Getting your rocks off

Though I’ve seen allusions on this site to Ayn Rand’s fiction, most notably to The Fountainhead, I’ve been surprised that no one has mentioned this work on this thread of responses to the boss’s post, for this novel features a progression of violent psycho-emotional encounters between hero and heroine leading to a bout of rough sex in which an alpha laborer in a granite quarry, thoroughly provoked by the taunting of the heiress daughter of the quarry’s owner, takes her by force in an act of scornful possession that gives her, against all resistance, total rapture (Golly, do they get their rocks off! – c’est bien le cas de le dire) – perhaps the classic scenario of consensual non-consent. A careful analysis of the text confirms the novelist’s own pithy synopsis: “rape by engraved invitation.”

The between-the-lines invitation engraved in the passages that precipitate this climactic scene electrifies the narrative with a sub-textual undercurrent of sexuality, of desire, of resistance – conveyed in large part by the heroine’s powerfully charged hand fetishism. Yummy. How curious that those so exquisitely sensitive to the silent signaling of sexual harassment remain lamely clueless in the face of innuendo, implication, and body language that conveys seduction and consent: this scene drives gender feminists up the wall, as, of course, does Rand herself (cf. Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand. Wendy McElroy’s analysis nicely counters the deconstructionist readings).

Sexual teasing is grand, but dangerous, fun. The woman has been warned she is playing with fire yet does not, cannot, leave off. A few days prior to the “rape” she, mounted on horseback, slashes him across the face with a switch – opening the door to personal “violence” and the retaliation she fears but desires. Let’s call a spade a spade: she’s asking for it; more deliciously, she is begging for it.

This is not to suggest that Rand is endorsing for all of womankind the classic prescription in answer to that hoary question “What do women want?” (“Penis naturalis dosim repetatur!” though your Latin be rusty, I’m sure you’ll catch the thrust) but there is ample evidence in her writings that she knew, physician heal thyself, what personal emptiness needed filling.

Cautions apply (duh!). Testosterone is powerful stuff. The counsel of prudence and vigilance may be conservative, but nevertheless worth conserving. Whether it is a man setting himself up for temptation, or a woman risking, unchaperoned, the company of males, it is downright foolish and reckless to ignore the dangers, in Pollyannaish belief that living dynamics are always “safe, sane, and consensual”. Evolutionary Nature does not play by those rules. Men are biological creatures “designed” for hunting, fighting, and rough-house aggression (physically, intellectually, sexually): mankind would have long ago perished without the achievements, creations, and pregnancies driven by these impulses. To deny, evade, or seek to “rewrite” male nature, male “predation”, male selfishness (pimping for wimps by drugging boys with Ritalin (cf. Christina Hoff Summers: Who Stole Feminism?, The War Against Boys) or raising their consciousness with gender feminist pieties), is a form of arrogant imperialistic colonialism (aka bullying) driven by those, of all people, who should know better.

I am particularly appalled by the current “raunch” fashion statements made by young girls (cf. Ariel Levy: Female Chauvinist Pigs) – innocent little girls revealing grown-up women’s bodies are decidedly not safe and male lust is a dark, dangerous force of nature, not subject to regulation and legislation (cf. Camille Paglia: Vamps and Tramps). Parading renal dimples is not quite the same thing as showing the facial ones: these girls need to be educated to the dynamics of enticement and seduction.

Especially in this time of foolishness and charges of “date rape”, the new coinage for what is often no more than reckless regrets (cf. Wendy McElroy and Camille Paglia’s essays and Katie Roiphe: The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism on Campus), it falls upon an “aggressive” man, as a matter of ethics and consensual choice, to make clear upfront to a woman in his care that it is not in his nature to ask permissions (to do so runs totally counter to what he wants from the experience). Likewise, if such is her preference, a woman should make utterly clear to him that her terms are explicit consent, parting company if need be.

