How many gal-pals do you have? How many female friends you've never had sex with? How many women who are just friends, but you've spent the night with once or twice?

I'm doing research that will further the cause of Science.

All answers will be kept confidential—other than being published in a blog that anyone in the world can check on if they Google your screen name, or the phrase "fuck buddy."

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:19 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
Post contains 78 words, total size 1 kb.

. . . with Hog Beatty and his friend, Zeke. Hog was at this restaurant last weekend with another buddy of his, and today we sit outside near the Venice "boardwalk" (no, it does not contain boards). It's a beautiful day by the beach.

The waitress, Mona, remembers Hog and calls him by name. We order, and she comes up to chat with us a bit. I ask her what part of England she's from, and she fills us in on her background, her upcoming travel plans, and what it's like to be an emigre in the States. She doesn't spare the eye contact with Hog. She goes back inside the restaurant.

"You should come here more often," I tell Hog, who still appears oblivious.

"What? You mean, so I can get in Mona's good graces."

"'Good graces' isn't how I'd put it," Zeke remarks.

Mona comes back out and chats with us some more, confiding that she's going to be working a lot of late shifts this week so she can fly back home. Then she excuses herself to go to another table.

"It's like money in the bank," I remark to Hog, and Zeke smiles. Hog appears to think we're making it up, but his antennae are up now, and when Mona shows up to collect the check and chat a bit more she holds the eye contact a bit longer.

"We're going for a short walk along the boardwalk," Zeke informs her.

"I envy you," she tells us. "It's lovely along the beach."

"What time did you say you leave work?" Hog asks.

"Midnight."

"I'll be here," he tells her, as Zeke and I grin into our water glasses.

Hog may start out slow, but he certainly catches up in a hurry.

Zeke is married, with a child. I'm married, with a mortgage. We're having fun watching the kids play the game—never mind that Hog is older than both of us. He's divorced, and free, and getting hit on by a waitress from Nottiingham. And, you know: hitting back.

We walk along the boardwalk just up to muscle beach, wander back, and get into Zeke's Honda. We take Hog back to his apartment and tell him to rest up.

'Cause, you know. It might be a long night.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:01 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 395 words, total size 2 kb.

and Goldstein recommends that they keep it civil.

Though I must say my reaction to the idea of barring gays, bisexuals, TS's, etc from adoption was that it truly was "homophobic."

Still, Jeff has a point: debate the thing on its merits. Engage.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 03:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 51 words, total size 1 kb.

I don't mind sexy dreams, and I don't mind violent ones, but I hate it when the two happen at the same time.

And the tenor of the sexy dreams has changed so much that I wonder if the alterations in my hormonal cocktail, post-40, have some bearing. In particular, I wonder whether my testosterone levels are going up. As a chick I associate estrogen low points with bitchiness and the desire to snipe at those around me. Sex is usually the farthest thing from my mind at such times.

Then the estrogen comes back, life is beautiful, and I have that "happy, horny" week.

With Prozac in the mix I can weather that estrogen drop a bit better. But there are moments that I'm convinced my dreams are giving me a vision of a more masculine sexual drive than I ever had when I was young. As a kid (teens, 20s, 30s) my sex dreams featured individuals. Now there are, um, more individuals. And not all have such distinct faces, characters, and identities. They feel like the dreams of a 17-year-old boy.

And I know hormonal interactions are a lot more complicated than estrogen vs. testosterone, but I slept late that week in physiology class, so I don't remember them all and I'm operating on yin-yang caricatures.

Still: a friend of mine had a daughter who went through a gender-identity crisis, and eventually elected to become a man. As she started the testosterone shots, she—he—called dad up to say, "I had no idea what you've been coping with all these years. I am unbelievably horny and restless."

Bottom line: by the time I'm done with menopause, my male characters will be the envy of my writer's group.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:37 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 290 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Nelly, hold the phone. You're "post-40"? From your picture I assumed you were some sophomore at one of the Seven Sisters. This changes everything.

Posted by: jason at February 27, 2006 04:37 PM (WtU/b)

2 Have you seen a real picture of me, or are you going by the avatar at the top of the page? She's a drawing, you know Frankly, I love mentioning my age, because of the shock value. It's fairly pathetic, if you want to know the truth, like when I'd buy booze in my 30s, for my friends--even though I didn't drink that decade. 'Cause the odds were reasonable that I'd get carded. Cheap ego food. Pathetic, on a certain level. On the other hand, I've lost a couple of jobs--and a fair amount of money, therefore--because people could not convince themselves that someone who looked like a child might truly be capable of performing the work at hand. So I feel entitled to enjoy the whole thing now.

