posted
In the thread on National Coming out day, there has been a bit of discussion on the differences in acceptance between gay men and lesbian women. This discussion has lead me to thinking about gender and the differences between emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy.
So here is my take on the situation, at least in North American Culture.
Women frequently form emotionally intimate relationships which have no sexual overtones. Most women of all ages have emotionally intimate relationships with other women. That is, they have relationships with other women where they share their innermost feelings and thoughts and where they touch each other in loving ways (hugs and kisses). There are generally no sexual overtones to these relationships and most people in our society are completely comfortable with these kinds of relationships.
Heterosexual men rarely ever have emotionally intimate relationships with other men. They have buddies who they do stuff with and who they may even talk to about problems, but they rarely ever share the kind of emotional intimacy that women share easily with other women.
Women expect emotional intimacy when they have a sexually intimate relationship. Men usually don't have an emotionally intimate relationship unless sexual intimacy is involved.
Many women try to have emotionally intimate relationships with male friends without having any sexual intimacy. Men usually have a very hard time dealing with these types of relationships. Many men try to have sexually intimate relationships with women without becoming emotionally intimate. Most women have a hard time dealing with these types of relationships.
Many of the problems that arise in male/female relationships revolve around different expectations for emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy. Woman are always complaining about how their husbands won't share their feelings. Guys can't understand why a girl wants to talk to him about her feelings but doesn't want to get romantically involved.
I think that one reason that lesbian behavior may be more socially acceptable than male homosexuality is related to these issues. Because women in our culture commonly form emotionally intimate bonds with other women, its not that hard for people to understand and accept a loving sexual relationship between two women.
But in our culture, its not "normal" for men to have emotionally intimate relationships with other men. As a result, male homosexual relationships are a much bigger leap from the norm than female homosexual relatioships. Male homosexuality tends to be seen as being primarily about sex because it is difficult for people to understand two men being emotionally intimate.
I think that this may be particularly true for people with conservative religious views about sexuality. Most conservative religions see sex as acceptable as part for reproducation and a as part of a long term emotionally intimate relationship. Because it is easier for people to understand an emotionally intimate relationship between two women than it is to understand emotional intimacy between two men, lesbian relationships may be easier for people to accept than male homosexual relationships.
Have I just applied so many inaccurate stereotypes that I've simply enraged every male and female, straight or gay on the planet or is there some small kernal of truth in my ramblings?
[ October 12, 2006, 08:32 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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posted
It's funny how you can tell a country by the general shape, even if every morsel of the coastline isn't in the exact right place.
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posted
You said what I was pathetically trying to say, but in an intelligent, logical, reasonable fashion, Rabbit. Thanks. You are awesome.
quote: I think that one reason that lesbian behavior may be more socially acceptable than male homosexuality is related to these issues.
One thing that you left out that is related to what you were saying, I think, is that not only do women speak of their feelings more often to other women, they express it more often physically. So, the physical intimacy barrier is already a non-issue in society. This is another reason why I think women/society look at lesbian relationships as a kind of hyper-feminine relationship, whereas with men, men touching one another affectionately and being affectionate goes much more against the grain because it's much less seen and accepted.
Anecdotally, it is not uncommon in many countries for women to dance with one another.
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posted
Storm, I did mention that women do hug and kiss women friends although I didn't elaborate on it much.
I wonder if in countries like Russia, where it is common for men to embrace and kiss each other on the cheeks, if their is a difference in the acceptance of gay men.
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quote:Women expect emotional intimacy when they have a sexually intimate relationship. Men usually don't have an emotionally intimate relationship unless sexual intimacy is involved.
I guess I'd better have my DNA checked. By your description, I'm a woman.
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quote:Women expect emotional intimacy when they have a sexually intimate relationship. Men usually don't have an emotionally intimate relationship unless sexual intimacy is involved.
I guess I'd better have my DNA checked. By your description, I'm a woman.
Perhaps the better way of putting it would be the socially constructed norm of 'women' expect emotional intimacy when they have a sexually intimate relationship and socially constructed norm of 'men'usually don't have an emotionally intimate relationship unless sexual intimacy is involved.
