simplified, but tis true.
I suspect that the ruling class wants cheap labor; and they want parents, not corporations, to pay for child care. Fewer women than ever buy into that bargain. Isn’t that why the birth rate has fallen?
Two working in a family now to survive. They can't afford a lot of children.
With global over population, why is a voluntary decline in birth rate bad?
Not bad at all.
Actually it is when women become educated, that's why the Taliban and Islam halt women's education. Where they can I wonder if the UN, NGO's or Red Cross have investigated women's education in Gaza or the West Bank, I don't think so.
All males and females in the Gaza Strip enjoy public education through 12th grade and many men and women attend the several four year universities there. Of note, all students study English for their entire 12 years of public education.
Thanks.
Question. You know this how?
Nine years service at US embassy Tel Aviv, four of them working exclusively in the Gaza Strip, four years as Political Counselor, and one year as Senior Advisor for the Peace Process. Constant monitoring of situation since 1991, and private visits to Gaza of up to three months. Regular communications to this day with a wide variety of Gazans of various political persuasions.
Yes, education includes understanding one’s economic condition.
It isn’t capitalism that persuaded women to have fewer children. Birth control in all its forms allowed women the freedom to choose when and if they wanted to be mothers. Prior to birth control, celibacy was the only guaranteed way to limit when or if a woman had a child.
You could get your tubes tied before the pill. Or men a procedure.
Agreed: capitalists don’t argue for fewer children, and neither do socialists. A few years ago, I learned that the German Nazi regime awarded medals to women who birthed 4+ children. The gold medal went to mothers of 8+ kids. Hitler’s goal was to have plenty of soldiers in the breach. The USA has no such program although, except for the Marines, the Department of Defense recruiting numbers continue to fall short of their goal. The socialist side of the US economy (the DoD) that would benefit from an increased birth rate — as would the capitalist side, which always seeks the cheapest labor. I understand that having kids is a primal issue, and that relegating it to some sort of economic question is an overreach. However, we do have a declining birth rate, and I suspect the cause is economic rather than primal urge.
Hitler also kidnapped blonde children for his Arian race.
And Hitler had the Lebensborn program. Young girls impregnanted by chosen SS, and children ripped away from mother almost at birth.
And the young girls lined up for the program, and were sad if they weren't accepted.
Propaganda was used on the youth. Many turned on their parents to support Fascists agenda.
Yes, of course. In the 1980s, I got acquainted with Catholic German women who as children couldn’t join the Hitler Youth and were disappointed. No judgement here: we’re all shaped by our environment.
@ Stan of Stanistan: There's an argument to be made that more kids = more benefits. Some churches provide benefits just like the government.
There IS again talk in some of those religious circles against contraception …. which I find positively gobsmacking.
Not in the Protestant Churches. Sorry to offend our Catholic brothers and sisters, but the insistence (until the current Pope agreed to contraception) of no contraception drove poor Catholics into increasing poverty.
I believe that contraception should be free to all women.
It was a numbers game. No birth control, meant more Catholics, more Catholics meant more treasure in the Vatican bank.
Watching a show about Life on This Planet that chronicles the hundreds of billions of years life has come and gone and come back again — one of the great extinctions was apparently precipitated by a combination of climate elements and an overabundance of PLANKTON, with a great die-off and resulting cataclysm.
Who thinks an overabundance of human beings NOT taking care of our atmosphere could precipitate a cataclysm? Show of hands …
So, what do we think about the advisability of encouraging more kids and less birth control…
The Pill, the BCP, was invented by a good Catholic who lived his whole life with sense he did a good thing. He felt it's GOOD, people that love each other can avoid dread of what it means to have sex. He got told no, some arbitrary reason. A bunch of guys decided. A coworker was getting married Catholic, the pastor told her, "And you won't be using contraception." She said that she said, "I will." "You won't." "But, I will." He didn't respond to her final assertion, and there was a wedding. Catholics aren't against contraception. I mean, SHE is a Catholic. PS A woman does not NEED a menstrual period, but manufacturers put in 7 days of sugar-pills to allow for break-through bleeding, shedding a lining, to (I don't know but imagine) seem sort of normal.
I agree with your beliefs, but your assertion that all protestants accept contraception is incorrect. There’s a growing movement in white evangelical, protestant churches that contraception equals abortion.