That said as background and bedrock to whatever the relation might become, I think the terms of in-line, on-going personal dynamics are quite different (and I can already hear the howls of the explicit consent, hoot owl gals). In sailboat racing there is a term for a forceful run at the starting line: barging. If you ask, silly boy, you give her a chance to say No! If such is her mind, she’ll find the word on her own. How better to break the spell of smoldering heat and rising passion than to ask in genteel and gentlemanly fashion “Do you want to make love?” (Now that’s artful seduction! It might well inspire the reply “Do you want to call me a cab?”), and what’s more, it dishonestly cloaks in a simpering euphemism what is generally a much starker reality. An honest and direct approach would be to tell her you’re going to (in the oft-used tender cliché of my still beloved ex-wife) … her brains out, but that will be evident to her in your eyes. Some women don’t need everything spelled out; they are good at reading between the lines and drawing out the implications of words and behavior. I think a woman’s working assumption should be that a man is a potential rapist and that given his druthers he would indeed, as a matter of rather constant protocol, simply ravish her whenever and however he wanted. (How’s that for a delicious statement to be torn out of context?)

That is not to say that men cannot be civilized – clearly they are and, to all appearances, much too much so. One does not notice bannered on the covers of the pop relationship magazines how-to articles on dampening masculine desire and cooling male ardor. Look at what sells women: ravishment romance. The inner fear of a woman is not the danger of her man’s overwhelming desire and passion for her; it is rather the despair at the thought of never inspiring and inflaming that sort of heat.

In this ambivalent, conflicted, hyper-provocative yet desensitized culture mixed signals abound: “Go for it.” “Just do it” – but not that! The “sell” is spontaneity, daring impulse, grand adventure – the reality is the lame, juiceless, lifeless conventions, rules, and regulations of the maternalistic nanny state. It is hardly surprising that those vulnerable to cultural “conditioning” introject memes contrary to earthy realities best taught and learned, not in the classroom (Yikes!), but in the cloistered setting of mossy woods and airy haylofts, hidden from the patrolling eyes of school-marms and intrusive parents. Let me betray my years with this foolish question: don’t kids, anymore, strip for oranges and baseball cards, play doctor, and tease each other in games of Trust Me?

There is a fierce, ruthless, severe side to aroused alpha masculinity where the pilot light, never extinguished, of caring concern and sensitivity (where he can recognize an authentic and necessary No), and benevolent intention to do no harm goes very much background. Its equivalent in femininity is reached at that point where she does not want tenderness and consideration. The entreaties say it all (a nasally congested bibliophile might say, the do me! decibels of her passion) and even non-believers become oh-god-ists – she wants to be used as the object of his desire and lust and revels in his forceful intensity. This is an exquisite treat for a man, to just let it rip. In no other context can he so intensely cash-in and celebrate his self-trust, self-confidence, and self-possession.

No doubt a major aspect of the appeal of pornography to men is that it liberates in fantasy those impulses. Some of us want it for real. (In this regard I consider Camille Paglia’s characterization of pornography as the elevation of woman “to high priestess of a pagan paradise garden” very apt, as contrasted with the prevailing wisdom that sees here the breeding ground for abuse, degradation, humiliation, and subjugation of women). While men can perhaps more easily treat this as a purely animal transaction and indulge more promiscuously, single women are not immune to this sort of impulse and at times seek out studs good for a MoveOn.Org. There are indeed many fish in the sea and women are hardly exempt from using “keeper” and “throwback” language. To select one, exclusively, is monumentally exceptional. For an “active” man to surrender that need to one woman is a huge gift. (Male surrender to his need for his woman has an oddly aggressive and active aspect but is nevertheless surrender: surrender to his own raw male animal nature and his daring to let go of his “civilized” dimensions). It is refreshing, on this site, to hear testimony of women who recognize those same dimensions within.