These roles/perceptions are what is understood to be normal and what is expected - and yes, I think it does help to explain the different social attitudes to male and female homosexual relationships.
But, as Bob has pointed out, just because a gender is socially constructed to exhibit a certain behaviour, not all (or even most) members of that gender actually exhibit that behaviour.
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posted
I think you bring up a good point and that your logic is sound.
I will say that I personally find both the concept of gay men and lesbians equally weird. I do not mean this to offend. I just mean that since I have not felt any attraction to someone of my own gender, the whole concept is foreign to me.
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posted
By that description I have a few male friends (in addition to Bob) who should have their DNA checked. But that doesn't necessarily blow your theory -- they may just be exceptions. (My friends tend to be exceptional people. )
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posted
I think that there is a spectrum of femininity and masculinity and that your descriptions fit under those titles. I (as a woman) find myself towards the middle of that spectrum. People on either end of the spectrum are hard for me to relate to. Consequently, most of the people I associate with are also in the middle. In this realm, I do not notice much (if any) difference between the way the girls and the guys act emotionally. I do see a difference in the way they act though. While I believe the guys desire to hug or otherwise have friendly touch with each other, I think they restrain themselves because of these expectations.
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quote:Women expect emotional intimacy when they have a sexually intimate relationship. Men usually don't have an emotionally intimate relationship unless sexual intimacy is involved.
I guess I'd better have my DNA checked. By your description, I'm a woman.
I know I've really over simplified things. I know lots of men who expected and want emotional intimacy. What I think is unusual is for heterosexual men to want emotional intimacy with someone of the same sex. I think it is even atypical for heterosexual men to be emotionally intimate with woman (other than perhaps family members) with whom they don't desire to be sexually intimate.
I'm curious Bob. I understood your statement to imply that you expect emotional intimacy with your wife. Did you also mean that you have had emotionally intimate relationships with women and men where you never thought about sex? Now that you are married, would you feel comfortable having an emotionally intimate relationship with a woman who wasn't your wife?
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Allowing for there to be degrees and types of emotional intimacy, then, yes, absolutely I am comfortable having emotionally intimate relationships with women other than Dana.
And with men.
My first concern is for her, and my son. But as long as a new relationship is not a threat to those relationships, and more importantly might add to them, then I am totally comfortable with it.
I would NOT be comfortable with a sexual relationship outside of the one I have with Dana, but sexual infidelity would've already crossed the line of harming the essence of my relationship with Dana before it ever got to the sex part.
I'm not sure this is making total sense in the context of your excellent analysis, but, yeah, I actually already consider myself to have emotionally intimate relationships with several people on this earth, men and women both. I consider each one different from all the others. I think the one with Dana is the best ever on every dimension I can contemplate.
In some ways, to be perfectly frank, making "friends" is tough for me, because I know that true friendship involves a level of emotional intimacy that few people want to commit to, and, at least in some of the early stages, requires a significant investment.
I don't foresee gaining such intimacy with many more people in this lifetime. Such relationships are few in number anyway, but you know the start-up costs for such relationships are often quite high. And I don't have the coin to spend elsewhere, if you follow.
...
I fear I'm misconstruing, or subtracting something from your use of the word "intimacy" though. So if I'm just muddying the waters, please forgive me.
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quote:While I believe the guys desire to hug or otherwise have friendly touch with each other, I think they restrain themselves because of these expectations.
Bingo. Least ways in my case. Actually I'm a weird case. Too. I kinda long for emotionally intimate relationships far far more than sexually intimate ones. I mean, sure sexual intimacy would be nice. But emotional intimacy is what I'm looking for. Which for a male college student as socially akward and weird as I am... it's kinda hard to come by.