There is more than talk. There is outright, chilling activism that is most visible in the forced-birth movement and attempts to overturn, invalidate, or ignore the overwhelming support the voters have shown for ensuring abortion access in states that have put out ballot measures since our billionaire-donor owned SCOTUS became so overt in legislating from the bench in favor of the donors who own them.
Reading @Jessica Valenti’s Abortion Every Day coverage on Substack is one of the best ways I have found to ensure I understand exactly how Republicans and the evangelical wingnut-o-sphere frame their messaging and their efforts to destroy the rights of women and undermine democracy in general. https://open.substack.com/pub/jessica?r=1pfwwf&utm_medium=ios
All RW churches opposing abortion and interfering in our lives for their own agenda should lose tax exempt status. Separation of church and state. Supreme Court violates it.
Justice Thomas seems to be in that school of opinion too - 'thought' would be too strong a word. The prospect of more Thomases should be a real selling incentive for all forms of contraception.
Good Grief! This blows my mind to smithereens! But explains some of what I have observed sadly.
Indeed, beyond astonishing.
And those were the days of Mrs. [Husband's first name] [Husband's last name]. My mother and many others referred to themselves that way for years. Back when I was young in the 1960s and 1970s it was an everyday thing. I see it now occasionally and it is truly jarring.
I was compiling my church membership roll from its inception in 1927, and the Session records (into the late 60s for sure)without exception listed women who joined the church as “Mrs. so-and-so” — there was no way to ascertain a woman’s first name.
That is such a shame, isn't it. The woman is not seen as a separate person from her husband. I suppose if finding the women's names were an important consideration (and I would think it probably ought to be) you could start with a check of last names at findagrave.com and legacy.com, and then do some digging through the newspaper obituaries for the ones who don't turn up on the web.
My mother was born in 1914 and attended a small women's college for one year before the stress of The Great Depression resulted in her leaving. She had to remain in her dorm room one weekend for simply calling a hello to a woman friend walking below her window. I sometimes wondered if she transferred her feelings of injustice to me, in order that my fight for justice would also validate injustices she endured.
Women were mean to women. Arbitrary for someone to decide, calling Hello to a friend is a crime.
Not misogynistic with Christians. But Paul in the New Testament explains the hierarchy very well. We follow the scriptures. But there are always the bullies that masquerade as Christians and abuse their wives. That by any man is an abomination in my eyes.
Sorry, but misogyny under the banner of religion is still misogyny, whether it's a husband's dominion in a covenant marriage, a burkha in Islam or an honour killing in Hinduism.
Stephen it is Islamics that kill their daughter in the name of honor. The Hindu practice was immolating the wife, when the husband died. Forbidden by law, but it still happens the practice is called sati a former practice in India whereby a widow threw herself on to her husband's funeral pyre.
a widow who committed sati.
plural noun: suttees; plural noun: satis
Much of that has changed.
I know that. I am not ignorant or unaware, However the operative phrase in your response is "much of that".
It still happens.
You seem very well educated. Sorry if you got that idea.
Nope, plenty of honour killings amongst Hindu populations in India. See https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2455632719880852.
Thanks for the update. Come to think of it I was thinking of Pakistan, but now that you brought it up, Pakistan and India were once the same country So maybe it is a cultural thing,
Phil, Paul said that they should not speak and if they want to learn anything ask their husbands. I have read the bible cover to cover, first at age 12, then age 40, and turn to it frequently to make sure I am correct.
Those are not bullies masquerading as Christians, they are indeed Christians following their Gospels.
I have also studied Islam, the Quran, haddiths and biography of Mo by ibn Ishaq, and was called an apostate Muslim by one, because by their reckoning someone who knows their "scriptures" so well, HAS to be a Muslim.
Aunt taught high school chemistry in the '60s, when there was a women's pay scale and a men's pay scale. Understanding was, men had families to look after. My aunt had 3 children, 1950s, and a husband that was a physician until mental health failed, probably starting when he was in university but not understood. Aunt raised children and helped him on a less-than males' salary. Took his own life 70s. The house she rented (in small town with high school teaching job, 50s to 70s), the landlord was a spinster after the war, arms-length transaction, not friend or family, never raised the rent for 20+ years from the day they moved in! Aunt had 5 uncles survive (post war), their wives, and her own mother, ensured they were visited and looked after. It wasn't a man's world, they smoked, drank, and suffered PTSD. And it wasn't a woman's world. The 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, was maybe not great for anyone except maybe for young kids (unless father had PTSD and treated kids not well).
