women

by

Regrets? Jealousy?


I have lived long enough to have a long list of regrets. A long time ago there was the regret that I did not get to know my father better before he died. There is a regret that a beautiful woman who I dated off and on, that I did not try to take it further. There are so many other regrets too. But why?

I think it is a normal human condition to begin with. But it is like trying to get more water from an empty bottle. It is not happening. This is where it is okay to remember the past and our regrets, but we must never stare at them because there is no good that will come of that.

Now I come to jealousy. I call this the worst feeling anyone could ever have. First of all, if you feel jealous, you must ask yourself the question, what inside you is so insecure that you allow this feeling to arise in you? Men are really bad with this one. A man is walking down a street with his girlfriend or wife who is a stunning beauty. He notices men are looking at her and he gets mad at her! Why? She has done nothing wrong. Or, worse case, he takes a swing at some stranger who had the audacity to look a little too long at his lady. It means he is insecure about his relationship with her. This applies to women as well. That a man wants to look at the lady you are with is a compliment. Even if they stare! Take solace in the fact that you have her/him and that person does not. The best thing to do with jealousy is to toss it out as a totally useless emotion.

by

How To Know If You Are in a Healthy Relationship


Not every relationship comes to an end but many do. Marriages, lovers, friends, all have a time in their life when they realized what was once a great relationship simply has ceased to exist. The smart person is not afraid to recognize such a situation and do one of two things. First, they can reach out to the other person and after telling that person they believe their relationship has died or is in its death throws but that they want to see if it can be resurrected. Or, they can simply walk away after telling the other person that their relationship is over and they have no desire to fix it.

Of the three above mentioned relationships the marriage reigns supreme, of course. That relationship seldom comes to an end because the actions of one person accounts for 100% of the problems. I believe that most have somewhere between a 60/40 and a 50/50 responsibility. To me that says most relationships, at least within that range, are repairable and with a minimal amount of pain. But then there is that relationship where one party accounts for 70 to 80% of the issues. Still, the partners in such a relationship should seek outside help and get an unbiased assessment of where they stand.

I think it likely that when a relationship hits the 70% plus fault it is probably time to call it quits. For some reason women are predisposed to hanging in there, their usual reason being “for the kids.” To that person I would say, your unhealthy relationship with your husband, or your wife, is hurting your children more than you realize. And by keeping the marriage alive via life-support only exacerbates the pain the children feel.

For the most part, children love both their parents equally and want both of them around all the time. But children are very poor judges of what is good for them. That is one of the reason we are legally, if not morally, bound to the care of our children. And since children are like sponges, taking in everything they see and hear around them. But when those things are negative, they tend to believe that those negative things are the way the world works. That of course is simply not true. That is a relationship that necessarily needs a great deal of work to get it fixed or the couple needs to think of their children and separate.

We tend to take what we learn about relationships we have in our teens and twenties as how things “have to be.” It is my experience that most of those conclusions are not only wrong, but are so wrong the put in jeopardy the success of all future relationships.

The most important part of a relationship is honesty and trust. Now that might sound like two separate things, and they can certainly be taken separately, but in a relationship they must be held as one principle with neither being more important to other. To the contrary, the one relies upon the other for success. We trust people because we know we can count of their truthfulness with us. They are also reliable but that is the second most important factor.

There are two kinds of relatable truths: the easy truth and the tough truth. The easy truth is: “I’m sorry honey, I went out with Jason even though I promised you I would never do that again.” The tough truth is: “I don’t think our relationship is working anymore and I think we need to separate.”  The good news about each statement is that unto itself, each is truthful. The simple truth of each statement should lead to an exhaustive examination of the relationship at that point of time with each party coming to a meeting of the minds.

People who truly care about one another know exactly what little things thrill their partner. That known, they do a good job of doing one of those little things on a regular basis. They realize it a mistake to take their partner for granted.

The good relationship has each party in tune with the other. They instinctively know when their partner is not feeling well, is hiding their feelings, or is troubled in any fashion. They also know they hold a responsibility to reach out to their partner immediately upon the realization of the trouble.

And the killer to any and all relationships is the answer to the question: “Is your relationship largely based on sex?” If the answer is yes, make certain the other person is in the relationship for the same reason because if they are not, then the relationship is by definition based on a lie. People have purely physical relationships all the time but that is only good when it is mutually agreed upon.