But as for hugging and such with out sexual overtones. I'm fine with it for myself (there are a few people who I'm not comfortable with it with, but for the most part I'm fine with it). But the thing is, I get the feeling it would make the hugees uncomfortable if I went around hugging them. Hell... if I had my way I'd hug my friends just as a greeting. Instead for fear of weirding them out... I rarely ever give hugs. And actually kinda cringe sometimes when they're given to me. Simply cause... well, like I said, I don't wanna weird em out. Probably because of the stereotypes Rabbit layed out.
Basically what I'm trying to clumsily say is that I'd love to go full headed against the stereotype. But unfortunately, me wanting to go against it isn't really enough. It depends on the people around me whom I call my friends. If they aren't comfortable with breaking the stereotypes, then the stereotypes remain true. So I restrain myself.
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posted
Count me down as another guy who is apparently really a woman.
I'm big on physical contact. My physcial intimacy with others is generally limited by what they are confortable with. (P.S. Alcon, this is why we invented gripping someone up. You've got the handshake, pull it in, and give the one armed hug. Totally acceptible for one guy to do with another guy.)
I seek and have emotionally intimate relationships with both men and women.
---
I'm not saying that people like what you are describing don't exist, but generalizing that to the entire sex means you are missing a whole mess of guys.
We don't interact the same way as women and that can make it easy to conclude that because we don't interact the way you do, we must not have interactions of similar quality.
posted
Yeah, you can add me to the growing chorus of guys who must actually be women. I'm not terribly physical in my friendships with members of either gender, but in all of the friendships that I consider close there is a fairly deep level of emotional intimacy.
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quote:posted by The Rabbit: Heterosexual men rarely ever have emotionally intimate relationships with other men. They have buddies who they do stuff with and who they may even talk to about problems, but they rarely ever share the kind of emotional intimacy that women share easily with other women.
I can agree with the bolded text, but only in a literal sense. There's an implication there that the relationships between heterosexual men lack the depth of those between heterosexual women. With that, I'd have to disagree. I'd argue that the relationships between men are every bit as emotionally intimite as those between women, but in a different kind of way.
It's true that women are more emotionally open, in general. I think this can make the adolescent years much more difficult for males than females, hard as they are for girls. By the time men come out of adolescence, we're pretty well trained not to talk about our emotions much.
But here's the thing: by that time, I think most men are just as well trained to communicate their emotions with each other in non-verbal ways. It's basically a mode of conversation that isn't spoken aloud, and so society renders no judgement (or at least very little) over it. I'm not sure I could codify it because it's slightly different with every guy, but part of a healthy heterosexual male relationship is learning just that.
Really, if men were so inept at communicating with each other (I realize you didn't say that, Rabbit, but our culture does) how could we possibly maintain lasting relationships?
Let me put it this way: there are two guys who are close friends, and two ladies. Sadly, one of each pair dies. Does the surviving man feel any less grief for the passing of his friend than the women hers? I don't think so, and I don't think that makes the pair of men atypical either.
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posted
The person that I am most emotionally intimate with outside of my mother and my boyfriend is a male friend. This is not unusual for me, I have had many very close male friends. And, in all honesty, there have been times when I was interested in a purely sexually intimate relationship and been frustrated that the guy in question wanted emotional intimacy first and/or as well. So, I like Imogen's way of putting it, that there are socially contructed expectations. I'm sure they have some basis in reality, that more men are one way and more women the other, but I don't think the deliniation is in reality anywhere near as strong as we expect it to be.
I have been told by friends and family that my attitudes towards dating and dating habits are the most "male" of any woman they've met, and on the brain sex test that a lot of us here took a couple of years ago I came out as "average male," exactly. So I'm probably on one end of the spectrum, which may explain why men tend to be comfortable having close friendships with me. Or, you know, not. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I think that part of the difficulty in men having emotionally intimate relationships with other men is the fear of being perceived as homosexual, both by other men and by women. I think many heterosexual men consider the idea of women dismissing their suitability as mates out of hand because they're believed to be homosexual to be inherently threatening, and perhaps their fear of homosexual men- guilt by association, if you will- stems from this. That a lesbian woman does not consider them a potential mate, by comparison, is almost a relief.
One hypothesis, anyway.
