Momma's Boy Strikes Out

Poor woman. She means well. I'm going to be brutally blunt about the way things ARE - that doesn't mean they SHOULD be this way - just that they are this way. MOTHER OF A GOOD SON wrote in to Dear Abby:

My son, "Peter," is in college working on a postgraduate degree.

Okay.

He arranged a date with a young woman while they were home over the holidays.

This implies that they wouldn't be able to regularly see each other, because they are only in close proximity during holidays at home.

After accepting the first date and breaking it, she agreed to a second one. As Peter was driving to pick her up, he called to double-check her address only to be told she was still at a previous engagement. Naturally, Peter expected she'd call back when she was free -- but she didn't. There was no explanation, no call or text or any further communication.

Either she doesn't care, or she is one of those women – some of them call themselves old fashioned as an excuse – that expect him to always be the one to call, in addition to being the financier of the date. If I had to wager, I'd put my money on the former - she doesn't care. She was with a guy she either finds hotter (likely, given that your son is going for a graduate degree), or a better pro$pect who has money to spend right now. Why bother pretending to care or otherwise lie?

What is happening to young people today? Do texting and online social networking encourage them to avoid simple human kindness and consideration of others? I think these new devices are giving kids an easy way to get out of difficult and uncomfortable situations. They don't have to hear the hurt of rejection or the sting of their rudeness through a text or a chat page.

But she didn’t even text. So don't blame modern communications. Modern communications have made it even easier for her to contact him, and she didn't. Or, maybe she expected a call from him. Some people advocate that women never call men. But of course, if he did contact her, she might think of him as a stalker. It is a guessing game – kind of like... do you open the car door for her not? I always have. I don't have any reason to believe that any woman I've ever dated was upset that I opened car doors for her. If a woman had been upset by it, I would know two things right away: 1) she's easy, and 2) she wouldn't be right for me.

Meanwhile, my thoughtful, sensitive son sat home thinking he wasn't important enough for an explanation!

The problem is in your statement. Your son is "sensitive". Who was he going to go out with? A girl who he wouldn't be able to see regularly. A girl who agrees to a date under those circumstances, if she is thinking at all, is going to date either for the dinner/entertainment or the sex, or both – not for a relationship. If she wanted sex, she didn't want a sensitive guy - she wanted a guy who was going to take charge and close the deal. She was likely busy with a jerk – an insensitive jerk.

At 26 he's beginning to think he should just focus on finishing school and forget the dating scene.

He should not date to find a partner until he's done with school and established. It is too bad he didn't learn that earlier. If he's going to date for sex, he needs to stop being sensitive. If he had been running game, he could have consoled himself in the arms of his backup date.

No father is mentioned. That's probably part of the problem. A decent father would have his son straightened out about this. Does this guy even know how to pee standing up? And adding to the problem is that his mother is in his business too much. If he was so concerned and wanted Dear Abby’s opinion, he could have written to Dear Abby. His mother's letter should have focused on contrasting the prevailing behaviors of girls/women today as opposed to years past.

Dear Abby replied:

Your son may be thoughtful and sensitive, but he appears to have unfortunate taste in women.

Really? What decent woman is going to go on a real date with a guy who is not available -a guy with a mother who acts like her son is 13? It would be a "friends" thing at best. Your son, instead of focusing on how to get his career going, earning cash at a McJob, or working on homework, would be spending time and money on a woman who would likely give him a goodnight peck at the door and then call over a booty call once your son disappeared from her sight.

As for the woman who stood up your son – if your son does concentrate on getting that graduate degree and putting it to good use (and learns not to let women walk all over him), then he'll be able to get that woman's hotter younger sister... no problem – or maybe, if he waits long enough, her daughter. In a few years, he'll have his pick of attractive women, and the woman who stood him up will be getting too old for the bad boys, who will be moving on to younger women.

Insight Into the Inner Male

One of the websites I check in on from time to time is The Marriage Bed. It is a Christian website dealing with sexuality. The couple that runs the website blog as "The Generous Husband" and "The Generous Wife", which I have in my blogroll. The forums at the website can be informative. One thread titled "For Wives: How do you view your husband's penis?" got my attention.

"DaWoodkie" had something he wanted wives to know about their husbands. Yes, he's generalizing, and perhaps using hyperbole, but you may still find this useful.