Posted by: Attila Girl at February 27, 2006 04:49 PM (s96U4)

3 Interesting prospective. I often thought that the sudden fits of rage women have were because of the same feelings men have learned to control since they were 15 (or older if they were slow learners). I was just afraid of the backlash for mentioning such a thing. Whereas I thought men just became more complacint. Testosterone levels still being to high to give them female qualities, at least for the most part. (I still have sudden urges to rip people,..... uh maybe to much info). Question, if it is too personal you can of course refuse to answer? Do your dreams have confused genders? Or do you find yourself in a dominate role? Ever want to run over that guy jaywalking in front of you whol flips you off when you honk at him? Also be careful of drugs of course. I don't even want to tell you about the wonderful dreams I had on codiene. I wish to avoid a psychiatric evaluation.

Posted by: Jack at February 27, 2006 05:31 PM (atfL8)

4 1) I've heard that theory--that women under the influence of PMS are dealing with urges men cope with from adolescence onward. I don't buy it, since I've dealt with too many female rage-aholics. (And, perhaps, been too many female rage-aholics.) After all, anger and rage are different from the desire for bloodshed for its own sake. The angry/malicious person can content herself with mental torture and psychological dominance. The edgier aspects of my post-40 dreams go well beyond dominance, rage, and revenge, and cross into the realm of more detached cruelty. Cruelty for its own sake, and the bloodier the better. 2) Answers: (a) No, I don't confuse genders in my dreams. (Waking might be a different matter.) I really don't consciously associate masculinity with dominance, though I understand the stats on serial killers have something to say on that score. (b) Dominant role? That appears vague. Are you talking about SM-style fantasies? 'Cause I definitely don't associate the dominant position in SM with masculinity. You must also remember that I was raised in a female-run household, so I'm no stranger to feminine authority. (c) I don't so much want to run over people as vaporize them when they inconvenience me. I'm bright, and therefore a bit impatient. Again, though: I don't want to fall victim to my impatient rage, so I generally talk myself down in a hurry. I think what's mysterious to me now is that I'm not the angry person I was in my teens and 20s. But I'm guilty of casual brutality in my sleep that shocks me when I wake up. Anger is different from aimless aggression, as I see it. Though I couldn't tell you which is more dangerous in real life.

Posted by: Attila Girl at February 27, 2006 06:57 PM (s96U4)

5 There have now been many large studies in which people have kept dream journals (either written or audio) and a much smaller sample in which people in a sleep lab or wearing a home EEG recording unit are awakened during various sleep stages to provide dream reports. What becomes clear from these studies is that, in general, dream content is very highly biased toward negative emotional states. Fear, anxiety and aggression, are the dominant emotions in about 70% of dreams recorded in dream journals. Only about 15% of these dreams are clearly emotionally positive. These results seem generally to hold cross-culturally: Dreams of being chased are the most common single theme found around the world, from Amazonian hunter-gatherers to urban dwellers of Europe. Interestingly, the proportion of dreams with prominent anxiety, fear and aggression is greater in dream journals which rely upon spontaneous waking than it is in situations where people are awakened artificially in the last third of the night (reduced from 70% to about 50%). One interpretation of this disparity is that dreams with negative emotions are more likely to awaken the sleeper, who will then remember and record them.

Posted by: Prof. Purkinje at February 27, 2006 07:17 PM (2RAeV)

6 I'd still take the somewhat disturbing dreams i have now over the nightmares I had when I was 17-18. I'd dream that my mother was chasing me. Which, you know--happened. I'm much less scared by thoughts of chopping people's arms off, because it's much less real to me. I'm pretty confident I'll never do any such thing, of course. So I guess I trust myself more than others. Silly me.

Posted by: Attila Girl at February 27, 2006 07:38 PM (s96U4)

7 So life isn't just delicious, it's also just a dream. So now we know who is writing those slasher films. I recognized your work in 'Kill Bill 1&2."

Posted by: Darrell at February 27, 2006 09:08 PM (ACr8c)

8 "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep."

Posted by: Attila Girl at February 27, 2006 11:37 PM (s96U4)

9 "my male characters will be the envy of my writer's group"...which raises an interesting question. Writers must, of course, create characters of the opposite sex, which requires them to attempt to live in the mental world of that character. How well, in general, do they accomplish this? Are there things about female characters that male writers almost always get wrong (as evaluated by actual women)? Are there things about male characters that female writers almost always get wrong (as evaluated by actual men)? Any writers who do this particularly well (or, for amusement, particularly badly)?

