One Flesh Or Not?

Dr. Laura will often tell wives calling in (and thus wives listening to her show) that it's not a big deal for a husband (and father of minor children) to enjoy adult media...

...as long as he's not doing it instead of being with her and the adult media doesn't feature children, small farm animals, men (gay porn), or barely legal adults.

This has to greatly upset the portion of her audience that has bought into the anti-porn panic/hysteria about how it turns brains into mush and turns men into serial killers, or women who consider to be a form of infidelity.

But what about the other end of this spectrum? Dr. Laura, like a lot of other relationship experts, says it's a problem if he's using such media instead of being with his willing wife. This appears to be a presumption that his body and sexuality belong to his wife.

Put the Shackle Back On

On Tuesday, October 18, 2022, the Dr. Laura Program ran a call in the third hour that I'm almost certain was a repeat or was recorded off-air. Both are regular elements of the program.

The call was with a husband and wife. The husband had just left the wife within the last few days.

The focus of the call became the husband's claim that he left so he could do what he wanted to do. It sounded like he wanted to golf, fish, and certain other similar things.

Dr. Laura kept hounding him with "Why can't you do it while you're married to her?"

Then Dr. Laura said that she did what she wanted to do while married to her late husband. Note: Dr. Laura usually will not allow callers to compare themselves to her or ask what she'd personally do, but she often compares herself to the caller.

But there was a problem with that.

The caller was the husband. Dr. Laura was a wife. Dr. Laura usually notes significant differences between men and women, husbands and wives, and their power within marriage. In her marriage specifically, she had the fame and was a high income earner. She was also a trained psychotherapist. And for the last how many years of the marriage, Dr. Laura was in much better health and shape than her husband. OF COURSE SHE DID WHAT SHE WANTED.

A husband has little power other than to leave, and for most husbands, leaving still doesn't restore all of his power, and the courts will order the husband to spend a significant amount of his life earning money for his ex.

Many husbands can't do what they want because most wives have an extensive list of things (written or not) for the husband to do that occupies his time and energy, and if he doesn't do them or even if he does and his wife doesn't like what he wants to do with his leftover time, she can make his life a living Hell.

She can get hostile and bitchy. She can bitch at him and nag him, including while he's trying to sleep (that one is especially fun, I know from experience). She can shut down all affection. She can get him kicked out of his own home. She can spend him into debt. She can destroy his belongings. There's worse.

She urged the husband to go back to his wife, saying he can do what he wants to do and still be married. Yet, if he had already been doing what he wanted to do Dr. Laura might have gotten a call from the wife and told the wife she was married to a selfish man who didn't want to be married or that she "doesn't have a marriage."

It sounded to me like Dr. Laura was trying to prevent the wife from being a divorced woman at an age she would have slim pickings for a new husband. The call wasn't anywhere near long enough to get a good idea of what has really been going on in the marriage. Dr. Laura may have known due to a letter or what was discussed or sent back and forth prior to the call, but the listeners didn't.

Is This How You Want to Live?

From a recent Dear Abby column, COVERING MY EYES IN TENNESSEE wrote:

I'm so disgusted. My wife has started walking around the house with no panties or bra, letting it all hang out, so to speak. Then she makes comments like, "Doesn't this look good?" I'm sickened by her behavior. I feel violated. How do I tell her to stop without hurting her sensitive feelings?

What a strange thing for a man married to a woman to write.

Why is he reacting this way?

Most men would LOVE this!

Is he gay???

Very, very strange.

Hmm.

What's going on here?

Is There An Obligation to Complete A Date?

A video when viral, with a woman saying she met with a man for a first date, and after seeing her, hugging her, and spending a very short amount of time with her, he asked her to step outside of the restaurant they’d just entered and he cancelled the date. According to her, he said he wasn’t feeling it.

She concluded the video by seeming to blame being overweight.

Maybe that was it, although I’ve seen claims she has pictures on her account that make it clear she’s big, so he had to have known before. Pictures can do that but still be misleading, though.

There’s so much I don’t know that matters to whether he did the right thing or not. The video isn’t long enough to begin to answer several questions.

Maybe it was something she was wearing, her makeup, her hair, or something she said or did? Maybe the hug? Just like some women do, there are guys who pay very close attention to EVERYTHING and are very particular about red flags, turn offs, etc. It could be as simple as she didn’t let him open the door of the restaurant for her. Maybe she was texting. Maybe she’d just been dropped off in front of him by her teen child he didn’t know existed.

It’s also possible the guy had some sort of mental or emotional problem.

He was almost certainly being honest when he said he wasn’t feeling it. If he thought there was a possibility of that changing, he would have likely continued with the date.

So many people say he should have continued with the date.

I tend to disagree, but overall context matters.

First, though, is the question: If he was obligated to continue the date, what exactly does that mean? Was he obligated to share a meal with her on his dime, being polite, friendly, engaged in a conversation, and going at a reasonable pace, and then wishing her well when they were both done and the check was paid?