VelvetHammer

Take the Taken In Hand tour

Have you seen the following articles?
The Total Woman, by Marabel Morgan: a book review
My experience of taking my wife in hand
What women don't want
What if your wife feels scared and vulnerable?
The subjection of women
Acts of love
Does it have to hurt to be Taken In Hand?
The alpha male and masculine power
Liberated through submission
Too feminine?

2006 Aug 9 - 13:05 | login or register to post comments | latest article | previous article | next article |

Choices

Very good. Very interesting.

The eternal question - do you want a bit of the uber alpha male, who you know could never be faithful for even 2 months or the submissive male lap dog who'd never stray in a month of Sundays. The first can be fun on a temporary basis but I doubt they're a route to lasting happiness for most women, even submissive women. Instead something in between, the dominant man who'll commit.

As a feminist (albeit submissive one) I'm grateful women as well as men, can live out their fantasies on any basis they choose. I don't think it's any greater a sacrifice for a pretty submissive woman to plight her trothe to one man as it is for a dominant man to commit to her but he does lose some power in his admission of his love - she knows he has a dependence in a sense on her.

I think largely it all all works in practice.

The raunch fashion statements usually of young girls - I think the young have always wanted to shock. I have teenagers. I'm an expert. Whereas in my day it might have been refusal to wear a bra, now it might be what appears to be girls making themselves a toy of men, breast enhancement surgery for teenagers whose only knowledge of the world is watching BB and America's next top model. At least now their legal rights to equality as women are now secure. I spend a lot of time with younger boys (not of course intimately although there's nothing per se with younger dominant men at all) and their lack of sexism is refreshing and nor do I find them less testosterone fuelled. But then I always see hope and improvement, the glass half full, never half empty. I see women with choices and rights

by Hera on 2006 Aug 9 - 15:22 | login or register to post comments

In your article, you said:

In your article, you said:

"Especially in this time of foolishness and charges of “date rape”, the new coinage for what is often no more than reckless regrets (cf. Wendy McElroy and Camille Paglia’s essays and Katie Roiphe: The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism on Campus), it falls upon an “aggressive” man, as a matter of ethics and consensual choice, to make clear upfront to a woman in his care that it is not in his nature to ask permissions (to do so runs totally counter to what he wants from the experience). Likewise, if such is her preference, a woman should make utterly clear to him that her terms are explicit consent, parting company if need be."

I am going to tell you that date rape is very real. It happened to me. Did I tell him no? I did, several times, but he was stronger than me and forced himself upon me. I was on a date with this person. I think that you need to get real.

sylvie

by sylviekell on 2006 Aug 10 - 06:00 | login or register to post comments

Reply to Hera: rights, choices

Thanks for your thoughts, Hera.

The problematic about "raunch" femme style is primarily that it is more royalist than the king: it cloaks itself in the worst aspects of macho, sexist, male chauvinist mentality: coarseness of language, "sexiness" in apparel, looseness of morals—all about strut and very little to do with authentic sexuality. There is, apparently, a reason women so often roll the eyes and make itsy-bitsy spider hand motions in the presence of the macho male. Wanting to appear “hot”, is not.

I share your sense of celebration that opportunities and choices have been largely opened to women, culturally, legally. As a staunch individualist I regard equality in rights to life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness for all humans as totally uncontroversial. I grew up with tomboys and Nancy Drew. It didn’t occur that girls and women were anything less than boys and men as persons. Folks may certainly dress and speak as they choose—but “rights” are a sanction generally invoked after a breach and often too late. A pedestrian in the crosswalk has right of way but no magic bubble shield of rights fends off the oncoming cars. You still have to look both ways.

No doubt many men feel caught in a double bind: an eyeful of girl candy and an injunction to look but don’t touch, and when they look they’re bashed for appraising gazes. Jiminy Crickets—is it any wonder the forlorn turn to porn?

My post was meant for commentary on the boss’s Rape as Gift thread and was written in that context, from a male perspective. For one, some here are more delicate than others and I wasn’t looking to intrude on their sensibilities. Plus, those happily paired can be spared some of the perplexities faced by the unmatched.