We LOVE our penis. We ADORE our penis. On top of that, our deepest desire is that our wife will share our fascination and love for our penis. We also deeply identify with the idea that our penis IS us. In many (if not most) husband's minds, for you to reject his penis is to reject him. For you to touch it with a "oohh yuck" attitude actually wounds us in very profound ways. So when you are touching your husband, realize that your are touching the most precious thing he possesses. He desperately wants you to adore it in the same way he adores it. When you touch it, he wants to know that you love it. A caress, kiss or lick to his penis is like caressing and kissing his consciousness.

I would encourage wives to think about their husband's penis as a smaller model of him.

Shower it with love and affection and you are showering him with love and affection. Reject it, squirm in disgust or even react with mild distaste towards it and you are sending a message that is loud and clear to him; you think he is disgusting, undesirable and distasteful. Believe me he will get it. If he is like most men he will put up with the attitude because he desperately wants you to touch him (or kiss, etc...) and will settle for what he can get. However, he will come away from the encounter feeling a bit (or a lot) wounded. Learning to love and appreciate your husband's penis is probably one of the best things you could ever do to lift his self-esteem and make him feel desirable.

This brings to mind what I wrote about someone in my past:

Oh, the things she would say. Did she ever know how to lie to a man. Things like:

1. "You're so big."
2. "It is perfect; it's beautiful - I just want to stare at it."

Women may not understand this mentality in men - especially if they don't feel the same way about their own bodies or parts of their bodies. But, of course, men and women are often different.

Sour Grapes or Legit Gripe?

There's supposedly a heterosexual male out there (hmmm, maybe he's bi?) who wants to claim the Lady Gaga character as his own. By that I mean he's claiming he helped create the character, even coming up with the name.

Now, I happen to think that the woman playing Lady Gaga can put on a show. Sometimes I dig heavily theatrical musical performers, going back to Alice Cooper, who is still doing a great job. It isn't always about the music – it is about the whole image, the whole experience. As for the music – I generally don't like most of today’s Top 40/pop.

What I can't stand about the character is the name. Lady Gaga. Yuck. And yet this guy is claiming to have come up with it. Fine. Uhm, hey, you over there. I'm going to name you Lord KooKoo. Now if you make it big, you owe me. Well, it is a little more than that, as Christie D'Zurilla reported at the Los Angeles Times website.

Rob Fusari, a songwriter and music producer who co-wrote some of Lady Gaga's first records -- and was her boyfriend before breaking up with her in 2007 -- is suing the pop star for more than $30 million, saying she squeezed him out of her career once success hit.

Says the lawsuit: "All business is personal. When those personal relationships evolve into romantic entanglements, any corresponding business relationship usually follows the same trajectory so that when one crashes, they all burn. That is what happened here."

Fusari's suit says he came up with the "Lady Gaga" name and helped her get her first record deal...

You know, when you mix dating and business, this kind of thing can happen. This is one good reason why...

1. Someone working a job they want to keep should never date coworkers.
2. Someone with high career goals should reach them or be well on the way to reaching them before locking in to a relationship.
3. Especially with creative and entrepreneurial endeavors, there should be a clear distinction made between a dating relationship and working one, and written agreements about any work involving your boyfriend or girlfriend.
4. Pre-nups that protect intellectual property in so far as a court will honor the pre-nup.

Fusari, who co-wrote songs including "Paparazzi" and "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich," says he had a contract for 20% of royalties, 15% of merchandising revenue and more, the Washington Post reports. The suit says a friend steered the singer to his New Jersey studio in March 2006 when she was still going by Stefani Germanotta.

He could end up getting a lot of money. Whether or not he's telling the truth, a settlement could be made for the sake of avoiding risk.

To become a pop music superstar these days, especially as a woman, it seems to me that you have to be very young and either 1) make it far on American Idol; 2) be physically attractive in the Hollywood sense (and, usually, show it off), or; 3) be a character who hides behind costumes, wigs, theater makeup, etc. From what I can tell, the woman playing Lady Gaga doesn't quite have the face for option 2. That is not to say she's unattractive – just that she doesn't have a model's face. There are plenty of women I find very attractive who don't have a model's face. So option 3 has served her well... a character name, wild costumes, crazy choreography and antics, masks... the whole works.

Evil

As I understand it, there's only one human being who never sinned. But some evil goes beyond and elicits my outrage.

Deandre Fitzgerald Green, a two year old boy, was beaten to death, allegedly by the boyfriend of his "mother". From LATimes.com’s Robert J. Lopez:

A 26-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of killing a 2-year-old Long Beach boy, police said.