If I was the guy and had done things the way I was raised, I would have treated her to a good time as best as I could for a first date but not have done anything to lead her on (like kissing her or giving her compliments that weren’t sincere), made sure she got home safely, and after considering it for a couple of days to make sure, I would have given her sincere compliments and the “But…” and let her know it wasn’t going to be a match. Who knows? Maybe she would beat me to it.

Conversely, a man who is running game well would have avoided a meal date entirely. If they were instead meeting for drinks, and he was running game, yes, he should have ended it like that if he didn’t find her attractive. (The video appears to have been made immediately after the aborted date, and it appears it was still very much daylight outside, which isn’t recommended when running game.)

But there are questions.

Who set up the date? Traditionally, men ask for the date. But maybe she asked? If she asked, there is little question he had no obligation to go through with it even after meeting up.

There’s more of an obligation if he was the one who asked her out. But this is a bit of a game. Men are expected, most of the time, to ask, even when it’s clear they both want to meet up.

Did she communicate any expectations for this date? Was she expecting him to take her somewhere else after the meal or whatever? Had she indicated she expected sex? (Yes, some women do that.)

These are, essentially and presumably, strangers. He might have had a feeling he was somehow being set up or taken for his wallet, his DNA, false accusations, whatever.

Men are still generally expected to pay for dates. And time is money. It could be argued he was being responsible to abort the date. I guess we might say that consent to meet up for the possibility of a date isn’t consent to go through with it. His body/time/money, his choice. Can’t consent be revoked at any time?

Plenty of fat women get dates, get boyfriends, get married. True, they don’t have the same options women do if they’re not fat. That’s just a fact of life. Just like how short men don’t have the same options as taller men (but we all have more control over our weight than our height.) But there are fat women who marry, and even some, probably, who are happily married. My advice to this woman, if she keeps getting rejected because of the fat, is to find out how other fat women got what she wants. That might not be possible, if all the men she wants are attracting women they prefer more than her. She might have to “settle,” which is already what most women who lock in with a guy think they’re doing.

Or, lose the weight. I know that’s extremely difficult for some people, and there will still be guys who’ll reject her because she USED to be fat (it leaves marks and loose skin, there’s a likelihood she’ll get fat again). But it will improve her dating position, her employment position, and likely her health.

Can you imagine if a man posted a video like that? Complaining that a woman who’d met him for a first date quickly aborted the date? Especially if he finished it tearfully attributing it to his fat?

I saw a woman claim women don’t act like how the man acted. But women do allow a guy to pay for the date knowing she doesn’t want him, send him on his way without so much as a kiss, and then plenty of those women will text a bad boy to come over and hook up.

Dating, especially if you’re looking for “the one,” is extremely tough. It’s much less of a problem for someone who is running game.

Major Retailer and Employeer Announces Male-Friendly Initiatives

Wow, Wal-Mart has announced several initiatives to promote men workers and men-owned businesses, since men have been hit harder by the recession.

These are some of the things included:

It will source $20 billion from men-owned businesses in the U.S. and will double its sourcing from such businesses in every market globally.

It will also offer training, market access and career opportunities to 60,000 men working in factories to help them "develop the skills they need to become more active decision-makers in their jobs and for their families."

In markets around the world, Wal-Mart will work with major professional service firms and merchandise suppliers with more than $1 billion in sales to increase male representation on Wal-Mart accounts.

Wait... wait... Aw, shucks, I got that wrong. I had to go back and read the story by Andrea Chang at LATimes.com again. Switch the sexes, of course. Uh,except that men HAVE been hit harder by the recession.

Is This Outrageous or About Right?

Richard Winton at LATimes.com reports that a guy in his 30s caught molesting his 13-year-old goddaughter (police think it started when she was 12) has been sentenced to just three years in state prison after pleading no context to two felony counts (two other counts were dismissed). And if you know anything about the current situation with prisons in California, he's probably gonna get out plenty early, after spending the most of the time in county jail.

Wait...

Let me check that again...

Oh!

I knew something had to be wrong with that. I didn't think a guy would get only a three year sentence for something like that. It wasn't a guy with his goddaughter – it was a woman with her godson. This is an update on a story I noted on here before:

The operator of a South Los Angeles day-care center convicted of molesting her 13-year-old godson was sentenced Tuesday to three years in state prison.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry Bork sentenced Chelsea McClelland, 35, to state prison and ordered her to register as a sex offender for the rest of her life for the assaults that occurred in December 2010.

So much for "thirteen will get you twenty".

Casey Anthony Verdict

Anyone seriously believe that if it has been "Kasey Anthony", a father, with the same evidence, and they were voting for conviction on the lesser charges, that a jury would have let him skate on the more serious charges?

Good Clean Fun

Save water. Shower with your spouse. SQUEAKY CLEAN IN NORTH CAROLINA wrote in to Dear Abby:

My husband has been talking about many married couples who take showers together.

That's fairly common. Some even have breakfast together.

In fact, he claims that most couples do.

A majority probably have at some point.

Our relationship in the bedroom has been great so far, and I'd like to keep it there.

Ah… one of those. In bed. Under the sheets. Late at night. Light's out. Missionary-position only. Once a month?

I don't want a twosome in the bathroom. Am I wrong to enjoy my privacy in the shower?