The good and strong has three equally important parts: physical, mental and spiritual. If any of those three are missing, cut your losses and move on.

by

Legislating Morality


From the very beginnings of the United States, people have tried to legislate morality.  One of the earliest examples is that of alcohol.  In the early 19th century the women’s temperance movement started.  For a short while, Susan B. Anthony and her suffrage movement allied itself with temperance women.  But it did not take long for Anthony and others to realize that the temperance movement’s chief ally were the American churches who almost universally looked with disdain upon women’s suffrage.  It was the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) who were chiefly responsible for the passage of the 19th Amendment which outlawed the production and sale of alcohol.  As we know this turned out to be a colossal failure.  Not only did it feed into government corruption, but helped give rise to the crime mobs.  While everyone seemed to agree that the nation had to deal with alcoholism, it was quickly apparent that outlawing the consumption of alcohol was not the answer.

The Volstead Act, which came into law at that same time was something of an offshoot of the temperance movement, having many of the proponents of the one proponents of the other.  That law outlawed gambling and prostitution.  Also in that same year, 1919, women’s suffrage succeeding in getting women the right to vote.  Today most states allow some form of gambling ranging from the lottery ticket to casinos.

Finally we have the sex laws.  In a 2003 decision, the US Supreme Court declared all laws against sodomy to be unconstitutional.  Even so, 14 states still have laws prohibiting such acts.  An argument for why those states have not changed those laws is that they do not any longer prosecute them.  But in 2008 in North Carolina two men were arrested for engaging in consensual sex.  And that brings into focus the conservative push to keep gay marriage from becoming legal in various states.  Clearly churches have the absolute right to declare certain acts to be immoral and the law cannot challenge such things, meaning if they want to deny a gay couple from marrying in their church, that is their 1st Amendment right.  But the state does not have the right to constitution laws with respect to religious beliefs, also a 1st Amendment prohibition.

In 1973 the US Supreme Court struck down laws which prohibited abortion with certain limitations.  This was also decided as a First Amendment issue where a person has the right to make medical decisions with regard to the own body.  I find myself in the strange position of believing in the right of each individual to make that choice, however, I found abortion to be reprehensible in all cases, to include pregnancies because of rape, incest and even where the mother’s life is in danger.  But this is my own personal moral belief which I have absolutely no right to impose on any other individual.  And for the record, I am not a member of any organized religion so that is not in play where my decision is concerned.

Now we come to the issue of prostitution.  I find the very thought of men and women paying for sex disgusting.  But here again I see this as a purely moral issue.  I also believe that if a man or a woman wants to sell their body for sex, we should have no bars to that.  I find it curious that prostitutes and their johns on the street are regularly arrested while “escorts” use that as a euphemism to sell sex.  Nevada states that prostitution is legal in only one county in their state, but on cable tv there is a show called “Gigolos” which documents the work of four men who sell their bodies for sex to their female clients.  It is an open practice that while technically illegal, it seems Nevada, or at least Las Vegas, does not chose to prosecute these people even while they are arresting the street prostitute doing the very same thing.

Of chief concern to the general public with regard to prostitution should be three things: public health, violence against women, and the attendant crime that follows street prostitutes.  I think the first thing which needs to be done nationally is the total decriminalization of prostitution across the nation together with incentives to remove it from the streets.  The Swedes came up with a great idea for removing prostitution from their streets which while imperfect, has greatly reduced it.  When a john is busted for solicitation his name is printed prominently in the local newspaper.  I would do the same in this country coupled with far stricter laws with regard to pimps, mandatory sentences with long jail terms.

Most women who prostitute have been victimized in one way or another.  What makes it worse, they were victims at an age well under 18 when they could make adult choices.  They are conscripted into the sex trade by force, by intimidation, or by circumstance at 13, 14, and 15 years of age. Our society, unfortunately, does little to help these victims when they are discovered.

The men who control these prostitutes are frequent engaged in the sale and distribution of drugs, engage in violence against the women they have power over, and against their johns.  It is rare any of these crimes is punished.  Our police departments simply do not have the manpower to even reduce prostitution and its attendant crime, let alone reduce it at all.

