Asher Bertrand

I agree to that part, but as to the other, I think Americans make too much of a to-do about sexual relations. It doesn't always have to be about neverending love or deep respect. I'd be happier if this society had a more positive attitude toward more casual sexual relationships.

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Briar Bing

When I make a simple statement like that, you can tag me for it.

I realize that there are shades of grey, in both directions.

Again Lo, if the shoe doesn't fit...

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The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.
~Mark Twain

Lo Jacobs

Some women do like jerks. These are women you should stay away from.

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Lo Jacobs

Much like some guys like pushovers, or go for very young women they can then mold and control. These are guys women should stay away from.

Ann Launay

I want chocolate.

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Chip Midnight

Not to pick on you or Lo, but you both bring up a similar point, and I have to ask... if you find you're leaving boot prints on people and considering them doormats who's really the person with the issue in the relationship? Just because you can walk all over someone, why would you want to in the first place, and what are you doing that puts the other person in the position of being walked on? I've known many (and dated several) women that like to constantly "test" their partners by pushing their buttons, purposely making them jealous, putting them in the position of having to fight for their affections, etc etc. Who's the passive aggressive one? My tolerance for that kind of thing is exactly nil.

Carter-Madhu

Somewhat incoherent and personal ramble:

I am in the unusual position of being a lesbian who fell in love with one extraordinary man and married him. Sometimes when I look at the qualities I adore in him I can see how different he is from what is held up as the typical male. Apart from my wonderful husband, I have a few close friends who are men, but most are women. Speaking in very broad generalities, I am more comfortable with women than with men. Men seem to take up a lot of space and demand a lot of attention. They are more likely to dismiss the views of others - especially of women. They are more likely to be arrogant and demanding. They are more likely to suffer from pride. Again - I am speaking in very broad generalities, and recognize that many men don't, and many women do, display the characteristics I have broadly described.

I am often quite baffled by the things that heterosexual women find tolerable, let alone attractive, in men. To give you a rather trivial example, there is an Indian movie star, Shah Rukh Khan, who is a great romantic hero who makes a whole lot of women - even very intelligent women I respect a lot - lose their heads from swooning. I have watched many of this guy's movies because he is such a massive star and a central part of the culture of Hindi-speaking India. And I simply cannot stand him. The romantic scenes that make my acquaintances swoon make me want to smack him across the mouth very, very hard. He is arrogant; he presents himself with a "you know you want me" attitude that just makes me angry and disgusted instead of evoking feelings of romance. He grabs women's wrists and forces them to face him. I think it's horrible.

And yet I have talked to dozens of women - including modern, feminist women, both Indians and Westerners - who just lap it up, and melt when they watch him strutting his stuff on screen. They fantasize about someone doing that to them. And it just makes me throw my hands up; it's a gulf I'll never bridge. I would never want anyone, male or female, to treat me that way. And when I have attempted to seduce women myself I would never treat one that way. It's not sexy, to me, at all. The opposite.

Then I look at my husband, who is as gentle and kind as a person can be. He lives to help others. He goes out of his way to be kind to me and encourages me in everything I do and almost never criticizes me. I guess you might say he is submissive (in a non-sexual way) because I have to remind him sometimes to put his needs on equal footing with mine.

I think before I met him he was one of those guys whom women didn't want to date because they perceived him as "too nice". This, like the supposed romantic appeal of Shah Rukh Khan, is something I will never understand. His niceness is what I love about him. I look at him and think, why can't I be more like him? Why can't I be more openminded and giving and non-judgmental? Why can't I take care of him as well and as selflessly as he takes care of me? These are the things I love best about him.

I do perceive a phenomenon where heterosexual women (again, very broad generalities, and there are many straight women who don't fit this description) don't want a guy like my husband; they want a guy like Shah Rukh Khan who will grab their wrist and say "you know you want me." And I, a lesbian married to the sweetest guy on earth, just can't begin to understand it.