Hector Ernest Jr. of Hawthorne is accused of slaying Deandre Fitzgerald Green, who was pronounced dead Saturday at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, police said.

And there’s this...

Detectives believe that neighbors in the 3100 block of Springfield Drive may have heard Deandre crying or being abused, according to the Police Department.

Ugh. What a nightmare. How can anyone live with themselves if they let this go on?

If you want to see a picture of Deandre (a nice picture), click through to this entry by Tony Barboza. Doesn't he look like the cutest thing?

The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services and the Hawthorne Police Department received at least two reports concerning a 2-year-old Long Beach boy before the child was killed, investigators said Tuesday.

At least one of the reports came from the boy’s relatives, said Officer Jackie Bezart of the Long Beach Police Department, which is investigating the death.

I read a comment by someone who said the boy's upset father was on the news, talking about how he tried to do something. This is an example of a case in which I would have supported "abduction" by the father. Unfortunately, he likely would have ended up in jail and the boy would have been back in danger.

The sad fact is, things like this are more likely to happen when a "honey" is brought into the life of a child. Parents with minor children should not do that. It's also too bad that the boy's father didn't pick a better woman to begin with.

Sheesh. I need to blog about something fun and light-hearted next.

Health Care and Domestic Violence?

I could write a lot on how the current efforts to expand federal government involvement in health care and insurance is even more unfair financially to men than other expansions of government. (It is also harmful to the independence of women and to women who earn higher incomes.) But as noted on The Playful Walrus, there are nine states that allow insurance companies to treat domestic violence as a preexisting condtion, and some people, including the current administration, find that troublesome and are presenting it as a womens' right issue. Never mind that women commit domestic violence as well - is it never reasonable for an insurance company to turn someone down who has a history of being abused?

Why should an insurance company be forced to take on someone who voluntarily subjects themselves to a situation that has already proven to be unnecessarily dangerous? And yes, it is voluntary. Dating is voluntary. Being alone in private with someone is voluntary. Shacking up is voluntary. Getting married is voluntary. Staying married is voluntary.

Should all insurance companies should be forced to insure someone (male or female) who keeps going back to someone who beats the crap out of them, or regularly assaults them? To me, it is a problem that only nine states allow insurance companies to treat this as a preexisting condition.

When Wedding Planning Lasts Longer Than Marriage

A couple I've known for many years - heck, they came to my wedding together, and that was over six years ago - have split after probably something like ten years together. They got married less than six months ago.

I know a different couple whose marriage was over about a year after it started (I watched these two exchange purity rings at their wedding).

Another friend's marriage was over after 15 months.

I knew a woman who had gone through a commitment ceremony with her female partner, birthed a daughter conceived through artificial insemination, and then after their relationship fell apart, she ended up marrying a guy. The guy walked out on her and her daughter several months later.

I also flew into a different state to see a cousin-once-removed get married, and to catch up with relatives; that marriage lasted less than a year. The way my cousin tells it, the young bride was used to the more expensive things in life, and she figured her new hubby would change his mind about his career path, which, although admirable, wasn't likely to make them rich. He didn't change his mind after they married, and she got out.

While not all of those examples involved relationships of several years, you may know a couple who finally married after something like six or more years of dating. You can see this sometimes in the world of celebrities. I don't have data or a graph to show, but I suspect that, once you get beyond five years, the longer a couple has been dating the higher the odds are that they'll divorce within a few years after they marry, especially if they had been shacking up. Perhaps it is a little different if one or both were in intensive education programs, like law school or medical school, and didn't want to marry until through with those things. But even then, people sometimes find that the person they wanted to be with while going through their education is not the person they want to be with when they are concentrating on career.

When I learn of a couple, famous or not, that is marrying after being a couple for seven, eight, or nine years, I expect that about a year or two after their wedding, I'll find out they've split.

Why? Well, I can take a guess or two.

You should know if a person you have been dating regularly would make the right spouse for you after about year. Certainly, by two years. Unless you have kept a very superficial relationship, then that period should have given you enough time to get to know the person and his or her personality quirks, habits, faults, and so forth and how you interact with that person in different kids of situations. You should have gotten a good idea of how you get along with that person's family and friends. You should have noticed any red flags. There are some rare exceptions.