Not sure how you got aboard the uber alpha male train, but, curiously, an anomaly of Rand’s fiction is that her very masculine heroes are utterly chaste (comme on n’est pas) and single-mindedly committed to the lady of their choice; they wait a long time for her. The heroines, while reserving a tad for their ultimate one, serial monogamize through a stable of stallions before they latch the barn door with their match. Sort of like Augustine and chastity, they only want their one, just not quite yet (these are thoroughly female fantasies).

I think it monumental for any person to single out one as their exclusive choice in these matters. Some think perhaps quality vs. quantity. When you find quality anything less, anything else, pales.

by VelvetHammer on 2006 Aug 10 - 10:55 | login or register to post comments

The Fountainhead

In 'Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady', Florence King writes about discovering Ayn Rand in 1950, when the high school she attended in Washington D.C. was at the centre of a racial storm, as it was going to be handed over to the black system.

I was reading The Fountainhead while a race riot brewed. The awkward age is the worst time to read Ayn Rand. She liked people to be tall, slim and beautiful, and I was now slouched, dumpy, and pustular, but I took up Objectivism anyway. Dominique Francon seemed like the perfect solution to the Henry Adams goddess shortage. The purity of her vision made her a Virgin, yet she undeniably the Venus of the granite quarry, so I looked for ways to imitate her.

I stopped walking and started striding, taking care to turn my flat feet inward so I would look like an egoist instead of a duck. I kept my eyes locked straight ahead, causing myself a number of collisions and falls. I forced my jaw into a rational clamp, which broke the rubber bands on my braces and made me dribble down my front. In the name of individualism I quite Le Circe Francais. I longed to quite organisations right and left, but unfortunately French Circle was the only one I had ever joined. I gave some thought to ending my friendships, but having only two, it did not seem worthwhile. The architect who had designed Central was dead, so i could not help him to blow up the school, and there was no way to locate the mad bomber, who in any case was probably not an idealist in the Howard Roark mold.

How, then, could I be like Dominique?

One hot spring night while the city seethed, I lay on my bed rereading the scene in which Dominique throws a marble statue out of her window because she cannot bear the thought that unworthy people might gaze upon it. A thrill coursed through my fat-slabbed body. Maybe if I threw something out of my window....

I looked around the room. I did not have a marble statue but I did have a Shmoo, an armless blob of a doll popular at the time that bore a striking resmeblance to me. Granny had won it in a raffle. I picked it up and went to the window.

"I do this as an act of scorn." I intoned, and let fly the Shmoo.

A few minutes later I heard uproar in the hallway, followed by a violent knocking at our door. Peeking out of the bedroom I saw an hysterical Miss Inez hurl herself into Granny's arms.

"The colored are dropping bombs!"

Seconds later Mr Koustopolous lumbered in bearing the incriminating Shmoo.

"Say, dis fell outa your winda" he said, offering it to Granny while his puzzled eyes took in the distracted Miss Inez. When she saw the Shmoo she let out a scream.

"Don't touch it! It'll go off"

"Hah? dis little doll. My Helen, she got onee same ding." He wiped the dirt off the Shmoo with his apron and smiled. "I see little girl here atta window. She drops doll"

"What?" Mama yelled in her crest-the-ridge voice. "Florence, come here!"

I made the fatal error of trying to explain too much. The sensible thing to have done was to hide behind a semi-lie, own up to it, but say that I had accidnetaly knocked the Shmoo off the windowsill. There was no need to bring up the subject of throwing the Shmoo out the window, and God knows it was no time to go into the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Nonetheless, I panicked and did precisely that.

"I had to do it because Dominique did it! She had to destroy everything she loved in case she felt herself weakening and getting like the others! They were all secondhanders but she was an individual! So was Howard Roark! That's why he refused to build Greek columns!"

"Hah?"

"What is the child talking about?" Granny asked querulously.