In the 70s my father left my mother with nothing but a mortgage, he took their investment certificates from her jewelry box. There was zero credit-rating for a woman, her name was Missus and then his first and last name. There was nothing for women.
When I remarked on grandmother and 5 aunts all being landlords in converted homes, my brother explained, it was called "a widow's pension" to own property ... and be able to survive by running boarding house, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, that fed and housed spinsters, widows, singles from farms to urban for work, and to wounded veterans. I was born in a retirement town, from ages mid-life to elderly, men, missing a limb, was not uncommon.
In the 1950's my mother worked as a bank anaylst. Her pay $1 an hour. She was responsible for training new hires, which were men of course. Come time for annual pay raise, The man she had trained got a raise. She didn't. When she complained that she trained the man, she was told. Well he has a family . She said "do so I", her boss responded find a husband to support you.
When I went to university the male professor said he disapproved of women in his science classes. We stayed anyway. Few women went into science. It was mostly men. I liked working with men better than women. My salary was better, etc. Women didn't support each then. Since many lived at home they took lower salaries, etc.
When I moved to Connecticut women still weren't allowed to stand or sit at the bar.
Connecticut was found by a radical puritan name of Roger Williams.
Ben Franklin fled Boston because it was puritanical.
Massachusetts was required to rewrite it's constitution to be secular, before it could join the Union.
I was a freshman in college in 1967. Freshmen had to live in the dorms. Girls had “hours” (I once got a 15 second late slip.) but boys didn’t. Girls had to make their own beds, but boys didn’t. BCPs were for married women only and abortion was illegal. Girls were expected to become teachers and nurses. I had wanted to do something in computers but had been told that the only thing girls could do was keypunch. My daughter graduated from Purdue University with a degree in chemical engineering. She had a really hard time imagining what life had been like for me at her age. btw, I went back to school and became a programmer and retired after 30+ years in all aspects of IT from programming on punched cards through web design and ended my career as an IT director. I have no intention of letting people limit my granddaughters.
I remember those darned punch cards. I went to college in the mid 70's after that period. College for me was fun, a little wild, but my growing up time. I had no regrets.
Me too. The university had a missile computer for student classes. Drop off your punch cards to be read.
I took a course in "Computer Operations" in 1970 when mainframe computers had their own air conditioned room (which was NO SMOKING when ppl still endured second hand smoke in offices). Got a certificate that I only used in one job, key punching cards. Then I dropped out and didn't come back to computers until 1995 when I got my first PC.
I remember punch cards, and the sorting machine that was in 1958, that's what NASA used to send man to the moon, and the Air Force used for North American Defense
I think this article is so sad, even the fornication part and the penetrating question. I know some of you will find it funny. I just think it's horrifying.
I felt such sadness, too, Maria - for everyone involved! I'm so very glad that times changed! I was in my teens in the '60s and recall it being such a difficult and confusing time in so many ways. Despite the excitement of those years, I wouldn't go back there for all the tea in China and I'm glad I didn't have to raise my son in those times.
Private colleges are different than public. I was lucky to go to a state university. Women students treated better.
Paying customer
If 40 - 50 % of America has its way, we will find ourselves in a time machine, and not just 1950 but 1850
Maria, I am sure Professor Reich was not attempting to make anyone sad. Sometimes we have to look at situations with a bit of levity so that the really scary stuff can be handled.
Yes, it IS very sad - especially the part about being "deported" (that's what I would call it!) to Vietnam! But without black humor, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to survive!
I have a bad feeling when I read praise for the story. No doubt the writing is good, but I agree, it's sad that Dr. Reich was so eager to be a "big man on campus" that he resorted to using young women that way. I think he has that insight now.
He had another similar revelation about those days last year or so here and I posted how I was relieved at least he learned from his mistakes. It seems there are a lot of men who don't.
Sounds like you were damaged from your past.
Sounds like you never left yours.
Not too clever retort. Did I hurt your feelings? Sound like I did. My unwanted device, get over it and get on with your life.
😄😄You started this shit, snowflake. Deal with it.