Posted by: David Foster at February 28, 2006 07:23 AM (5F0ML)

10 Well, it's difficult for men to write erotica from a female POV. In this regard the original Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, IIRC) was hilarious. One of my favorite crime writers, T. Jefferson Parker, wrote almost exclusively about men, and father figures loomed large in his books. But when he finally broke out and wrote a female character in The Blue Hour, he was so successful that she became his his first "franchise" (series character). Truth be told, I can get just as insecure trying to write about "normal" women, since it's difficult for me to get inside their heads. Thanks goodness I know a few.

Posted by: Attila Girl at February 28, 2006 10:56 AM (s96U4)

11 I meant dominate as in controlling the situation, boss instead of worker. I have simple and extremlly ellaborate dreams. Some of my dreams can stop one night and pick up a month or two later and continue from where I left off. My dreams include; Sex (of course) Killing Being killed (sometimes I am both the killer and the killed). Color (especially grass, skys and blood). Taste Touch (except my feet). Pain Writing Reading Math Pain Sound Flying (although it is hard to stay aloft as I have to use my mind to levitate). I use to share some of my dreams with others at work till I found out that many of them did not dream or thought my dreams were REALLY REALLY strange. My abolute goriest dreams were when I was on codiene. Maybe it is the prozac that is affecting your dreams. Now I have come to accept that it really is me and not the rest of the world 8^).

Posted by: Jack at February 28, 2006 01:55 PM (NhHsJ)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

It was like a train wreck on paper. I read every disgusting word.

Via Ace.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:42 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 21 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Well, the good news is that he is going to get the same deal once he's in the slammer. Bruno will see to it. No contract necessary.

Posted by: Darrell at February 19, 2006 07:27 AM (+IU6j)

2

Posted by: Attila Girl at February 19, 2006 11:32 AM (XbEp3)

3 I dunno...if she saw this before they got married, what made her think he'd actually change? and what made her think that marrying this guy was a good idea?

Posted by: I R A Darth Aggie at February 19, 2006 11:54 AM (1hM1d)

4 The charge is kidnapping. Presumably the premise was that the entire "marriage" is something that occurred while the woman was under his control. We don't know the details, but we can see his intentions, which amount to owning a human being.

Posted by: Attila Girl at February 19, 2006 12:50 PM (XbEp3)

5 Do we still have insane asylums? and why wasn't this turkey in one?

Posted by: SDN at February 20, 2006 03:04 PM (KTzsS)

6 I'm getting the impression people think this is more unusual than it actually is.

Posted by: k at February 20, 2006 06:32 PM (wZLWV)

7 Well, it's a bit out of the ordinary to actually document it this way.

Posted by: Attila Girl at February 20, 2006 06:53 PM (XbEp3)

8 And to kidnap. But I also think both of those are more common than most people seem to realize. Don't understand why someone would marry this kind of control freak to begin with? Fundamentalists of most any religion advocate husbands controlling wives as part of a *godly* way to live. Islamofascists aren't the only ones. All sorts of American Christian groups say the same thing. And hold this up as *family values*, and a Good Thing that should be pushed even more than it is. Behavior like this man's is the predictable conclusion. He's just more extreme - and accidentally became more public about it - than we're usually privy to.

Posted by: k at February 21, 2006 04:30 AM (y6n8O)

9 Most married men are just giddy with the possibility of getting lucky sometime around New Year's eve.

Posted by: Darrell at February 21, 2006 08:41 PM (67ZOx)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

There's a fascinating book out by a woman named Norah Vincent, about her experience cross-living [dressing as a male, and taking on a male persona] for some months. It contains tremendous insight into some of the issues men cope with day after day.

Insty plucks out some of her observations on the heterosexual dating scene from "the other side," and receives e-mail from some tired veterans of the gender wars.

Male, female, gay, or straight—we've all just got to be nicer to each other.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:38 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 80 words, total size 1 kb.

1 I haven't read anything but a few bloggers' comments, but the photo of said author as a man is totally asexual . . . What kind of woman would have found that attractive?

Posted by: Sissy Willis at January 20, 2006 08:00 AM (FU1id)

2 What kind of woman would have found that attractive? Dunno. Perhaps the ones who dig "metrosexuals"? also, we have to keep in mind that the events described in the book happened in LA. Ummm, that would be "Los Angeles", not "Lower Alabama". :-)

Posted by: I R A Darth Aggie at January 20, 2006 11:01 AM (1hM1d)

3 For many women, personality and brains really are paramount in terms of considering men as potential mates. So a wicked sense of humor would have drawn a lot of women to at least have dinner with this person, if not sleep with him (her). It also looks like she got some professional help--perhaps from some of the makeup artists who specialize in helping transsexuals.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 20, 2006 11:40 AM (/y+/O)

4 For many women, personality and brains really are paramount in terms of considering men as potential mates. I had forgotten that looks ranked lower, maybe 5 or 6, depending on the woman involved. D'oh! I seem to have forgotten more about women that I ever knew.