Sometimes, a guy is trying to complete his education, or get established in his career, or take care of some debts, or set up a permanent household. If he has been making real progress toward those goals and will likely meet those goals within the next year, then it is certainly understandable why he has held off proposing. But if those priority goals are several years away, then it shouldn't be an exclusive dating situation.

But if everything is just kind of cruising along, then he may not want to get married. If he's getting sex, round-the-clock companionship, and even some regular laundry/maid service, he might not see what it is in it for him to marry. He may end up proposing because he was nagged into it, or figured it was the only way to keep her around.

That doesn't bode well for a lasting marriage.

Whenever anyone is together that long and then gets married, I fear the wedding is the last gasp of the relationship... people getting married because the relationship is bad or dying and they think it will make it better; or they think that's what they're supposed to do after such a long time; or to "redeem" the relationship after "investing" so much time, or at least to get a big party out of it.

Then after the parties are over, they realize it isn't really working, or not what they wanted.

Sometimes, a kid becomes the last gasp - but it is a terrible idea to get pregnant to try to save a relationship. It is hard to raise a child; many couples divorce soon after having a child. Some of that statistic is no doubt attributable to people who married mainly because of the pregnancy. Others are probably people who let the stress of parenting turn them on each other instead of to each other.

It is shame that people think marriage is going to make everything better. Yes, there are nice things about marriage. But it doesn't get rid of the problems a person has or the problems in their relationship.

So soon after we married, I was returning to our home after being out working. As I approached the door, I felt a sense of personal arrival, like "This is the way it is supposed to be." I don't think everyone will be hit with that feeling, and some who aren't take it to mean they have made a mistake. In some cases they are right.

In the most recent example, which got me thinking about writing this blog entry the first place, the couple married after he was in a good career for a few years and able to buy a house. She has left him for, as her father says, "some guy in a band."

Married Men Get More Sex - Part Seven

Ladies, I especially would like your insights and suggestions on this one (I always appreciate your comments, but this subtopic especially needs your perspective).

This is the last in this series for now.

It is easy for an unmarried man to get sex, and get a lot of it (see Part 1 and Part 5). Rejection by some women isn't a problem if he's willing to keep pursuing the ample supply of women who will engage in casual sex "even" with him.

But a married man who refuses to have sex with anyone other than his wife is in a different situation. If he's not getting enough sex to satisfy him, how can he get more sex from his wife?

The rules aren’t so clear here. I've read and heard things like "do more housework" and "buy flowers" and stuff like that, but every woman is different. My wife, for example, would consider my buying of flowers a waste of money. And yes, if a woman has less housework to do herself because someone else has done it (and not screwed it up and thus made more work for her), she's going to have more time and energy to spend on things like... lovemaking.

The experts/authors/lecturers who address this suggest dropping the kids off with family, getting a hotel room, putting candles and rose petals everywhere, and actually scheduling sex. But it isn't practical to do this three times a week.

So what to do?

Here's my embryonic, fuzzy list of tactics in no particular order:
1) Tell her you want it more often, in a positive way. Example: "There's nothing I'd rather do more than make love to you. I'd like to do that more often." That's better than, "Hey, you frigid nag – if you don’t put out more, I'm taking a trip to the brothel."
2) Consider what is thwarting lovemaking sessions, and work to change that. a) Where is all of the time and energy going? Do your schedules line up? This is a big problem for me as I have previously detailed. b) Is there a hormonal issue or other health problem that needs to be addressed by a doctor?
3) Attempt to initiate more frequently, regardless of the frequency of rejection.
4) Engage her in nonsexual forms of intimacy that may not, but could possibly, lead to sexual intimacy: back/shoulder rubs/massages; encouraging her to talk at length about things she enjoys or of which she is fond; leaving notes for her (paper, e-mail, voice mail, or texts).
5) Tell her, while not in a session of lovemaking, what you like about her body and what she does sexually.
6) Tell her what you enjoy doing with/to her.
7) Reassure her with compliments and appreciation.
8) Flirt – including when apart – treat her like a girlfriend.
9) Get in better shape.
10) Don't neglect grooming.
Notice, this is a lot more work than what an unmarried man has to do to get more sex – and wives with faithful husbands who want to make love to them have all of the power to determine when and where and how he will have sex. She suffers no legal, financial, and quite often no social sanction if she rejects him sometimes or all of the time. This is just one reason why it is critical that a man choose his wife wisely, only marrying a woman who truly cares about him.
Closing review/thoughts for this series...