Retort? On the contrary. Like you, I made an observation. Unlike you, mine was accurate.
You made me laugh coming on here making your troll amateur comments. Fortunately for you, you're too predictable to waste any more time on.
🙂👋
I don't think what Prof. Reich did under the circumstances was wrong. I think he reacted to the circumstances based on his elected position. It could have turned out much worse but evidently didn't. The same things were happening around the nation and led to needed changes. These "men" were being drafted and many killed. They certainly knew what might be in store.
I don't know that women, with the opportunity to get together with young guys, felt used. The times were same as always, doing something daring and youthful, age appropriate, young women didn't feel used. Making friends with guys, I don't think anyone thought it would necessarily end up with sex (without consent, "assault," even then). Guys can talk, and chat and laugh with women, try to be admired, enjoy admiring, even then, even without thinking "this" has to end with a conquest. People were happy, cheerful, enjoyed each other's company. It wasn't sex, it was age appropriate get-togethers. People do that even now sometimes. Gatherings, banter, chips, and playing mild games like pool? Don't young people still do stuff like that?
Maybe in another world, VJ. A kinder, civilized world. Universities across the nation do everything in their power to suppress the percentages of young women raped on their campuses, to the point to these women do not have legal recourse outside of the matter being "dealt with" by the schools. Meantime their rapists are still attending classes. 🤨
What universe do you live in. A young male, full of testosterone. All he thinks of , all he talks of is sex. Ever hang around a locker room, a bar,.
You have never left that world, in your head. 🤨
A lot of us lived through it!
You're right, Maria, it IS horrifying. 😐
You find reality horrifying Maria? Don't leave your home, stay off the internet and TV, that way you will find peace of mind, until.........
Agree. Hideous.
I went to Mount Holyoke. Freshman in 1971. I was on one of those busses to Dartmouth for a “mixer” once. Hearing us rated on the scale of 1-10 was both horrifying and disgusting! I got off the bus though. Some young man decided to follow me the entire evening despite my attempts to get as far away as possible. A week or so later, I got a letter declaring his love also stating he would throw himself off if a balcony if it weren’t reciprocated. A year later I decided to transfer to a coed college closer to my home.
That's so sad. I'm sorry for your experience. Stalking laws help a bit, but don't change the underlying cause. I hope your experience at a college closer to home was a positive one.
I didn’t dislike my first year and a half at MHC. I’m from GA. I just needed to be a little closer to home and to get there faster should I want or need to. I still keep up with a friend I made there. Also, NE is beautiful! I’d move there if I could afford to do so.
My grandmother graduated from Mt Holyoke in 1904. Yes 119 years ago.
She had a great Dad?
❤️
A beautifully told, poignant story. While reading it, I thought that although Giff physically survived the Vietnam War, I doubt that he did so without undergoing a painful transformation relative to his own mortality that he wouldn’t have been forced to endure unless he had been expelled from the collegial cocoon. However, it also occurs to me that your role in his expulsion ignited your own inner war--one that compelled you to confront your own fragile humanity. Much respect for having the courage to share it here.
Some like a friend of mine went to Vietnam and then to university after that. I encouraged him cause he was smarter than he thought. He almost didn't get into the eye doctorate program because of his age. Vietnam put a lot of young men out of the work and college world experience. Their benefits not as good as the WWII generation for education, housing, jobs, care, etc. He joined but we still had the draft. Another lie of a war like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sir, your stories move me & your daily commentary may even calm me when I fear the state of our country & the world. Thank you for your voice & most importantly, your heart.
I commend you for writing this story. It made me cry as I remembered experiences I had as a woman, just for being a woman. I also remember meeting sweet, shy guys, but as a shy one myself, I cringe at the memory of not having any skills to know how to approach and interact with these guys. I was never supposed to be the initiator in that era, but I somehow recognized it was a mutual challenge. And now, as a parent of a kind, but introverted 19-year-old living on his college campus, I'm not sure we have made much progress with creating opportunities for young people to learn communication skills or in reassuring them that they will get past their awkwardness with more practice. (Alcohol takes that place, unfortunately.) I've tried with my son, but can't compete with social media. And that is another topic altogether. Thanks for your honest and poignant share. As always, your posts/newsletters reverberate for me and touch my heart and brain!