Posted by: I R A Darth Aggie at January 20, 2006 02:50 PM (1hM1d)

5 at my age, it just ain't worth it to go through it all again only to end up with yet another petulant woman-child unwilling or incapable of accepting responsibility for her own happiness and success in life Preach it, brother! I would not. If heaven forbid I found myself single at this point, I would not go through it again. The minefield is all that much thicker since nearly twenty years ago when I hooked up for life.

Posted by: Desert Cat at January 20, 2006 04:39 PM (B2X7i)

6 Yeah. I'm done, too. My spouse has ruined me for anyone else. Of course, if I found myself in an alternate unmarried dimension, I might check into strictly recreational possibilities . . . but that's different.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 20, 2006 07:10 PM (/y+/O)

7 Oh quite! Recreation is something altogether different.

Posted by: Desert Cat at January 20, 2006 07:55 PM (xdX36)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

"what an uppity gender."

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:23 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 16 words, total size 1 kb.

There are endless variations, really:

• Among my high-school crowd, it had to do with how many digits of Pi one had memorized;

• Within my evangelical crowd, it's a matter of how quickly one can come up with a chapter and verse from Scripture, given its content;

• When I'm with my husband's friends, the goal appears to be coming up with that one line of the evening that has a roomful of jaded people laughing out loud;

• Some men appear to think it has to do with how much money they make, and this is the dullest kind of macho out there;

• With my gay male friends it's often "who has the nicest home?" (And, please: do not tell me gay men aren't macho. That's an urban myth. It's just a bit subtler: men are men, whether they're gay or straight.)

• Among bloggers, it all comes down to 1) traffic, and 2) whether you've actually made a dollar or two off of this bad habit, or might be likely to.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:57 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 183 words, total size 1 kb.

Cousin Attila points out that the definition of "abstinence" may be changing.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:18 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 20 words, total size 1 kb.

The FDA is run by self-hating closeted gay men.

If they all just got boyfriends, the problem would solve itself.

Posted by: Attila at 01:50 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 32 words, total size 1 kb.

Megan McArdle makes a case for being thoughtful when we consider changes in our laws that could create social upheaval. Her essay is nominally about how we should approach the question of gay marriage, but it is also a sound defense of conservatism in general.

The piece is written by a libertarian, for libertarians. It warns us to walk soft, intellectually and legislatively.

McArdle (aka Jane Galt) actually appears quite sympathetic to the cause of gay marriage, but she points out that any construct we don't like should be looked at in the light of "why is this here in the first place?" In the case of gay marriage, we have to be able to answer the issue of why marriage has been so relentlessly het over the milennia—before we begin our tinkering. (And, no: "because society has always comprised homophobic bigots!" is not the place to start.)

My impression is that marriage started as a way to get property from one generation to the next in an orderly fashion, using children as the vehicle. It's become a lot of other things over the past few hundred years (including the idea beginning in the 1920s that people should be friends with those whom they married—that was new and different). But it's primarily concerned itself with property and with children.

Now that there's no consistent relationship between marriage and having kids—the two seem independent of each other, to tell you the truth—I'm not so sure it isn't time to look into this.

But get some states to do it first. Have them iron out all the complex legal issues it entails (e.g., custody battles and the like) before the whole country plunges into this.

Let's do it right. And let's remember that we need to find out what that is first.

Via Insty.

Posted by: Attila at 01:30 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 312 words, total size 2 kb.

Turns out there's a huge controversey about it. I just mentioned it in the context of someone I was going out with when I was just out of college, and suddenly the "pro-morning sex" people were lining up against the "anti-morning sex" people. I was fascinated, since I hadn't realized any females at all fell into that first group.

Questions:

1) [for women] How long does it take you to switch gears to get interested in sex in the morning? Is coffee/tea required? Do you need to shower, or at least brush your teeth?

2) [for men] Is sex in the morning the whole . . . gamut, or is it just taking care of your own side of things? That is, if you have sex in the morning can you really get the woman all the way to the Shining City on the Pillow? How? [I'm sure there's a way to be delicate about this.] Or is it just understood that this one is for you, and you'll do something nice for her later on?

3) [for women] If there's been some policy misunderstanding and you wake up in the middle of a congress, what's the etiquette?--"Um, you seem to have your dick in me"? Is there a tactful way to say "no" at that point?