"Dominique and Howard are the only two people they've ever met who blend exaltation with degredation! She hates him because she loves him!"

"Who the hell wrote that book, Evelyn Cummingham?"

Miss Inez was still sobbing, Granny was still patting her, and Mr Koustopolous was still holding the Shmoo. He turned it over and looked at is as though seeking the key in my free-form book report in its batty smile. We were posed in this tableua when Herb walked in.

When he found out what had happened, he chided me gently for frightening Miss Inez.

"She was acting out a scene in a novel" he apologized for me. "It is quite simple, actually. You see, the egoist and the compromiser-"

"Don't you start" Mama yelled.

Louise

by Louise C on 2006 Aug 10 - 19:17 | login or register to post comments

Reply to reply....

VH, Yes, I didn’t address what you were commenting on as I hadn’t read that work; sorry.

Raunch is complicated. Who is freer, the better feminist – my teenage daughters and their friends confident slim and fit in crop tops and short skirts because they think that pleases them, not boys or so they say or a Muslim classmate of theirs in full Burkha who isn’t judged in any sense on her looks and doesn’t use them? Or are the flat shoed larger women with short hair and no make up in sensible shapeless skirts making the real feminist statement that they’ve opted out of the looks game? I wrestle with these issues all the time because I choose to be pretty, slim and buy expensive shoes so I join the club, get the male appreciation and sometimes female appreciation but as a femininst it troubles me, troubles me that whenever I go out on business in London I choose to hobble myself in a sense by my shoes and stockings. Is that power because it’s my choice? Is it my choice at all to sexualise myself? Am I the 40 year old equivalent of raunche because I’m not wearing trainers and track suit bottoms? Do I do this to make myself feel good or because I’ve bought into a sexist culture or perhaps even just because the humiliation of making myself in a sense a sex object for men feeds my kink, arouses me, makes me feel good and because I know I’m more successful than most men and have nothing left to prove there is no feminist problem in my choosing as the icing on the cake to play their game. I could as easily behind my PC go quietly physically and aesthetically to seed and work as well so it’s not even for the sake of my finances that I adopt the heels and clothes that attract. Women who wear make up earn more in the UK and lots of dominant men of course prefer it anyway. I am rambling. Your clever writing induces me to reply.

I think you were asking about women dressing in a way that provokes men in a sense. It’s the problem they have in Kuwait and Saudi, the idea that even a woman’s ankle can bring out male desires so I don’t like the concept applied even to young girls showing their all. Latest dictat from a Mullah – women not to be allowed on the internet without a supervising man – indeed a fatwah to that effect because they cannot be trusted.

Men need to learn how to contain their lust. In the UK it’s no defence that “she was asking for it” by the way she dressed. I don’t find young men here are confused. Girls dress like other girls depending on their position/type and boys behave as the rest of their peer group does.

I think you nit the nail on the head when you say those are very female fantasies. I suspect few dominant men fantasise about a life time of monogamy. Hard to generalise about anyone never mind a whole sex, however. Quality over quantity, certainly. I can’t date non dominant men. I should form a bureau for single women my age who don’t need dominance. Wonderful men out there but not for me because they don’t have that intense need to control and do those other things I don’t need to write about and then when I’m with one who does it’s so peaceful and simple and right, feels much like a gay man who’s tried marriage for a bit and for the first time goes to bed with a man, everything fits into place. Your passivity and compliance is suddenly seen as a huge advantage.

by Hera on 2006 Aug 10 - 23:06 | login or register to post comments

Bunched panties

Hello Hera. Your ramble on raunch, as you try to untangle the skein of motives and implications in fashion choices, both fascinates and exhausts by its complications. Yet you hit upon the answer: when you are comfortable in your skin and confident of your powers you tend not to fret so much about the accoutrements and the window dressing (one can have the cheesecake, or beefcake, chacun son ragout, and eat it too). It is kind of like standing butt-naked—hard in that state to get your panties in a bunch (being an endlessly parenthetical guy, I’ve wondered a bit how much gets lost in translation on this site, especially in use of culture-specific idioms, in exchanges which are so often between Amerloques and Brits: often an ungulfable bridge).