What's the problem? Is there something you don't want him to see? Is that where you shave your mustache? What if you took your shower and then allowed him to join you in the shower? Be glad he still wants you. If you wanted your privacy, you shouldn't have gotten married. Now, if he wanted to join you while you were on the toilet and you had a problem with that, I'd back you up.

I love getting in the shower with my wife.

I have have fond memories, from my wayward youth, of joining one girlfriend in the shower on a somewhat regular basis. At least once, she took the initiative to soap me up and manipulated me with her hand until I shuddered and got weak in the knees.

Dear Abby responded:

If you feel your time in the shower is sacred alone time, you're entitled to your feelings. If an encounter isn't pleasurable for both parties involved, then it's usually not particularly satisfying for either one.

Switch the sexes and ask yourself if Dear Abby would tell a man the same thing if he wrote in complaining that his wife wants to hold hands, hug, cuddle, and talk, and he doesn’t feel comfortable doing all that – he just wants to keep having intercourse with her. Wouldn't she tell him to get some therapy?

Why not get over the inhibitions?

Boiling Springs Teachers in Hot Water

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Stay At Home Doesn't Mean Do Nothing

The Orange County Register has a feature called "Ask the Teacher". This edition was of interest to me. The "question" this time is really a statement:

I'll have you know my child loves going to preschool, and I send her from 8 to 530 all summer long, even though I am home.

This first sentence alone brings several things to mind.

Children like all sorts of things that we either keep them from, or limit.

There is a possibility that the child knows that her mother wants to hear her say she likes it.

Maybe the child just wants to get out of the house and play with other kids. But she can do so with her mother. There's nothing positive going on at this day orphanage that can't be provided by the mother.

Why bother having and retaining custody of kids if you're going to have other people raise them?
Would she be happy if she was able to say, "My husband loves paying to hang out with the guys nine and a half hours a day when he could be spending that time with me."?

I think she will benefit from it, and I do enjoy the time to myself. I still think my child is a 'gift' and I do not think I am escaping my responsibilities by finding somewhere for her to go that she likes.

This can all be distilled down to "I enjoy the time to myself." The rest is fluff, meant to bury any feelings of guilt. This woman is not sending her girl to be in someone else's care for what is likely more than half of that girl's waking hours because she "has to".

Which brings me to the fact that it must be nice for her husband to go out and earn the income and take on an enormous financial risk - the risk that she will divorce him, and he will be obligated to pay her more because she didn't work – while she has every day to herself. When a husband agrees to be the breadwinner, it generally isn't so his wife and indulge herself day in and day out. It is so that she can take care of things like… raising the children. Imagine if the sexes were reversed and she was going out to work all day while her husband dumped the kid on others every day so he could have ten hours to himself?

Looks like the columnist, Carol Veravanich, wasn't happy with the woman's actions, but didn't want to be too strong about it.

I would not send a child to preschool all day every day for this long if I were home, although if I were working then I would work to find somewhere my child enjoyed to spend his time.
...
But, if you are home and not watching your child, then I think that is sad. The program you found may be best since they will welcome her in each day. You will not get this time back, however, and just because there is somewhere for her to go, that does not mean she should leave.

Poor kid.

Another Game of Switch the Sexes

What would you do if a man confided in you that his girlfriend was violent, to the point of regularly injuring him? Would you tell him to fight back? Keep living with her? If you're sane, you'd tell him to get out of that relationship and do everything to avoid her.

In a Los Angeles-area paper The Daily Breeze, Denise Nix reports on a case I found interesting.

A woman who stabbed and killed her boyfriend during a dispute in Gardena was sentenced Tuesday to probation and ordered to attend domestic violence counseling, according to prosecutors.

Lloya Williams, 24, was originally charged with murder for the death of Antoine Benbo, 27, on April 11.

However, the charge was reduced to voluntary manslaughter after an expert testified at a preliminary hearing that Williams' actions were consistent with battered women's syndrome, according to Deputy District Attorney Lana Kim.

We're not living in the 60s or 70s. This didn't take place in the middle of nowhere. If someone attacks you for the first time and you kill them in self defense, then I can understand that. If someone attacks you and you stay with them, then I don't care what you call it, but you're putting yourself in the situation. Yes, assault is wrong. But were Williams' fatal actions really justified? I guess we'll have to take the expert's word for it.

At the time of his death, Benbo was on probation for a domestic violence conviction against Williams, Kim added.

So she knew he was violent and would be violent towards her. Yet...

Williams stabbed Benbo in the chest with a kitchen knife during an argument at their trailer park home in the 13800 block of South Vermont Avenue.

Their home? She was still living with him?

Again, I don't defend the Benbo's actions. He sounds like an evil guy. But what if the sexes were reversed? Are only women excused by hormones and syndromes when it comes to violence between the sexes?

I certainly hope she gets better at picking men, though it would be very risky to date her, so perhaps any man who agrees to date her would be, by definition, not the right man.

And guys - any woman crazy enough to stay with a guy who beats her is certainly crazy enough to kill him as payback. Beating each other is not okay. It is not "just the way relationships are". It is the way sick relationships are. Get help.