From: ecsd@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic)
Subject: Re: ISO Bi-Fem and Girlfriend
Organization: TRW Financial Systems
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 14:02:41 GMT

muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:

>johnb@math.orst.edu (John Bainbridge) writes:
>> I find it ironic that frequently women (and men too for that matter)
>> complain that men don't express their emotions/thoughts enough but
>> when they do it's freqeuently found offensive <smile>.

>Perhaps that's because the thoughts *are* offensive?  In fact, maybe
>that's why the men didn't want to express them in the first place?  Are
>you saying that we should all be so happy that men are expressing their
>thoughts at all that we should not criticize those thoughts?  I *am*
>happy for men to express their thoughts (although I have always found
>that they do this quite a bit, with me, so I don't complain about them
>not doing it enough), but that doesn't mean that I think all of the
>thoughts themselves are great, any more than I like all of my thoughts,
>or those of other women.

Perhaps it's because men and women have been so thoroughly conditioned as
to what shall and shall not be considered offensive, and that so very few
people have the courage to challenge their social conditioning. Perhaps
men don't want to express their thoughts in the first place, because there
are so few people around willing to endorse a viewpoint which challenges
the dwindling, yet tenacious Calvinism which still permeates this society.
Perhaps it's that so few people are willing to step outside the bounds of
what "everyone thinks, yet no-one has authored". We are a mass of social
animals. People who provoke fear in their fellow humans will be ostracized,
and people who own their own sexuality openly will still provoke fear in
this society. Our society likes to think of itself as being liberated, but
this is not true *yet*. How pleasant to be awarded the medal, yet not have
to actually earn it. To perpetuate a dysfunctional past into the future is
neither brave nor rewarding.

Perhaps it's because every time people try to explore alternatives, they
are called down, harrassed, threatened, coerced, and made to feel ashamed.
If they violate the norms of the majority, no matter how blind that majority
may be, they are relentlessly persecuted. This at least has been the past
of humankind. Thanks to "Lord of the Flies" for giving us a concise image
of our current social condition. That must be put squarely in the past, if
there IS to be a future worth living.

>However, none of this was at issue.  The issue was, in fact, an
>offensive thought - the rather nasty idea that women will try to
>withhold anything they perceive men as wanting.  I think that is false;
>I tried to address the real problems and causes, and I was, of course,
>attacked for being one of those awful women who don't give Eric whatever
>the heck it is he wants.

I have not solicited anything from you, Muffy, except to offer to meet
you and Dan personally over lunch, for us to get to know each other as
human beings who have already interacted over the net - a luxury we are
afforded by our proximity. You refused this offer for yourself and Dan
both - that's okay.

What might I expect to find, meeting you and Dan? I will get a close look
at you, in any case, to understand what sort of person you are to hold the
views that you do. I find your ideas to be strangely inconsistent. You seem
to keep offering theories of rapprochement between men and women, at the
same time very narrowly defining what the behavior of any man could be, in
order that you would accept him. You impose a philosophical bind on men,
which I wish to bring to light, so that other people can evaluate your ideas
from a balanced perspective. I don't mind your claiming to *be* fair, but
I don't think that you *are* being fair, and this gap is what bothers me
about you, because you don't seem to be able to see it for yourself. You
certainly don't need to believe what I say, but you don't seem to be able
even to acknowledge that another person can be seeing you in the way that
I do. Since they *are* my perceptions, they already exist, independently
of your endorsement of them. I have yet to see you meet my ideas with other
than a personal attack, which suggests that you don't hold your ideas in
much actual esteem. If they cannot stand on their own merits, you should
question why you hold them, rather than attacking me for challenging them.

To suggest that I want something from you personally, in any immediate way,
is your own notion. My feel for the way I would have to relate to you, as one
person to another, tells me you are a bad risk for a healthy relationship, and
I would not seek to have a relationship of any depth with you, and I do not,
and I have not, offered any such thing to you. You run a great risk of
appearing to be quite vain here, so I suggest you quit offering
characterizations of my intentions, especially since you seem to
have no idea what they are.

>The fact is, just because you want a person does not mean they will want
>you.  If you want someone for a single feature (oh, she's polyamorous?
>then I want to sleep with her), they might well find this a rather
>repellent idea, when they might have been interested in you if you
>looked on them as a person rather than an instance of, for example, a
>polyamorous woman.

You like to confuse the issue, on the hopes it will go away. When I address
the idea that men are generally attracted to women as an automatic reflex,
you change the subject and talk about shallowness of attraction. You like
to pretend on the one hand that people somehow have their entire internal
being written on their sleeves, so that if a man pursues a woman at all,
it is because he already knows that she is a valuable person to know. That
if his foreknowledge is not *already* complete, his attraction to her is
*invalid*. This is patently and obviously false. On the other hand, in things
you have written in soc.bi, you make reference to being attracted to women,
yet - which women? Why? You don't already know the women you're referring to,
so essentially you're going to determine that *as you meet them*. You allow
a process for yourself that you deny to *males*, and there is no justification
for this attitude. You can *hold* it, that's your right. But you have no
grounds to claim that such an attitude is *fair*. If males are not as human
as females, the human race is *lost*. Males and Females both are *humans*
with certain inalienable rights, and your theories, so far as I can tell,
wish to evade this.

>Really, though, I don't care.  If you want to treat people like that, a
>lot of them are going to think poorly of you, and some will not.  I
>thought maybe people might actually want to know what was going on, but
>I see that y'all'd rather just complain about how awful women are.  Good
>luck in meeting any.

I think women are awful when they excuse poor behavior on the mere basis of
being gender-identified with an "oppressed group" without taking personal
responsibility for their own being. I think women are awful when they
objectify men as being all of a kind while raging at failing to be seen as
individuals. I think anyone is awful when they themselves engage in the
very behaviors they criticize, and attack anyone who encourages their
awareness of the dissonance in their doing so.

Meeting people involves making choices about what sort of person we want
to meet and to know. I don't want to know anyone who does not know themself,
who does not try, and who attacks anyone who disturbs their hermetic
universe.

You are not mentioned by name in the two preceding paragraphs. Whether you
choose to reply as if you had been, is your own bind to sift through.

I AM NOT YOUR ENEMY
yet
I WILL OPPOSE THAT WHICH I CONSIDER FALSE

-ecsd