If governments move prostitution off the streets and into controlled facilities, the incidence of crime, disease and the sale of drugs should go down.  This experiment is currently, since 2003, being tried in New Zealand.  There are claims the incidence of street prostitution there has not gone down, however such problems can be overcome once you admit you have a problem and your old ways of attempting to deal with have met with absolute failure.  Eradicating prostitution is impossible but controlling it is entirely possible, if we are willing to try.

 

by

Who Was Deborah Sampson, and Why Should We Care?


There are three words all men and women who join the military are made aware of: Duty, Honor, Country.  Men and women join the military do so for many reasons, but in the end, those who serve fully and honorably understand those words implicitly, and better than any who have never served.  This is not meant as a slight towards those who have not served, but as a point of divergance.  The idea, and ideal, of “duty, honor, country” goes back to April 19, 1775, when a few Massachusetts men bravely said, “no more!”  The knew they would either be hung as traitors to the crown, or heroes of a new country.  In those days we were largely a bunch of poorly trained, poorly armed, and raggedty bunch as has ever been seen.  There was no shortage of fear that our independence, as declared July 4, 1775, would be still-born.   Washington himself, upon arriving at Cambridge Massachusetts to review the tens of thousands of colonial soldier camped there, feared for the future.  They were ill-mannered, dirty, vulgar, and about the furthest things from a group of soldiers as could have been imagined.  But as Washington passed among these fledgeling soldiers, in support of a fledgeling cause, his six foot two frame mounted smartly upon a white stallion, and regaled in as smart a uniform as could be found in the colonies, every men paused to take measure of this man who they knew intuitively to be their new leader.  Each and every one of these men had come to fight the British regulars out of a sense of duty to their America, though such duty was more a feeling than anything yet written in words.

Image from the collections of the Massachusettts Historical Society.

The colonial army, though too oft defeated in singular battles, had clung on tenaciously, in spite of hunger, desertions, quarrels among the colonial officers.  The idea that a woman could fight as a soldier was not even a consideration, let alone a reality.  But on May 20 1782, Deborah Sampson (her image above) of Plympton Massachusetts, her breasts tied tightly to her chest, her hair cut short, and dressed as a New England farmboy, enlisted as Robert Shurtleff in the company of Captain Nathan Thayer of Medway Massachusetts.  Seven months prior to her enlistment, the British surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, and the October 1781 battle was the last large-scale one.  Guerilla warfare continued, however, and Sampson’s unit, the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, fought several small battles in upstate New York, especially near West Point and Tarrytown.  Sampson proved quite skillful, yet despite her ability in these hand-to-hand skirmishes, she was wounded.  In one skirmish, she received a head injury from a saber and was hit with a musket ball in the upper thigh.  She received medical attention for the head wound, but did not inform the doctor of her thigh wound for fear that her identity would be discovered.  After leaving the hospital, Sampson bravely removed the musket ball herself and went on fighting.

Sampson was one of the special soldiers selected to go to Philadelphia to defend Congress from soldiers who were upset that they had not been paid at the war’s end.  During this time, she grew sick and became unconscious due to a head fever.  The nurse thought that Sampson was dead and went to retrieve the doctor.  While searching for a heartbeat the doctor felt the wraps around Sampson’s chest and unwrapped them to inspect what he thought was an injury.  To his surprise he found that his patient was actually a woman.  Dr. Barnabus Binney decided to take her home to give her better care without revealing her identity.

Dr. Binney kept her secret, and Sampson returned with her regiment to New York.  There, General Henry Knox (who would become the nation’s first Secretary of War) honorably discharged “Robert Shurtleff” at West Point on October 25, 1783.

Sampson continued the ruse in face of talk in Stoughton Massachusetts, where she had returned to, that a woman, she, had fought in the war.  She denied such accusations.  But she was found out eventually.

Deborah Sampson Gannet (she had married Benjamin Gannet in 1785) was recognized by Massachusetts less than a decade after the war was over.  On January 19, 1792, she was awarded 34 pounds, which included the interest accumulated since her 1783 discharge.  A document praising her service was sent with the pension.  The document stated “that the said Deborah  Sampson exhibited an extraordinary instance of feminine heroism by discharging  the duties of a faithful, gallant soldier, and at the same time preserving the  virtue and chastity of her sex unsuspected and unblemished and was discharged  from the service with a fair and honorable character.” It was signed by John Hancock.