4) [for women] Are you ever tempted to wake the man up for sex, say in the middle of the night? Ever do anything about it?

Posted by: Attila at 01:06 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
Post contains 233 words, total size 1 kb.

1 3 questions for women and 1 for men. I feel neglected (j/k). I prefer sex in the morning. I'm rested, usually not in pain or have a headache (etc.), and am ready to go. I'm also an early riser so morning sex rarely happens for me. Can I make my wife have an orgasm? Certainly. It involves the same things as non-morning sex. Fingers, tongue, and the tallywacker are all involved at one time or another and I'm usually not able to get off unless the wife does first (unless I've just come home from a long deployment or something; then chances are her hair gets messy).

Posted by: Chris Short at January 26, 2005 02:00 AM (pfkIQ)

2 Sex in the morning is the best time. My wife agrees and is actually more adamant about that than I am. To anser your "man-only" question: - yes she gets to the "shining city on the pillow"; I am as aroused by this as much as for myself (and no I am not lying). I would note to those trying for kids, your male counterpart's sperm count is generally at its highest in the morning, or so my wife and her friends have read.

Posted by: bluedog at January 26, 2005 07:14 AM (78gIR)

3 Once there's a kid in the house and parental careers happening, preference bows to scheduling and opportunity. Ahh, for the days when there were ooptions.

Posted by: everysandwich at January 26, 2005 11:05 AM (3UaXN)

4 Tongue in Cheek: Morning Sex? You can do that? 1) It usually takes the wife several hours before she's willing. 2) And if she's not willing, there really is very little point. It is absolutely not just one sided. To me morning sex is one of the best ways to start the day, but sex shouldn't be just about one person, so it doesn't happen very often. As for... ahem... activities, it depends more on mood than time of day. 4) Tongue back in cheek: Oh how I wish.

Posted by: Masked Menace© at January 26, 2005 01:51 PM (ISV0b)

5 Delicately ... Lets see.... OK, I got it. That wasn't a railroad whistle you heard.

Posted by: Ironcross11 at January 26, 2005 04:01 PM (31TVU)

6 I would prefer sex in the evening--I just figure it's more relaxed, with no time pressures to jump up and scurry about getting ready for the day, and allows for that delicious afterglow to be savored. But Daisycat is rarely interested in the evening--practically never. She definitely prefers the morning. I am a night owl, and leave about an hour after her in the morning. She occasionally has to wake me up so we can fit it in before work. As for question 2, of course. It wouldn't be sex without her side of things coming to fruition. I'm with bluedog on this topic (I can actually feel hers myself sometimes). How? Well without turning this into a sex-ed class, let's just say it usually involves an implement that requires batteries. Sometimes not, but she prefers the "implement"--in combination with various of my appendages of course. Regarding question 4, if I'm a little slow in waking up, she knows from experience that if she get's busy next to me with the "implement" anyway, then that will rouse me right up with a turgid member ready to go. Prediction: this is going to be one humdiger of a thread again.

Posted by: Desert Cat at January 26, 2005 04:17 PM (0DDAz)

7 1) Sex? Morning? You are kidding, right? 3)Haven't ever had that problem in the morning. 4)Middle of the night is a different time zone. Yes. Yes. (Also see #3... don't consider that a problem in the middle of the night, I consider it a benefit.) Defining terms: Middle of the night is whenever I don't have to wake up. Things done in my sleep can be fun. Morning is when I have to get up and do things. (I worked graveyard shift for a number of years so my definition of 'morning' had to change a bit.)

Posted by: Kathy K at January 26, 2005 05:35 PM (KEyce)

8 Oh, graveyard shift. That was perfect for me. I miss it.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 26, 2005 05:57 PM (RjyQ5)

9 Once you have three kids and all those responsiblities, evenings are rushed or late or both. Mornings are always best because both parties are usually rested. I suppose it helps that I work from home and so does my wife.

Posted by: King of Fools at January 27, 2005 10:38 AM (ktIW6)

10 I wonder how much of my uptightness about morning sex has to do with a conviction that I can't be sexual until I'm fully awake. Theoretically, I should find it easier to get into the right frame of mind, rather than more difficult. But there is the fact that for females sexual excitement and sleep are discrete states. I mean, I can have sexy dreams, but I can't actually have sex in my sleep. I think this makes a difference. YMMV. And of course I'm hugely concerned about how clean I am first thing in the morning. I worry about everything from the stubble on my legs to "how funky am I down there?" When I was in my twenties I had a boyfriend who wanted morning sex a lot. I told him it was possible, if he'd just bring me some tea in bed. What I meant, of course, was "bring me some tea, and let's talk and cuddle, and I'll probably get into the mood." What he did was bring me tea and without even getting in bed again just sit there and stare at me, waiting for me to magically wake up and get horny. Naturally, it never happened. Not once. It was as if bringing the tea was like putting the dollar into the Coke machine: he had paid the money, and he was waiting for the sex to be dispensed.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 27, 2005 12:42 PM (RjyQ5)