I will say that in an odd way some of my closest friendships with women have arrived after an understanding that sexuality is not a factor has been reached. "We're not interested in each other that way. Right? Right. Okay, let's talk about this." Even an ex-girlfriend, in one case.
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posted
Most of the straight guys I know are not at all worried about people thinking that they are gay. So, I don't think it's the gay thing so much as it is, for many men, the central aspect of their relationship to other men is respect. Emotional intimacy requires vulnerability. In a respect based relationship, this generally requires two things. One, both people have to realize that expressing weakness is often actually a sign of strength. Two, you've got to establish that you are worthy of respect before you get there.
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quote:I think that part of the difficulty in men having emotionally intimate relationships with other men is the fear of being perceived as homosexual, both by other men and by women.
only if the emotional intimacy between two men expresses itself in the manner that emotionally intimate relationships between two women is expressed. As juxtapose pointed out (and CS Lewis elucidates beautifully in the Four Loves) men have their own manner of expressing and communicating emotional intimacy with their closest friends.
The problem is that the way our culture is communicated (the media) presents only female emotional intimacy as a valid form. The male expressions of emotional intimacy are being constantly marginalized in a million little ways.
It's both sad and funny though when a woman is pouring out her soul to a guy and he responds with all the deep consideration, empathy, and reassurance he can muster in male emotionally intimate terms (mostly silence and minor body language) and then he's suddenly flabbergasted at having rage suddenly poured out on him for not providing any consideration, empathy or reassurance. And then the guy probably doesn't point out (if he's still polite after being raged at) that she was enormously rude in the first place to verbalize her entire emotional spectrum, but he was willing to overlook it.
Women often complain there are no 'decent guys' out there. I think that's because most of us 'decent guys' (which apparently is a sizable portion of hatrack) subconsciously picked up on the differences in emotional intimacy and subconsciously decided the best way to get a girl to hug us or kiss us (hell just physically within the comfort zone can be an achievement for those who are very respectful) would be to make ourselves open in the manner we see women being emotionally intimate--this would logically therefore lead to a progressive sexual intimacy.
Except a huge percentage of those guys get deep sixed because from the woman's perspective it's another form of the emotionally intimate and nonsexual relationship they have with women. these guys haven't been manly enough to create the subconscious sexual interest that would drive the relationship where the guy logically expects it would lead just by activating emotional intimacy. Instead the guy gets the deadly words, just friends.
(all of this, of course, applies only to guys who are looking to form sexual relationships with women by first initiating emotional relationships. There are guys out there who are open to simply emotional relationships with 'no strings' with women, so what I said doesn't apply to them)
Women should stop complaining, if they're going to willfully blind themselves and place all the guys that are trying to be decent for them (because males foolishly think if one asks for a thing they actually want that thing, silly logical male minds) out of the sexually intimate realm then you're going to have a hard time finding a decent guy who hasn't been culled and sent to the concentration camp with the rest of us.
If the guy is in college he probably just eventually gives up trying to figure out why being nice, open and emotionally available gets him no sexual relationships at all and he turns to alcohol to lubricate the process instead. Posts: 128 | Registered: Aug 2006
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I have had a hard time because I saw absolutely no connection between emotional and sexual intimacy at all. I have been hurt because some guys I would love to be friends with didn't want to because they weren't attracted to me. This was bizarre because I wasn't at all attracted to them either - I just wanted a friend.
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quote:Heterosexual men rarely ever have emotionally intimate relationships with other men. They have buddies who they do stuff with and who they may even talk to about problems, but they rarely ever share the kind of emotional intimacy that women share easily with other women
I don't think this is accurate. Rather, I think intimacy is expressed differently by different genders. Among women it is expressed in ways that overemphasizes the importance or the relationship, often suggesting intimacy that is not there. Among men it is expressed in ways that hide the importance of the relationship, often suggesting there is less intimacy than there actually is. For instance, guys might be uncomfortable getting too much physical contact, but it is the overt expression of intimacy that is uncomfortable, not the intimate relationship itself. That is how our particular society expects people to express intimacy.