The call to military service has always been a strange one, attracting one while repulsing another.  That call is no less plaintiff to women, as this relation has shown.  Though they were barred from any form of military service until World War 1.  Women, however, disguised as men, fought in every war until then.  The call to service is a strong one to all who answer.  It defies definition but its existence is without doubt.  Deborah Sampson, and everyone else who has answered the call, has always done so for country, and never for any political predeliction.  While war is an extension of political ambition, service, entirely unrelated, is an extension of ones duty to his, or her country.  Deborah Sampson was the first American woman hero, but far from the last.  She, like most others who have served, did so not because she had to, but because she wanted to, more, the need to.

by

What Women Really Mean When They Are Talking


Men are naturally stronger than women as a rule.  It is genetics and there is nothing they can do about that.  But they have come up with a measured response that has kept men at bay and in their control forever.  If you are a man and take a woman literally, you are either single or not listening.  Women have a way of getting what they want without having to directly ask for it.  I will give you a brief list of these words and phrases that have managed to confuse men into doing a woman’s bidding.

1.  Do what you want — Guys, this is not a woman giving you permission to go out with your friends to a bar.  She is not giving you a choice.  This is her way of saying that she has already told you what she wants to do, and if you know what is good for you, that will be your choice.

2.  Does this make me look fat? —  This is a trick question.  Guys, you cannot answer it directly as she already thinks she looks fat and if you say it does not, she will simply say, “but you think I do look fat.”  There is only one good answer, “What do you think?”  That, in reality, is the only thing that matters after all.  Now, if she does say something to the effect that she is fat, it is your duty to reassure her she looks great.

3.  Did you hear what I just said?  — Guys, unless you can repeat verbatim what she just said to you, take the hit.  She already thinks you have not been listening.  Apologize up front and for God’s sake, listen the second time.

4.  It’s all right — No it’s not!  This is another test.  This is her saying, “If you really loved me you would not think it is not all right.”  Do not take the bait.  Even if you have no idea what she really means, your only response is to suggest you talk about it.

5.  Do you know what day today is? — If she is asking you this question it means you are already screwed.  It is some important date that you should have remembered upon waking that day, and she is upset.  It is time to fall on your sword, look extremely upset, and beg forgiveness.  Women know men forget most dates they consider sacred, you know, silly dates like her birthday, her mother’s birthday, the day her favorite dog died when she was 15.  But whatever you do, do NOT say “no.”

6.  I don’t want to talk about it — When she says that, be afraid, be very afraid.  She really wants to talk about whatever it is, but she is pissed!  As you look at her, think of a female lion preparing to protect her young.  That is a fair approximation of her temperament at that moment.  To survive, you must become extremely sympathetic to whatever is going on and be very patient.  If you push, well, think of the poor animal that crosses that mother lion’s path.

7.  What do you think? — This is just her using a different phrase for “Did you hear what I just said?”  She does not want to know what you think.  She wants an affirmation that she is thinking properly and that you are in agreement.  Now unless diamonds, “Coach,” or Gucci are included in your response that is different from hers, she does not want to hear what you think.

8.  Do you think we could go out this Saturday night?  — Guys, unless you have a surgery scheduled that will conflict with this, your only answer is yes.  Not only that, you need to find out exactly what she is thinking, where she wants to go, etc. and do exactly that.  Your poker plans with your friends will not cut it.

9.  I’ll be just a minute — A woman’s sense of time was best described by Einstein as being “relative.”  You will be with her when she says this and it is entirely irrelevant what the actual time it actually takes.  That is her minute and you need to accept it.  And whatever you do, do not tell her how long she took.  In fact, you would do well to say something to the effect of how nice it is just to be with her.

10.  Do you think we could go to (insert phrase here) — Guys, she is not asking you a question!  Not really.  She is simply imparting to you what she wants to do and that she wants you to accompany her in whatever capacity is necessary.

These a just some of the hundreds of phrases, and variations of those phrases, that a woman says to a man.  Most of them can be called “faux questions” as they are really either statements or demands.  It is the man’s job to learn her particular take on each of these phrases and act accordingly.  Men who do not learn, or worse, will not learn, will be either alone or unhappy, and probably both!