I've said before that I, and a lot of other men, find the very same sex acts more enjoyable with a wife rather than a woman to whom we are not married. But we can't enjoy something that isn't happening.

I do believe that married people worldwide, in general, experience a higher frequency of sex than unmarried people, but there are a lot of men who find that they end up having less sex as husbands than they did as bachelors (even if that sex was with the woman who became their wife). Due to this and all of the other things that come along with marriage, someone who promotes marriage ought not promise an unmarried person that marriage will mean more sex.

Morally, I believe sex is for marriage and one should not engage in sex with someone other than their spouse.

Also true is that since sex is for marriage and is a gift from God to husband and wife, sex should be regularly and frequently enjoyed in marriage in a variety of ways.

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6,)


[Read my comments on this series over six years later.]

Married Men Get More Sex - Part Six

Since I wrote about how an unmarried man can get more sex than a married man (see Part 1 and Part 5), I think I should balance it out by pointing out that there are ways for a man to lower his risk of getting divorced. Statistics that say that anyone who marries is facing a 50% divorce rate are misleading, but they are frequently used as a reason men should avoid marriage.

Even if it is true that half of all marriages end in divorce, the statistic takes into account second, third, fourth, etc. marriages. The odds of two people, marrying for the first time, ending their marriage in divorce, is significantly less than 50%. But there are other factors, too.

I want to see the studies that track the divorce rates of first-marriage couples who:

1) Did not cohabitate with each other before marriage (shack up). (Perhaps include subsets including people who did not have sex with each other before marriage, people who married as virgins, etc.)
2) Frequently attend religious services together
3) Regularly have dinner or breakfast together
4) Are no more than seven years apart in age, with the male being older
5) Married in the 25-35 age range
6) Married after 12-30 months of dating
7) Were childless when they married
8) Had premarital counseling of some sort, which may mean multiple meetings with clergy or a class together
9) Were finished with their formal education when they married
10) Did not have significant debts, aside from mortgage or car payments
11) Didn't experience ongoing substance abuse

If someone does these things, I'm sure they're greatly reducing the odds of being divorced. Once married, if someone has picked the right person, they treat that person well, the odds are going to be even more favorable.

The next (and last, for now) installment will be about how a married man can get more sex. Read it here.

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)

Married Men Get More Sex - Part Five

Let's grant for the sake of this writing that, in general, married people have more sex than unmarried people. Even if that is so, there are people who are unmarried who have more sex than the average married person, even a married person of similar age, economic status, and health. I detailed my own experience, showing that I had more frequently, on average, in my unmarried years than during my married years (which are still ongoing).

In today's social climate, there are things an unmarried man can do to have a sex life that includes more frequent sessions than the comparable married man.

I would like to see a study that tracks sexually active heterosexual males in various age categories:
21-25
36-30
31-35
36-40,
etc.
...in major metropolitan areas. Compare faithful married-with-children guys to unmarried childless guys who strictly adhere to these behaviors:

1) Does not keep "a" girlfriend, but rather seeks to have four or five nights a week of "dates", including scheduling more than one date a night (and perhaps canceling some), but never seeing the same woman more than once, maybe twice a week.
a) By "seeking" dates, I mean that online or in person, goes to where the easy women are to find new prospects.
b) By "dating" I mean meeting up after dark, preferably where she lives, otherwise an inexpensive establishment that serves hard alcohol, and moving the situation towards sex as quickly as possible - the location and activities of the date are chosen by him.
2) Does not spend more than $40 on a date.
3) Does not approach women in groups. Preferably, he acts like he is waiting for someone else until a woman approaches him, or does some other ruse (perhaps with an accomplice) that prompts a woman to approach him. This would include that he not buy drinks for a woman who asks him to, let alone for her friends. Ideally, only buys drinks (hard, not beer) for a woman who came to the establishment with him and will be leaving with him.
4) Only dates women ages 21 and up who drink, are childless, aren't virgins, aren't coworkers of his, aren't married, and do not exhibit signs of PTSD.
5) Stops seeing any woman who doesn't put out on the third date or earlier; leaves the first, second, or third date immediately if she takes a call, texts, or has a friend show up; stops seeing any woman who behaves violently.
6) Uses caller ID and/or answering machine/voice mail to avoid taking calls from women on the weekend, or more than one call per date, unless he knows for certain she will be inviting him over for sex.
7) Calls her only to initiate the next sexual encounter.
8) Always wears his own condom/or has had a vasectomy.
9) Does not stay, to sleep, spoon, or cuddle after sex or after she has said "no", "don’t", or "stop" to stop the sex.
10) Never reveals how much money he really makes, but may do things that give her the impression that he makes a lot.
11) Will only see women during the workweek, unless she is a sure thing.
12) Keeps each "relationship" to as close to booty call status as possible – does not move in or allow her to move in or leave anything at his place; if she gets to be too much work or makes demands she is gone; no gifts, birthdays, holidays, or anniversaries; no meeting family or friends; does nothing to give her the impression he is only seeing her; avoids offering compliments other than backhanded compliments.