11 Oh boy, sex is my FAVORITE subject! Thank you Miss Attila! 1) I am Not. A. Morning. Person. I need an hour and a half every day to wake up, my espresso-shower-toothbrush time. And I want to be really awake for such an interesting thing. But by then the inspiration can disappear. BUT! my husband needs wake up time too. How much? An hour and a half!!! Isn't that nice? Having the initial urge myself is very rare but it has happened. Weird. But such a happy thing, any morning funkiness got speedily fixed or gladly overlooked by both sides. 3) Excuse me here, gentlemen; present company is clearly excepted. Some women are spared the experiences that make a "policy misunderstanding" so very hurtful. But waking up in the middle of a congress means there was no consent. Tact and etiquette are no longer required. Now that I'm truly grown up, if it ever happened again it would bring out my inner Warrior Princess. It should. If it had when I was young and so scared, my sweet and innocent husband would be spared from comforting his wife over damage caused by some jerk. 4) Yes. (And how I do it is fine by him; I asked him early on in the light of day.) Since sex is (and should always be) nice, but waking someone up is not, this is a problem. So I throw all my directness out the window and bring out the feminine wiles. This means various delicate snuggling and spooning techniques, little innocent tossings and turnings. If he wakes up he's almost always interested by then, and often thinks it was his idea. Look, oh boy she's actually awake! gee, how'd that happen?! (hee hee!) When it doesn't work, I bow out, left to my own devices. Which can wake him up right there if I'm not careful.

Posted by: k at January 27, 2005 05:13 PM (+7VNs)

12 You mean there's a time that's not good for sex?

Posted by: Attila (Pillage Idiot) at January 27, 2005 08:23 PM (I4eb5)

13 "I can't be sexual until I'm fully awake...for females sexual excitement and sleep are discrete states...I can't actually have sex in my sleep." You know, I never thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right. Guys can have an orgasm in their sleep, but I've never even heard of a woman doing so. k

Posted by: k at January 27, 2005 08:26 PM (6krEN)

14 Like many other commenters have said, once you have kids, you no longer have the luxury of deciding between morning and night sex. You have to take it when you can get it and hope you don't hear the baby(s) in the monitor in the middle of things. Q#2 - Personally, whether it's morning or night sex, it's always about her. She goes first unless I'm late for work or there's some other time constraint that forces a "quickie". Q#4 - I used to instigate middle of the night - wake up for sex style activity, but even when I want to these days, I usually let her sleep as sleep has gotten to be a valuable commodity. Tragic, I know.

Posted by: Preston Taylor Holmes at January 28, 2005 11:19 AM (WsZ4F)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Via Christophe comes this rather alarming piece in the Baltimore Sun, which suggests that the Bush Administration is going to be cracking down on smut. Now I would love it if they were planning on tackling smut spam, which is a different issue entirely: I despise the thought that my college-age neice and my grandmother in her 90s are to be subjected to disgusting mailings that promote kinds of sex that they don't even know exists . . . and all couched in such a way as to make sex appear really dirty, and to imply that eroticism degrades women in a way it doesn't men. Women being, I suppose, broken by their desires at the same time men are lifted up by same to become almost godlike. If the spammers are right, the best way for married boy-girl couples to resolve arguments is to simply have sex. This way the man wins, because the woman has betrayed the fact that she has a libido. At the same time, he's proven himself to Have! A! Libido! The man wins, and the woman loses.

That's not quite how it works in my household, oddly enough.

Anyway, my point is that the sex spammers must be crushed, because no one should be subjected to words and images in their in boxes that suggest they, their bodies, their urges—and all women—are ugly. Not unless they seek it out, in which case they should have a good time.

We need to remember prohibition, and the contempt for law that came about when laws were passed and enforced that ran against people's philosophies and expectations.

For the most part, this is a terrible use of precious resources. I see that it's a genuine crusade for Ashcroft, but I hope Bush keeps him on a leash. And I pray that it's only window dressing, like the ill-fated constitutional amendment that was supposed to protect marriage from change—but really protected the President against the charge that he wasn't fighting the culture wars he has little or no interest in.

Posted by: Attila at 03:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 356 words, total size 2 kb.

