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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (32131)	3/7/1999 3:19:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

I once wrote an essay, humour piece actually, on the ideal TV male. The gist of it was that men suffer at least as badly as women do from comparing themselves to the artificial characters. Think about it: the TV female may have mountainous breasts and hair that puts the empire state building to shame, but these things can at least be bought. The TV male does no visible work, unless it is dramatic or highly rewarding, is perpetually endowed with ample funds, drives a sports car at enormous speed, never has a hair out of place, always says exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, and is perpetually encountering females with mountainous breasts and hair the size of a building. Generally these women need to be rescued from bad people, which the TV male does with great aplomb, employing a number of martial arts and occasionally killing three bad people with every bullet. Then he drives off in his sports car, with every hair in place and the female straddling his stick-shift. How are we supposed to buy all that? Isn't the male that grows up comparing his puny masculinity to this yardstick at least as emotionally scarred as the female that has to compare herself to the TV archetypes? I once saw a chart on a site that purported to record the decline in the silica content of the earth's crust against the increase in the size of Pamela's breasts. Funny, though I haven't the foggiest notion of what she looks like, as I watch very little TV.

To: E who wrote (32131)	3/7/1999 3:25:00 PM
From: Edwarda	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

My heavens, E, this is not your day for a hit-and-run posting, is it? I like the way you acknowledge that adolescent girls are simply going to measure themselves against some standard, that is not somehow all the fault of the media. If we deny this behavior, we deny a part of the growing up process. Insecurity, not only as it relates to the sexual, is a part of this process as the young go through separation and individuation. Because men appear to be less conscious of their physical appearance as an asset or liability does not mean that they, in fact, are not. I think that they feel less reliant on physical appearance because in general (and this is a very loose generality) men are themselves more aroused by the visual in erotica. Women know this and so tend to concentrate on on being physically alluring if they are looking for a sexual relationship. The purely visual does arouse women, but women's reactions tend to be more complex and less reliant on the physical. Keep in mind that this is very broadly speaking. (No pun intended!) So men feel less pressured to attract via purely visual means and can rely on other attractions more heavily. I suspect that this concern with physical attractiveness tends to blind women to their overall sex appeal. During a very difficult period of my life, I gained weight, some of which I am still battling because I have a wardrobe of beloved clothes that are still too damned small. I felt less attractive because of it and probably held my body in a way that did not convey sexual assurance; so I joined the "invisible women." Yet those two hot encounters that I posted on "Dates" occurred while I was feeling fat! What a change in outlook! I still feel plumper than I'd like to feel, but I have realized that it has nothing to do with my ability to attract and to please. This sort of recognition takes away most of the envy of "perfect bodies" and is far more important than a perfect body to sex appeal. It was not my perfect body that attracted those two men; it was the knowledge that I would be a lover with whom they could share an exciting relationship.

To: E who wrote (32131)	3/7/1999 5:58:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

The problem with making yourself into someone who is widely desired and chosen by men because of extreme sexual attractiveness is - what happens when you lose it? It only lasts a short time, you know. Even with plastic surgery. The man wants newer women, ones that are physically perfect, the type of man who feels that way never outgrows it. I think what Gauguin says about M.J. sounds ideal. They drive around and talk, and enjoy each other's company. He likes the way she thinks, and talks, and the way she cuts up vegetables. I know he likes the way she looks, but that's not why he married her. People like that are lucky to have found each other.