A further answer is at the tail end of your remarks. “So peaceful and simple and right” stands out so quietly and starkly against the wrangles and chatter (mine and yours) that become so tiresome. So much about-ism rather than being and doing. That longing to feel at home with someone. A virtue of this site for me is a sense of coming back to earth after being at sea in a galaxy of alien planets and life forms. The essence of romance is largely that notion of “one and only, evermore” and I’m a romantic. Intensity is a focus and concentration therapy, not sowing wild oats.

I agree that the “asking for it” sounds pretty lame and doesn’t give an unwelcome aggressor a leg to stand on. the boss’s post on ravishment defines clearly the arena for that kind of sport. Only a fool would take it as a declaration of open season, gentlemen start your engines, let the games begin. Men need to control their lust (women need the weak-legged bliss of not controlling theirs). Aggression is different from violence. In this context, civilization means firm non-consent cancels the launch. A strong, discriminating man does not want a non-consenting, mindless, raunchy slut; he wants a willing, strong, intelligent, cultured, powerful one, or, rather, he wants, taking all feminine modesty from her and doing things that would make a whore blush, to make her one, exclusively his. (Years ago, my sweet but malapropic mother watched me struggle with a pine that lightning had cracked and toppled into the pond. She offered the insight: You need a wench. No doubt true Mom, but right now I need a winch)

How grand that some fish do fancy bicycles.

by VelvetHammer on 2006 Aug 11 - 11:26 | login or register to post comments

Dangers of Literalism

Alas, Louise, aren’t kids goofy? No cure but to grow up. Literalism is risky at any age. I’ve a dear sister who lives her life enamored with and guided by the literal inerrancy of a text dictated by a bronze age sky god. A passing glance at Deuteronomy reveals some pretty god-awful dictates. When I was a kid, some folks threw tomatoes at the silver screen which held Elvis’ sneer and pelvic liberties. Others rush to the stage to rescue the imperiled heroine. Enchantment and trance are lovely stuff but be sure to buy a round-trip ticket.

by VelvetHammer on 2006 Aug 11 - 11:44 | login or register to post comments

Harsh realities

If one needed to qualify, subtly nuance, and endlessly preempt and forestall misunderstanding and hurt feelings one could say nothing of substance. That principle governs most of public speech these days and goes largely to explain why it is so empty of life and content. This site is a forum that represents a refuge from that. If you read my words with more care and in full context I think you’ll find drawing the implication that I consider all allegations of date rape phony baloney is unwarranted.

Your heat in defending a proposition that no one denies, one case would be sufficient evidence to support it (date rape is very real), betrays an impulse to conflate the facts of your case with a more global assertion. I flag the Tawana Brawly-ism, you flag the reality of your unfortunate experience. I wish you had not suffered this violation. I am no fan of jerks, bullies, and brutes—I see this as an implicit confession of human impotence. You exhort me to get real while the tenor of my piece is to caution and alert women to certain harsh, unalterable realities about male nature. Some women, in the context of loving relationships, welcome and embrace those facts. Others do not. I am suggesting that safe, sane, consensual is often but a comforting illusion. Your experience goes to confirm my admonition to prudence and vigilance. Even successful prosecution, which you no doubt pursued, doesn’t provide any take back. Beyond knowing who you are dealing with I’ve no general solution to provide for brutality. There are practical remedies: guard dogs, pepper spray, martial arts, castration of proven offenders, brothers or a father to beat the crap out of the guy.