Via Michelle Malkin comes this rather idiotic essay reprinted by Jen Martinez. The original is here; it's by Gramaugus of Frizzen Sparks, and contains a lot of hand-wringing about how men just aren't masculine enough any more:

Ok folks, I have had it. I've taken all I can stand and I can't stand no more. Every time my TV is on, all that can be seen is effeminate men prancing about, redecorating houses and talking about foreign concepts like "style" and "feng shui." Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, trans-sexual, metrosexual, non sexual; blue, green, and purple-sexual-bogus definitions have taken over the urban and suburban world!

Real men of the world, stand up, scratch your butt, belch, and yell "ENOUGH!" I hereby announce the start of a new offensive in the culture wars, the Retrosexual movement.

Of course, those real men who want to publicly belch and scratch their butts may find it more difficult to behave like heterosexuals . . . unless heterosexuality is only a matter of reading skin magazines with one hand. Or resorting to Jen Martinez. Of course, Martinez won't be interested; she's hopped into her time machine to look for a cro-magnon.

Some characteristics are given for the ideal male, a "retrosexual":

A Retrosexual will have hobbies and habits his wife and mother do not understand, but that are essential to his manliness, in that they offset the acceptable manliness decline he suffers when married/engaged in a serious healthy relationship - i. e., hunting, boxing, shot putting, shooting, cigars, car maintenance.

There's some sort of masculinity point system in play here; men must have lots of macho in the bank, so that they can take the "acceptable manliness decline" it takes to get married. In contrast, my husband gets more masculine with each passing year. Of course, some of us see real masculinity, done right, as a mature shouldering of responsibility, rather than a cheap conglomeration of superficial traits.

Apparently, real men are also adept at dealing with snow:

A Retrosexual man can drive in snow (hell, a blizzard) without sliding all over or driving under 20 mph, without anxiety, and without high-centering his ride on a plow berm.

There are therefore no Real Men in the entire South or Southwest. Unless they moved from somewhere else. If such men do drive in a snowy region they should do it drunk, so they can be free of "anxiety."

Naturally, I was reminded of this stupid chestnut by Kim du Toit, "The Pussification of America," in which he essentially tried to tell me that my brother and father weren't masculine because they don't work on cars, and that my husband is only masculine enough because he owns guns—and barely so, as I understand it. When I first read it I was astonished that someone would actually attempt to dictate to men what their hobbies should be:

Men shouldn't buy "self-help" books unless the subject matter is car maintenance, golf swing improvement or how to disassemble a fucking Browning BAR. We don't improve ourselves, we improve our stuff.

Beautiful, I remember thinking at the time. So if you're an asshole, you get to stay an asshole, because that's more manly. Damned convenient. Character, apparently, never enters into the du Toit conception of masculinity.

HereÂ’s another way of looking at it: a real man doesnÂ’t need to be told by any idiot blogger what hobbies he may or may not have.

My husband got shot while serving his country, and in fact he does like to get together with his best guy friend and watch Westerns. But if he were cooking or knitting or gardening or buying clothes for himself—or, yes, figuring out how to improve the feng shui in the house—heÂ’d damn well have earned the right to do that.

IÂ’m really fed up with people—men and women—who purport to tell us exactly what Real Masculinity should look like, in every particular. They are not liberating us from the stultifying realities of modern life. They are simply dictating, Taliban-style, what society should look like.

Good God, Jen. Find yourself a nice caveman, by all means. And all of you: leave my husband, my brother, and my father alone.

UPDATE Jen apparently didn't write the essay; she reprinted it (without making it a blockquote; hence my [and Michelle Malkin's] confusion). I've re-written the opening paragraphs as best I can and added a link to the original.

Posted by: Attila at 02:51 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
Post contains 736 words, total size 5 kb.

1 Miss Attila, I'd like to point out a couple things. For starters, I don't know your family, therefore I wasn't talking about them. If you noticed the first sentence I wrote, in italics, before the Retrosexual content, you would have seen that I wrote, "FROM THE MAILBAG, I DON'T KNOW WHO WROTE IT BUT DAMNIT I LIKE IT." I didn't write the piece in question, Graumagus did. At the time I posted it, I didn't have the author's information. You will find his original version here: http://www.frizzensparks.com/archives/000104.html As for your husband, I'd like to say "thank you for your service to our country, you are appreciated by this American." One last thing, I'm not a "bimbo" and I don't know this du Toit person you speak of. Jennifer Martinez sends

Posted by: Jennifer Martinez at August 03, 2004 07:29 AM (+wynJ)

2 To be fair, the opposite of a "metrosexual" is not the butt-scratching, belching, neanderthal. Think Gary Cooper from High Noon.