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CoyoteMomiji

A lot of the attraction of the "limp woman" is the romance of being swept off your feet.

But women are individuals, same as men.

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Slick closed until further notice.

Recidivist Sideways: YOU'LL TAKE MY ROUGH, BUTTERY FRIENDSHIP, AND YOU'LL LIKE IT

Aimee Weber

I think female interactions with men are too subtle to be picked up by male radar. From the male point of view we have a passive women waiting (pining!) in her tower for the prince to sweep her off her feet, and it's entirely up to the prince to bestow his pleasures upon her (or not, depending on his desires and his alone.) But from the woman's point of view, she has noticed the prince, decided if she wants him, and has been pulling strings and making plans to ensure the unwitting male is funneled directly to her before he even realizes the princess exists. I'm sure SLU's women know exactly what I am talking about, if from nowhere else ... High School.

Also, I think the female attraction towards and desire for the alpha male could be seen in an analogy with the fascination every little girl has for horses (Bare with me, I'm going somewhere with this, I'm not just trying to justify my sizable My Little Pony collection.) A horse is a proud, powerful, wild animal that runs free and unguided. It is every little girl's fantasy to appeal to the horse, make friends with him, gain his trust, and eventually ride him, putting all that strength and agility at her disposal. Women aren't necessarily conscious of this, but these are the feelings that drive desire.

Fast forward 10 years, and now the little girl is fascinated with the biggest bad-ass on the football team ... the guy everybody else respects, fears, or wishes to emulate ... the guy who plays by his own rules. So the girl thinks, "could *I* get through to him? Might *I* be the one to get him to open up and trust me? He doesn't bow to anybody, but might he be so smitten by *ME* that he trips over his feet to bring me flowers?"

So the power exchange is different. The male side is overt, the female side is subtle.

Finally, I would like to say that women who repeatedly seek out and stay with abusive or overly domineering men often suffer emotional issues themselves that drive these unhealthy compulsions. I'm not blaming the victim, only saying that certain behavioral patterns are known to emerge from people who suffer histories of abuse, and these folks shouldn't be used as a typical example of the male-female power exchange.

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"I asked the Ouija Board about the ideomotor effect, but it just told me to f*ck off."

Brenda Archer

I've got some of that same situation. I probably don't give off a very hetero vibe anyway.

I can play with being submissive, but I can't live there.

Briar Bing

I agree, but with that said, I haven't dated anyone out of my age range in many years. They should know what they are looking for by now, and yes, I realize that bad fortune is probably more to blame than any certain stereotype.

I'll break this down a bit more....

I am not the type to go pursue women (in fact, I end up being the pursued one, usually). When I end up dating someone, it's usually because it's fallen into place somehow. A friend of a friend, someone I've met through work, and a couple of times someone I have met online, etc.. I don't use dating services or go to clubs in search of romance.

This is what gets to me, and probably Chip, Mal and others. You're pursued, only to be dumped after a while.

It's a vicious cycle, because you run the danger of becoming jaded, which then makes you a worse partner.

Ingrid N

I don't feel picked on, don't worry . I'm sorry if you felt attacked by my wording .

And I do not leave "bootprints" on people as such, I simply do not enter into relationships with people like that anymore, as I generally make a point of not entering into relationships with people I am completely incompatible with. I am not always the easiest person to be in a relationship with (but then who is?), this is true, but I generally get along well with people who are a lot like me: independant and opinionated .

I don't want to walk all over people, and I certainly don't enjoy walking all over people, but in RL I tend to attract people who look for the mothering type. It's probably a combination of my looks and their initial impression of me, but let's just say I am probably the least maternal person ever. I want someone who is not cowed by me, and I also want someone who challenges me, in certain ways. Again, there's a difference between those people and jerks, as those jerks usually deep down are extremely insecure, which they hide under a veneer of, well, jerkdom.

Okay, I sound like I'm writing a personal ad, enough about my relationships .