To use your strong feelings and personal misfortune as an exemption of wider claims from critical scrutiny and need to marshal evidence is a rhetorical ploy, rampant in our culture, worn transparently thin. It is, no doubt, uncivil and insensitive to be harsh when one infinitely prefers to remain gentle when touching tender spots, but when you play these kind of trump cards I needs call your bluff.

by VelvetHammer on 2006 Aug 11 - 13:02 | login or register to post comments

Harsh Realities

Touching tender spots? Well isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? Someone needs to rein you in to the fact that your response does indeed ring touchy-touchy. Am I sensing a fragile ego?

Who has the time to carefully read and dissect your every meaning? If your desire is to educate, then why delight with expounding articulate babble? Why not come down to earth and make oneself clear? Elitest, pompous arrogance does not intelligence make.

Careful,
I am not aware of a womans clothing or choice thereof creating physical harm to men. Excusing men to a green light to rape women based on their choice of dress is the same as excusing a thief driven by a sweet tooth for breaking the glass window of a candy store and consuming the treats because the merchant put them on display.

This is not a site to justify violence towards women or to hold them accountable when violence finds them no matter how thin you deem the rhetoric to be. It is your attitude and opinions that create the atmoshphere for the harsh realities that this poster has suffered. To condone illegal, unjust behavior is an exemption of the pain and destruction that this behavior creates in the lives of women who fall victim. That is reality and your justification is what has worn transparently thin!

Are you claiming that men lack the intelligence to be able to distinguish right from wrong because of lust they are feeling as a result of a womens chosen outfit?

I loved the boss's article! It is one of my favorite on the site and conveys quite well my desires in reference towards the man in my life--D. However, I never took for an instant that she was advocationg violence towards women. Or is it that you just can't read intelligent articles without the pompous mumble jumble?

By the way I do like poker but only play currently for recreation. I am only responding to your writing because I do like exercising civility and sensitivity towards those who have suffered as has the poster to whom you callously addressed.

Here's some substance--Rape is illegal and punishable by law--Provocative dressing is not!

by Precious Baby on 2006 Aug 11 - 16:25 | login or register to post comments

General

Precious Baby of course you're right. Women have the right to flaunt their bodies as they choose. Whether that's feminism or pandering to men in a very sexist way is the interesting part of it. The freedom to choose to be sexual play things probably means you've just been conditioned, that that your choice isn't really a choice, because who in an equal and free world chooses to be the lap dancer or the girl on the street in the high heels and skimpy dress?

But I just return to VH's comment on my comment, I prefer the peaceful route of just being as I am. The noise of the analysis of it can just get confusing. So this afternoon I was out on errands in a very pretty dress and heels, quite revealing at the front (..blessed or cursed am I to have a large chest etc...) and the attention I got including levels of service from the male postal worker were incredible. I could write an essay on it. Was I exercising female power or letting down the sisterhood? I'm not sure I can be bothered to work that out and I'd argue as I'm probably more successful (in male/life/economic terms) than any of them I don't have to care. Or perhaps I should care even more as that makes me a role model.

Next week I'll be in a very macho latino culture where the legal protections of the US/UK probably don't exist. So I'll be more cautious. It's a non-debate the dressing and asking for it because in the US/UK that's no legal defence. More interesting was I thought the feminist issues of whether girl power/provocative clothes and the like is freedom as a woman to do as you like or in fact as bad as Victorian ladies forced to wear a bustle and restrictive skirts just as today we wear high heels and stockings. I suppose as a Catholic I always have the choice to take the veil and withdraw to a convent or whatever. I think I'll continue to play the game as it is for now.

by Hera on 2006 Aug 11 - 21:48 | login or register to post comments

Harsh realities

Really, aren't some here being rather missish? He obviously isn't condoning date rape; he's describing date ravishment. To quote that literary rogue Harry Flashman, "Put Harry Flashman next to a woman like that and one of two things is inevitable--there will either be screams and slaps, or the lady will surrender. Sometimes both."

by a Taken In Hand reader on 2006 Aug 12 - 03:42 | login or register to post comments

There seems to be an acceptan

There seems to be an acceptance of misinformation here. Rape has nothing to do with sexual attraction; rape is about *control*. The prefered targets of sexual predators are not flirty, openly sexual women who wear revealing clothing but quiet, introverted, less than fit women who wear sweats and similar clothing.

