Col,

l was being sarcastic. Have spent time bogged down in the slurry of gender politics rhetoric, from both sides. Becomes simple to see the devices. Same sh.., different buckets. Was throwing up the usual trite dross, for effect.

The issue in gender politics is not equality. May have been at the moment of the big bang of feminism, long since faded. Everyone knows that equality is a gradiose and delusional ideal, wholey unattainable, so everyone gave up and just settled for the facade of changing the rules and giving everyone a blue ribbon from first to last. Thing is ya cant make people follow the rules. Especially when one set of rules based on double standards are replaced with another set based on double standards. Compounding the problem doesnt fix it.

Everyone knows whats going on and NO ONE wants to do the real tuff work, which requires enourmous self examination. Its too easy to blame others, thats the politics of modernity. B-LAME.

The whole thing has broken down into a power struggle, zero-sum game. This is where the political blowhards took the philosphy. They turned it into a 'battle' of the sexes, a gender 'war'. Men arent stoopud. We dont say that much, why bother, talk is cheap and behaviour is self evident. We do understand, very deeply, exactly whats going on. It serves us well to play our cards close, shut up, learn to 'read' their 'tells' and let people show their hand. 99.9% are bluffing.

The power struggle means that everyone point scores. One end throws up their concerns, the other more or less ignores, evades and invalidates by throwing up their own. Its politics. You dont engage opposition on their terms, you set your own agenda. Hence men throw back the idea that women are emotional/psychological abusers. Its not in the least bit relative to rape. Its a case of one side saying l want a back rub and the other saying l want tuesday off.

Back rubs have nothing to do with tuesdays. But compromise is the essence of a political trade.

Something quite amusing happens in these discussions. Men and women are accused of being haters for playing this rhetorical game hard, not pulling punches. Every now and again a man will make that accusation of another man, belliting him(self?), in defence of woman. Its funny. Playing wanna-be knight-in-shinnig-armour to self induced damsels of emotional and rhetorical distress is such an obvious game. One that shows that these types men and women are actually stuck in an old world view of gender relations, more than they care to admit. Its chivallry. Women can defend there own rhetorical postions, they dont need no lance-a-lot on stallion to help. Chivallry is nothing more than benevolent sexism... ergo, misogynistic. Even more amusing, most women prefer chivallry.

Then again, you cant 'know' love if you dont 'know' hate. And everyone hates everything to some extent. Love/hate is but a delusion, very usefully instilled in early childhood and a very useful device for manipulation. Love is a very powerful device for tying a person to thy-self-serving-self in the name of altruistic benevolence. Few people allow themselves to see it, let alone admit it. Pandering to and immersion in the delusional facade is too intoxicating. Its a type of dishonesty or patronage. What the world needs is less romantic, idealised love and more respect for humanity.

Truth and respect renders love obsolete.

Men and women run this little routine on each other all the time. Its dishonest and a major obstacle to making things better for EVERYONE.

ps. There are no free lunches, dinners or drinks. No sex is free. No relationships are free. Money is the cheapest price of all. Nothing of value is ever free.

yes.. women are..but there is only one religion I know which 'institutionalizes' it.

FOUNDATION:
Quran 4:34 As for those (women) on whose part you fear ill-will and nasty conduct, admonish them, separate them in beds (and last) beat them.

http://larrylivermore.blogspot.com/2006/09/and-beat-them-lightly.html
QUOTE
Having first heard of this via Popbitch, I didn't know how seriously to take a report that Islamic Society of North America's recent convention in New York offered a workshop on the properly Islamic way to beat your wife. But on taking a quick look around the interweb, I discovered that this "Analysis and In-Depth Discussion of Verse 4:34" had been widely reported.

I also discovered a thoughtful commentary by one scholar, Dr Ahmad Shafaat, urging that before using physical violence to discipline recalcitrant wives, husbands first "admonish them," and then "separate them in beds."

ENQUOTE

COMMENT... that kind of says it all....and most Muslim converts are women...what does that say ?

BIBLE: "Husbands...love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her" Ephesians

When 'Faith A' commands/authorizes beating...and 'Faith B' commands sacrificial love... how in Gods name anyone can describe such a comparison as 'Islamophobic' is beyond any rational comprehension.

Col Rouge: "Men and women deal with issues differently. Men tend more toward physical action but women can be equally corrosive to a relationship in different ways."

That's right - almost. However, the article is about rape in intimate relationships not about women verballing men. But you can't resist a good troll can you? Rape is about power, as you well know ole COl, and if, as you so frequently claim on the abortion threads, you support a woman's autonomy over her body, why have you taken such a misogynist stand on this thread? Because you aspire to power without responsibilty?

Boaz:

FYI: rapists occur across all cultures, races, colours, religions, nations, villages, tents, churches, grass huts and so on..... Leave off the Mozzie bashing just for once and focus on the issue.

What is needed is for men to make it very clear to those among us who think that sex is a right within the intimate relationship; that it is not a right.

I cannot understand how anyone could get their jollies with an unwilling partner, yet apparently there are plenty of morons who do. Sex doesn't have to be about love but good sex is about both participants otherwise you may as well just go and jerk off instead.

Posted by HRS, Monday, 10 September 2007 5:12:55 PM

I agree with you on what you are saying.

George Rolph on when men are accused of hating women.
"however, criticising female behaviour is not the same as hating females."

Thomas Ellis "When they call you a 'woman hater' they mean
'how dare you disagree with me!' Don't bother getting upset. why waste the energy."

The author of this article starts with a vivid description of a women being raped within marriage,(this is the emotive hook )

She then uses the "one in five" statistic.

Unusually, this article appeared in OLO the same day it was published in the paper.

Personally I am sick and tired of the sensationalism, of the continous stream of male bashing articles.

We have this constant stream of extremely negative information and no one seems to want really dig down too deeply to discover why this is happening.

Col - it was you who suggested it might be a good financial move to have sex for money instead of buying a house and everything. I was just agreeing with you that maybe this is the way that women should go. Why do you think the term whore only applies to women? Given that it is used to suggest that someone is willing to have sex with multiple partners for money, it's also applicable to men as well.

I agree with you that there are some very sexually aggressive women out there. And there are a lot of very loving sweet men.