It’s been quite a ride for all of us. I was a young woman who was rated daily 1-10 when I dared to get lunch outside my workplace. We’ve all come a long way (I hope). Thank you for recognizing what a wrong that was and pointing out the ridiculous hypocrisy of that era.
Did women rate men on a 1-10 scale?
I loved college. I remember guys being nice and knowing which ones were smart. My friends had good grades. No number ranking guys.
I loved school and could have been a perpetual student. So many new things to learn.
It is obvious to me that women rate men too. I always seemed to end up with a "friend zone" rating! I found that women with a low rating compensated by being much more interesting and fun to be with.
I’ll be more clear. The men would stand on a sidewalk with large cards printed with numbers 1-10 and flash group ratings as women walked by. If they thought she was unattractive, they’re flash a low number and hoot and laugh. This took place on the busiest street in town-it was almost impossible to avoid them without adding too much time to a short lunch break. It went on for months. I can’t remember exactly what shut them down. As I recall, some women got together and started rating them and they didn’t like it-some stopped and it eventually stopped.
Totally unacceptable behavior! Men who do this are not "real men" and "losers" in my opinion.
Like today. People lack manners.
We're they construction workers, or just a bunch of men standing around doing nothing?
Bank employees on their lunch breaks.
No, women do not rate men--not the same. I think women feel competitive, so seeing or chatting with someone attractive requires keeping it quiet, taking time and opportunities to see if "he" notices her value as well, so they both can appreciate that "who" she is, and not what she looks like, is that which is attractive.
Men, eye women for sexual attractiveness and really don't care about who she is, maybe later in life. The unattractive and/or low IQ males settle. Unless they are a Trump, then their money will "buy" as many wmen as they can afford.
As Trump said, if you are rich and famous, you can grab them by the p......y.
Dorks that can't find an American women, find a mail order bride, whose interest is totally monetary.
Many times I have looked at a man's choice or vice vera and wondered why.
As the song goes "If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, make an ugly woman your wife.
Early 70's I remember Yes or No. I don't recall any of my friends rating on a scale, but I'm pretty sure it's not on any "scale" compared to the men.
Interesting that it was a Go/No-Go decision for women. I wonder where the 1-10 scale came from. As I think back 50+ years, the Go/No-Go scale was used by me and my friends as a default, unconsciously.
Stan, I think women do rate us men, but they have just a two-point scale, 0 or 1. We are much more discerning with our 10-point system. [just kidding].
Some women where I worked told me that they did rate men.
One can hardly call it a 'Get On The Bus' moment... but transport yourself back to the time of Y2K: of all of the entrepreneurial ideas that had collided with The Internet, what would one least expect from the men in a college engineering honors society (to say nothing of the one just across the street from Professor Reich's office at U.C. Berkeley)? Truth be told, 'amihotornot.com' was a faithful reproduction of real-world objectification - and, in going on to survive for more than a decade, proved to be quite resilient to reprisal (which, given an 85/15 gender split, would likely have been difficult).
History really does repeat itself - in so many ways ("the more things change, the more they stay the same" they say)...
Your touching story warmed the cockles of my heart. I do not believe yours was political hypocrisy, for it is not up to human beings to be of such singularity of mind to fight off and solve every contradiction we are faced with, it’s probably not even possible without destructive bias to one or the other side. Those contradictions belong to life itself; you did not invent them and you cannot resolve them. Ordinarily they are solved by history (as was the case with this issue), not by a young class president. You obliged the students (the busloads), you obliged the handbook (the expulsions), the brutal inconsistency lies in the world, not in your flawed behavior.
A great story brilliantly told. Thanks
Francine Achbar
I agree, and I had a great time in college! But Giff's story reminded me of my high school friends who couldn't afford to go to college. Several went to Vietnam and came back with PTSD. Two returned in a coffin.
Beautiful story, from a beautiful man, and i hope you inform the Moth radio hour podcast so that millions can hear it told. I'd love to hear if you eventually connected more deeply with Giff. Someone should edit stories like this from famous progressives like yourself, with all the profits going to fund organizers to work in swing states through (sorry for this shameless promotion), AdoptAnOrganizer (bit.ly/AAAOA)
And so it appears that outgoes the dictator, and incomes person with empathy! What is delightful transition.
Oh, the times they do change. Wonderful story sir. Thank you.
They say morality and social norms swing back and forth.