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posted
Adam- I don't see anyone in this thread verbalizing any of the points that you seem to be refuting.
Edit to add: And I have never in my life heard a girl say there weren't any decent guys out there. If I had, it would make me just as angry as the common guy argument "Girls don't like nice guys" makes me.
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posted
There's a book You Just Don't Understand by Deborah Tannen, in which she observes conversations between boys and between girls of various school ages. Anecdotal, to be sure. The communication styles were different, but what she noticed about the teenagers was that the males were speaking about very personal things...but while they did this, they were lying slouched over this or that piece of furniture, facing away from each other, looking (to her) uninterested. The difference wasn't the level of intimacy; it was the style of body language.
Not to say that there aren't men who don't talk at a deep level to anyone, but it's not universal.
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posted
I tend to agree that the stereotype "men aren't interested in emotional intimacy" is based more on a limited definition of emotional intimacy than on this being a general male trait.
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posted
The three straight guys I live with and me all hug house guests, both men and women. Everybody enjoys being hugged, at least, nobody has stopped coming to visit, or asked not to be hugged.
There are plenty of straight men who don't have a problem hugging other men, and plenty of straight men who don't have any difficulty with emotional attachments. You just have to be willing to laugh in the face of stupid social expectations, then you find out that the other guys you know really don't mind a hug now and then either.
Interestingly enough, as we live in the SF Bay Area, we've all been hit on by guys. It's quite flattering. Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I think that was a good summary, Rabbit.
I have had a hard time because I saw absolutely no connection between emotional and sexual intimacy at all. I have been hurt because some guys I would love to be friends with didn't want to because they weren't attracted to me. This was bizarre because I wasn't at all attracted to them either - I just wanted a friend.
kat, I have kind of the same problem. If I meet men nowadays, I'm in Friend Mode because I'm in a relationship. But a lot of them haven't been willing to befriend me because I have a boyfriend.
What's even more spectacular is that they'll say that they don't want my boyfriend to come beat them up or shoot a space rocket at their houses. When I say oh, no, he doesn't mind me hanging out with other people, apparently I am actually saying "Do me."
quote:Originally posted by pH: What's even more spectacular is that they'll say that they don't want my boyfriend to come beat them up or shoot a space rocket at their houses.
-pH
Your boyfriend's always shootin' space rockets at people's houses! He don't even need no excuse! Just *boom*, and theys a space crater where they was a house, and your boyfriend, laughing.
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posted
My best friends are all women (I'm male). Some are failed romantic interests, some were taken when I met them. Once it's been settled, it's never an issue. I love physical contact - hugs, snuggling while watching a movie (or for no "reason"), etc - and that's not something that works with another guy (for me). Strangely enough, I get more hugs from guys than girls. The point is, I prefer physical (non-sexual) intimacy with women. That's about comfort, really. For emotional intimacy, either is fine. I'm just now meeting some men I can trust, though.
posted
Sometimes emotional intimacy can develop by accident also. For example, a co-worker and I just went through a middle level of hell together to get a project out the door. By the end, things were so bad, we only trusted each other, and no one else, to get the paperwork done right, and spent days together going over every fine detail because so many other people had messed everything up.
While I've always liked working with him, I'm definitely on a different level of emotional intimacy with him than most of the rest of my co-workers. You just can't go through something like that together without learning the other person's mettle.
There's nothing sexual about it. He knows I have a boyfriend, and we are probably going to invite him over for dinner and beer sometime because I suspect he and my bf would hit it off fairly well.
Maybe it is more the guy way of relating. We definitely didn't have much eye contact with each other while we were talking cause we were working on this project's paperwork. But I also know that I don't have to say anything to him about it and I'd never expect him to say anything about it to me either. But, there's a bedrock level of friendship and intimacy in our relationship that wasn't there before when we were strictly co-workers.
