From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Newsgroups: soc.men
Subject: Feminists Growing Old Alone (was: Japanese Women's Lib)
Date: 14 Apr 92 21:14:23 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <1992Apr14.064751.24560@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:

>	For my part, I think that Clarence Thomas was a boor to
>discuss the exploits of Long Dong Silver to someone who clearly didn't
>enjoy it.

Assuming he actually *did* this, I would agree it to be a boorish
act. But now feminists seriously propose to CRIMINALIZE boorishness??!!

>
>	Stable? Have you ever heard of the "battle of the sexes"? Why
>in the world were ancient Greek killers depicted as Amazon killers? It
>is as if the men felt that they had to keep the women under control,
>as if they were not naturally submissive.

I said that the traditional model made long-term stable relationships
*possible*. I never said it was easy!  :)


>	Do you have direct experience of same-sex couples??? You could
>always hop on the CalTrain at the San Jose Amtrak station and an hour
>and a half later, you will be in a place with lots of gay people to
>observe at first hand.

What makes you think I *have not* done this? Let me recommend to you
a Thai restaurant on 18th St. near Castro that serves excellent
food, and is a wonderful place for people-watching. Right across
from the Midnight Sun, and near the 'AIDS community drop-in centers'.
I assume you've been there?  

In any case, you didn't address the main question: given that even
same-sex couples typically have one partner with a tendency to be
dominant over the other, why has it become High Holey Dogma that this
is an inadmissible, inexcusable, and just plain horrible model
for husband and wife?

>:voluntary. A woman who wants to live by herself is free to do so.
>
>	"Always free to do so"? Is breaking up a marriage the easiest
>thing to do? Is finding a suitable partner? Sheesh.

I didn't say "breaking up" a marriage was easy, or even desirable. I said
that a woman doesn't have to 'put up with men' unless she WANTS to!
Nobody is forcing her to marry.

>:will have a far better chance of finding a suitable mate than
>:she will. Surely you have not failed to note the great likelihood
>:that an uncompromising feminist will grow old alone; go to any New Age
>:gathering here in the Bay Area, and you will find it filled with
>:unattached, intense, and aging Goddess-worshippers, perusing every kind
>:of "psychic" flim-flam and "wholistic" twaddle in a desperate
>:search for meaning in their lives. 
>
>	Maybe she might not want to get married.

Many don't, and never do. My experience is, though, that even the most
militant feminists (except for actual lesbians), once you know them
well enough for them to say what they really feel, DO want a lifelong
marriage to one man (even if they won't *trust* the son-of-a-bitch!).


> A woman I used to be going
>:with once said to me, "Oh, that old lady next door is so dependent on
>:her husband, just like a typical woman of her generation."
>:And I wanted to reply (but held my tongue), "Well, SHE is still
>:married, you are not." So it is all voluntary, you see. We all make
>
>	Maybe that one-time girlfriend of yours feels she would rather
>select a more suitable partner, rather than be stuck with someone
>unpleasant.

This is not only a personal insult in extremely poor taste, it's
downright inaccurate. (She is still unmarried, by the way, several
years later; she would like to get remarried, but she's in her 40s, and
the odds are strongly against her.)
-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

     "In the 1970's the world will undergo famines - hundreds of millions
     of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs 
     embarked upon now ... in 1985, when it is calculated [under the most
     optimistic scenario] that the major die-back will be over, ..."
       
                       Dr. Paul Ehrlich, "The Population Bomb," 1968
Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women,talk.abortion,alt.abortion.inequity