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Lo Jacobs

No. I don't think you guys are passive aggressive pussies.

I am probably not doing this very well, this typing thing (I'm still a little hungover. Free wine at Art Walk, man. It kills) so I am sorry for my incoherence.

I've just heard it so many times and it really bothers me that it's so often an accepted wisdom, that women go for jerks. Granted, Chip did not say "some women." He said "women."

I think my point here is that relationships fail or succeed for so many different reasons that having some pat explanation is silly and wrong. We have seen different things and I know you guys are older than me, but I also know that I am good at relationships (not that you aren't), and I am currently with someone who pretty much exemplifies what I've been looking for my entire life. I am not perfect and neither is he. I do not expect people to be perfect and I don't expect relationships to be perfect either.

Chip's old girlfriend's inability to express exactly why she left him or what was wrong with their relationship is something that is hers, and not ours.

Also, a lot of the time we're told from a young age that men are overbearing jerks and we should just deal with it. So some women expect men to act like that. It's nice that Malachi wants his daughter to understand this.

Natalie P.

I singled out this bit right here, Madhu, for the part I bolded. Fantasy is so different from reality, and what makes a man attractive on a movie screen, or for one night, is not what makes him attractive in the long run. When the women you describe swoon over the characters this actor plays, they're not thinking to what he'll be like in the morning. Fantasies are stories - what happens when they're over is unimportant to the imagination. Certain situations can be very pleasing to imagine, but that doesn't always mean you want that to occur in reality.

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"Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted." - Jane Austen

Behold the pretties.

Carter-Madhu

That's a very good point. But I don't even find this guy's shtick attractive in a fantasy. The only thing I fantasize about is punching him in the snout.

Chip Midnight

I've gone beyond jaded to developing a deep appreciation for the blessed simplicity of being alone.

Wildefire Walcott

My ideal man is Gregory Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird:

• Manly, but not macho.
• Has convictions, and lives by them, even if I don't always agree.
• Generally keeps to himself but can and will defend himself and his loved ones when the time comes.
• Explains his actions and decisions.
• Leads by example.
• Knows that sometimes, even if he wants to be Mister Fix-it, that sometimes he just needs to listen.

I can only speak for myself, but a man who can lead while also communicating his motives and remaining open to feedback is a huge turn-on (and relief) to me.

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Natalie P.

Oh, yeah, and then there's that. There are plenty of women in this world who are convinced that men are sex-obsessed jerks who have to be manipulated. They're not looking for a genuine, emotionally equal relationship because they don't believe in them.

Chip Midnight

My apologies for the generalization. It should be assumed that by "women" I can only generalize about the ones I've dated, which of course isn't representative of all women, but as Briar said, has most definitely left me jaded. This is one of those topics that definitely brings out my

Brenda Archer

You have my sympathy for that.

My big fear about being single and childless though, is that I keep getting older without really having anyone I might be able to rely on if age results in disability. I'd be trying to get *into* the nursing home because I don't have anybody. I worry about that - that I'll get too aged to cope and still be alone.

Natalie P.

God, Atticus Finch is hot. I've always figured he and Miss Maudie needed to have some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement.

Lo Jacobs

The first time I read that book when I was a kid I knew that Jem and Atticus were exactly the type of men I wanted to be with.

Briar Bing

I'd love to be like him, and not just for the obvious reasons that pertain to this thread.

Chip Midnight

Personally I think one of the biggest problems with relationships in this culture is that romance novels and movies are a poison that portray and create completely unrealistic expectations and ideas about what a good relationship is supposed to be... to the point where if things don't just automatically work and people don't have psychic powers and relationships require work and genuine (sometimes difficult) communication, then people think there's something wrong with their relationship. Those that don't operate based on that unrealistic fantasy tend to be viewed about as favorably as a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk with a "will work for love" sign hanging around their neck.

Ann Launay

And they lived happily ever after...