Although as a result of this thread now I'm wondering if he actually feels the same way, or if it is all made up in my female brain. Obviously the communication hasn't been entirely of the verbal variety, so it isn't quite as explicit. On the other hand in the guy way of things, if I actually asked him about it, it would wreck it.
posted
My best friend is like that, FG. She finds most other women shallow, and relates best with other men. Funny how she and I see the opposite sex so differently!
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posted
Seems like there is a difference in love songs written about women and ones written about men. I'm thinking of "Lady" and "When you love a woman" and "Always a woman" (the third is a song I kind of hate). Is it just the dominance of men in the song industry? Would women write analogous songs about men if they but had the opportunity? I suppose it's a symptom of feminism, that no one wants to hear a song about being insanely worshipful of a man. Do men not want to hear these songs? It's come up before how women like sexy women almost more than men (apparently for different reasons) in the contexts of magazine covers and beauty pageants.
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posted
"I think that one reason that lesbian behavior may be more socially acceptable than male homosexuality is related to these issues. Because women in our culture commonly form emotionally intimate bonds with other women, its not that hard for people to understand and accept a loving sexual relationship between two women. "
I disagree that lesbians are more socially acceptable than gay men, in a huge way.
I believe that the perception that lesbian behavior is more accepted is that it turns many men on. I wonder if there is any data on the number of porn videos that are two women having sex, as compared to a man and a woman?
I think our society has a love affair with the stereotypical gay man. Look how popular Will and Grace was. Look what happened to Rosie O'Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres' shows. When they came out, their careers suffered.
This is another generalization, but I really feel that there is a bizarre mixed message we(as a society) send regarding homosexuality.
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posted
Regarding emotional intimacy, I think it is a myth that men do not seek emotional intimacy with their sexual partners.
I think every couple has a level of intimacy that meets their needs, and that most people in healthy relationships are comfortable with missing pieces of the emotional puzzle being filled by others.
I think, rather, there are people who are more practical than emotional, and I have seen a pretty equal distribution between men and women.
I am also a white woman who was educated in private schools with mostly white people, or with wealthy people of color. I teach in an almost exclusively white school, and live in an almost exclusivley white town. I am very aware that my perceptions are, well, white.
What are the perceptions of homosexuality and emotional intimacy in the African American, Latino, and Asian American communities, I wonder?
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posted
Just to note, I don't think anyone has said that men don't form (express is really the better word) 'intimate emotional bonds' with their *female* partners. It's really more of a matter of men in society expressing intimate emotional bonds with other men.
In fact, I recall reading somewhere that male widowers more often die shortly after their wives because their wives are really the only 'real' companionship they have, whereas their wives have other sources of affection to turn to.
Of course, men have relationships with other men. Men have feelings. However, I firmly believe that feelings and the airing of them have an ideal that is much different for men than women. As is commonly known, most men when presented with a problem will want to solve it, whereas most women will give solace instead of/in addition to solving the problem.
I know quite often I see feeling play a much larger role for womeon on Hatrack. Women go to much larger lengths to phrase things in ways that don't hurt others' feelings, or ot make sure that what they say doesn't hurt someone else's feelings when they give an opinion, such that you ofen see women avoiding entirely discussions that involve giving an opinion and more often sticking to subjects that revolve around observable fact.
Will B mentioned the book "You just don't understand" by Deborah Tannen. I highly recommend this book for a fascinating look at 'genderlect'.
Failing that, just look at fiction and how men and women write differently. I think you can quite make a case that men are much less focused on the feelings of characters and their exploration than action, what the characters are doing.
Also, let's keep in mind that people on Hatrack are weirdos who do things far out of the norm for most of America (reading, play watching, college graduates, some might even say more intelligent) and probably not a good sample for what's representative for what is average.
In conversations about what is different between men and women, I doubt anyone would want to say that men never do something or women never do something. What is usually true is, as Squicky noted, thta they express it in different ways, and at different times.
In this discussion of differences between the sexes, I sometimes get the sense that some people want to say that the differences are just too great to really denote a trend, or to be able to say that most people of a sex are one way or another. I don't really see it like this. We are dealing with averages and generalizations, and of course you're going to find plenty of people who don't fit into those molds. Does this mean those averages don't exist or are not useful to consider? I dont' think so.