"... male lust is a dark, dangerous force of nature, not subject to regulation and legislation... "

"I think a woman’s working assumption should be that a man is a potential rapist..."

I'm sorry, but that's misandrous nonsense.

by a Taken In Hand reader on 2006 Aug 15 - 03:35 | login or register to post comments

"panties in a bunch" = "knick

"panties in a bunch" = "knickers in a twist"?

by Malcolm on 2006 Aug 16 - 02:21 | login or register to post comments

Twisted knickers

Malcolm: I think, yup.

To an american boy, "panties" yield rich poetry, "knickers", erotically zipless, perhaps a vague Lytton Strachey victorianism.

In the zipless vein (Jong? Steinam?) = knicker bonk her?

by VelvetHammer on 2006 Aug 17 - 13:32 | login or register to post comments

RE: Harsh Realities

"I think a woman’s working assumption should be that a man is a potential rapist..."

And then what? Does the unattached woman have to hire bodyguards?

Here lies the conundrum.

My admittedly anecdotal solution:

I reasoned thus: most modern men are not swift primal hunters of solid muscle. No matter what many people may say, the evidence is that most males are not in very good shape. They are often bigger and stronger than I, but they are not undefeatable. I meet more men with fat all over their bodies than I do really strong, fit types.

I chose martial arts. I thought no matter what, as an individual, I would not be able to contain the rage I would feel if I didn't at least try to mount a strong defense. I would extract steep payment on his soft squishy parts. And if his internal injuries are bad enough - he probably won't have much left to rape or kill me after I'm done.

Of course, I have no problem with the notion of putting a hurt on someone who is injuring me. I fully expect to be a mess myself unless I am lucky and he doesn't connect, but at least I'll have a bit of satisfaction as I float into oblivion...

by a Taken In Hand reader on 2006 Aug 19 - 02:59 | login or register to post comments

VelvetHammer's eloquence...

I for one understand what you are trying to say, and respect your opinion of it. You have very eloquently put into words how some man/woman encounters are. I found your subject and comments very exciting, and appear to me to be a wonderful and intelligent man. And though I do respect others' views of this and other subjects, I believe that people should try harder to understand other people than to criticize.

by Angel_Heart on 2006 Aug 30 - 18:44 | login or register to post comments

To Angel_Heart

The harsher words are just part of the rough and tumble of give and take. The disappointment is more in so often simply not joining issue.

Thank you for your sweet words, Angel.

by VelvetHammer on 2006 Sep 2 - 11:32 | login or register to post comments

Permissions

I liked this bit:
"It falls upon an “aggressive” man, as a matter of ethics and consensual choice, to make clear upfront to a woman in his care that it is not in his nature to ask permissions (to do so runs totally counter to what he wants from the experience)."
Men get further if they just press things on. Obviously unless she's submissive and given some blanket consent they then must stop when told. In the UK/US that works fine in most cases, always has. (It used to be you couldn't rape your wife but that was an exception but the law changed).

Nothing is more likely to get a no answer than asking her if you might kiss [ or whatever] her.

Key difference I've noticed dating dominant and non- dominant men (and I don't agree all men are the same at heart and some are even submissive). Dominant men don't have to ask - they take. I don't think my last boyfriend once asked my permission on anything we did, although good communicators and the kind of men most of us want subtlely sound you out, a much easier way to deal with things. That's so much easier if you're wanting to be taken in hand.

by Hera on 2006 Oct 9 - 11:07 | login or register to post comments

Wench vs Winch

Have to admit that's the hardest I've laughed on this site...so far!

PS...I remember the Shmoo!

by TessaLynne on 2008 Mar 14 - 01:04 | login or register to post comments

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