Posted by: Christopher Cross at August 03, 2004 09:41 AM (tcOxi)

3 And while they are shutting up about what makes a "Real Man", I'd appreciate it if they'd shut up about what makes a "Real Woman" too. I think I'm gonna scratch my butt, then let out a big belch.

Posted by: Kathy K at August 03, 2004 10:24 AM (lOTMi)

4 I dunno, Chris. A metrosexual is merely adhering to the standards of dress for his place and time. George Washington did this when he dressed up for the balls that were held in Revolutionary-era society--and no one had more physical courage than he did. Urban men have always had a stricter dress code than rural men; this doesn't mean they don't have occasion to show true character. It merely comes out in different ways. I love that Gary Cooper character, but I don't see a contradiction between, on the one hand, taking a little care with your personal appearance when the occasion demands and standing up for what is right when called upon to do that. Apples and oranges: different situations.

Posted by: Attila Girl at August 03, 2004 11:54 AM (SuJa4)

5 I have always had an odd time explaining what I think of that Kim du Toit essay because I agree with a good deal of it but not all of it. I've also had the experience of speaking to Kim du Toit and discovering that he's actually a soft-spoken, sweet guy, which suddenly makes you realize that sometimes when he writes and sounds angry he's not angry at all, he can say something that'll make you chuckle but when you just read it it sounds angry or mean. If you want to get a better perspective on this, I strongly recommend reading Christina Hoff Sommers' THE WAR AGAINST BOYS, especially if you have any sons under the age of 25. Growing up a boy in the '80s, I definitely felt many of the forces of disapproval and nastiness that essays like this address; we're made to feel "immature" for our normal sexual urges, for not having the same interests or the same attitudes that are standard for girls, and worse, we're not supposed to notice sex differences that we see around us every single day, even made to feel like there's something wrong with us if we just see what we see. Or God Forbid act on it.

Posted by: Dean Esmay at August 03, 2004 02:05 PM (LOj+R)

6 Because being a metrosexual is something quite a bit beyond "dressing for your times and place"--to bring it back to George---it'd be akin to being a "dandy" One can be fashionable and still be masculine--but the whole "metro" thing strikes me as being far more concerned with the fashionable to the point of calling into question the mascluinity. Had George spent hours upon hours powdering his wig until it was "just right"--then yeah, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to wonder a lil bit about his military prowess. So that's my stance: a metrosexual is your modern day dandy.

Posted by: Christopher Cross at August 03, 2004 04:35 PM (tcOxi)

7 Chris, I think we're arguing over precise matters of degree. Suffice it to say that I think the "cave man" lobby is suggesting that a man shouldn't be interested in his appearance at all, which is not very fun for heterosexual women, and not very healthy for him. FWIW I'll concede that there's a level of obsession over appearance that comes off as "foppish" (or "dandy-like") to me. Of course, there is the same thing with women--most of us like to look good, but some women (who aren't models) make it into a job. Dean, we're in the process of adopting, and we'll probably stop at one child. So it could go either way (unless we manage boy-girl twins). But I'm very much in favor of boys, and I want them to be free to be the high-energy kids they are. I don't approve of drugging kids, or anything like that. And I know male and female brains work a little differently, though it makes me crazy when people use this to suggest that women are intellectually inferior.

Posted by: Attila Girl at August 03, 2004 07:36 PM (SuJa4)

8 So we're in agreement that (1) men should bathe fairly regularly (2) farting/belching should be kept to a minimum unless in a competitive setting or near an open flame (applies to both men and women) (3) men should not take longer than women to get ready to go out (4) "if it has a hole in it--throw it out"

Posted by: Christopher Cross at August 04, 2004 10:58 AM (WrswG)

9 1) yes; 2) yes, please--I don't want to see it, hear it or smell it; 3) I would find this off-putting, but if his woman is okay with it, good for them; 4) yes, unless dry cleaner (or tailor) thinks he can fix it.

Posted by: Attila Girl at August 04, 2004 02:00 PM (SuJa4)

10 Christopher, about your #4, "if it has a hole in it, throw it out", you meant except for underwear, right?

Posted by: Doc Rampage at August 05, 2004 03:00 PM (Jdlik)

11 "real men" don't sit around thinking about what constitutes a real man, they just are. Bill

Posted by: bill at August 05, 2004 09:27 PM (Y2hLf)

12 Where can I follow up for more information

Posted by: Sarah at November 06, 2004 01:12 AM (WgEFB)

13 Um. About what? You might follow the links in the original post to see what it is we're talking about. Are you a real person, or a 'bot?

Posted by: Attila Girl at November 06, 2004 04:36 AM (SuJa4)

Hide Comments | Add Comment