Look at biology. Almost everyone has hair, eyes, and a mouth, but shades, sizes are different, what have you. The average is that people can do one thing, and we gear our resources as society to this average, but try and also accomodate what is not average. In medicine, they are, as we all know, coming to the realization that what is average for men is not average for women. What is average in some instances for white people is not average for black people, and so on.
An average or baseline doesn't mean that everyone falls into it or that we should ignore differences in favor of that average or baseline, or that we shouldn't change what our understanding of that average is if evidence presents itself, it just means that it's an average.
I am posting this against my better judgement. I kind of feel like there is an ideal on this forum that people are all special and important, and discussions that deal with averages like this somehow seem to many to go against this ideal and may lead to RACISM or SEXISM (IT IS FORBIDDEN! *LIGHTNING CRASHES*). I do hope that we can all agree that just because an average may or may not exist, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't all react to people as individuals, and in any case doesn't erase their worth as human beings.
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quote: I kind of feel like there is an ideal on this forum that people are all special and important, and discussions that deal with averages like this somehow seem to many to go against this ideal and may lead to RACISM or SEXISM (IT IS FORBIDDEN! *LIGHTNING CRASHES*).
Oh, I agree that there are averages and statistically proveable things that can be said about men vs. women (emotionally, etc.) I've read many of the books, and we've had threads here about differences.
It is just that whenever this topic comes up (due to some new study, or some new article) and in talking about "men-this vs. women-that" and I fall so heavily on the "men" side (especially emotionally) -- it makes me feel like a weirdo or something. I know there are always exceptions to every generalization, but why do I have to be one of the exceptions?
Makes me feel like there is something wrong with me -- that maybe I'm not "woman" enough, even though I know darn well I'm only attracted to men, and not women, so I'm not lesbian or anything.
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quote:it makes me feel like a weirdo or something. I know there are always exceptions to every generalization, but why do I have to be one of the exceptions?
What's wrong with being an exception. Being an ubergeek I end up being an exception to all kinds of "rules". I have my own set that apply just to me. I kinda like it that way
There's absolutely nothing wrong with being an exception to the average. Nada, nil, zip, zilch.
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posted
Yeah, I'm pretty feminine in a lot of ways, Farmgirl. Don't sweat it. As I mentioned, I would imagine Hatrack has a lot more deviancy than the real world because we are all more exceptional than the average. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Another song that I think would mean something totally different if sung about the opposite sex is that "When she cries at night song." When a man sings it, we think it's a little sappy. If a woman sang it, I'd find it worrying. "So I pray this time I can be the wife that he deserves."
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: I think, rather, there are people who are more practical than emotional, and I have seen a pretty equal distribution between men and women.
I like this one. Reminds me of 'Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance', where he roughly divides people into let's say 'practical users', the group that is more interested in what actually is than in what is behind, and the group that wants to dive into everything to look what's behind. So then you have the motorcycle riders who take their bykes to the dealer to have them repaired and the riders who do everything themselves. I sometimes think this gives more of a misunderstanding of each other than the supposed difference between the sexes regarding the emotional intimacy. For example, if you think your partner is mad about the supposed 'why' behind your actions, while they are just mad about what actually happened, nothing more, you may have a big misunderstanding.
Posts: 1247 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
Storm, I think you misunderstand the intent of people pointing out they don't fit what Rabbit is describing. I know, at least for me, it wasn't a "Not me. I'm special." sort of thing but rather a "I and many people I know don't fit that simplistic stereotype you are propogating."
As I said, some women seem to make assumptions about men based on expecting us to see the world and interact with it like they do. They compare our behavior and statements with what they would do in our place and conclude that we must lack things that they have. This error is compounded by there being many prominent examples of men who do fit the stereotype.
I wasn't, and I don't think other people were, trying to exlcude ourselves from "normal" men. We were trying to point out that Rabbit doesn't actually understand the way many men are.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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