Most of these are adapted from Tom Leykis, designed to maximize the amount of sex a guy is getting from easy women and minimize the amount of time and money he spends in doing so, and to avoid indicating that he is looking for a relationship and marriage. These things "work" because there are plenty of women out there who will readily have sex with jerks they hardly know. Some just want male attention - any kind of attention, some have more libido than they have reservations about casual sex, and some are just too busy with career for a relationship. Whatever the reason, they respond to these tactics, and a guy who uses them can easily get more sex than most married men.

Although I suppose you can say I "audited" Leykis' "course", I was never a student as I didn't frequent bars, and didn't do anything to give any woman the impression that I had more money, power, or potential than I actually had, and I wouldn't avoid meeting with friends of women I was dating in my post-girlfriend years. Also, I would typically (but not always) spend the night and sometimes spent more than $40 on dates, and I don't think I ever bought a single drink for a woman who was meeting me for a date. But I do know from experience that some women will try all the harder to have sex with you if you are emotionally distant and refuse to entertain their dreams of a relationship. I do know that a guy doesn't have to be a faux-sensitive doormat who acts like a woman's trained puppy to have unmarried sex. Plenty of attractive women will have sex with unreliable, unhelpful, plain-looking guys without any sign or sort of commitment. The irony is that some of these women will hold out if they think there's a chance a guy will marry them and would be a good husband.

Anyway, I'd like to see the sexual frequency rates under such conditions. Heck, take away points for contracting STDs. Major loss of points if he is killed while at her place. I bet most of the unmarried game-players would get more sex than most of the married guys. Someone can do a masters thesis on this, maybe even get a doctorate.

Coming next: How to lower the chances of getting a divorce. (Read Part 6)
(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

Married Men Get More Sex - Part Four

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Married Men Get More Sex - Part Three

I wanted to address morality before I go further with this series (Part 1, Part 2). I am not neutral. Although for the sake of discussion I am comparing married sex to unmarried sex as though there is no difference, I do believe there is a difference. I believe that spouses having sex with each other is generally a positive thing, and people who are not married to each other having sex is generally a destructive thing.

So even if it was proven that marriage means less sex than being unmarried, that reason alone is not enough for me to discourage marriage. [*] The more sex a person has outside of marriage, the more damage they are doing to themselves and others. A loose analogy is that someone who engages in counterfeiting money may have a lot more money than someone is doing an honest job. But the counterfeiter isn't supposed to have that money. It doesn't matter if the clerk knows the money is counterfeit and still accepts it – it is still wrong.

I realize that people who do not have a moral problem with certain sex outside of marriage, or any sex outside of marriage, will not accept such an analogy, but I offer it to give some insight into the thinking of those who do - who are often the very people touting that marriage means more sex.

Aside from religious prohibitions or related morality, some would argue that even if someone does get more sex while unmarried, that such sex is destructive and separates sex from a core purpose or one of its greatest benefits, namely bonding husband and wife, and is otherwise counterproductive as it may delay marriage, cause someone to bond with the wrong person, and take on behaviors incompatible with their future marriage partner. Women especially are different from each other, so when a man becomes accustomed to the give and take and nuances he has with one woman, this will likely interfere with a subsequent wife. An analogy here would be that it is like a man collecting rocks as he goes on a hike, the load getting heavier and heavier, and then when he gets to his destination, he finds he has to build a foundation using different rocks than the ones he collected on the way. In fact, he has to keep moving the rocks he brought out of the way as he builds, and they remain nearby, in the grass, catching his eye now and then as he tries to enjoy sitting on the porch with his wife.

Again, the reason why I am discussing this topic – the frequency of sex within marriage vs. outside of marriage – is because I have often heard and read that studies show married men have more sex than unmarried men. Which brings me to...

[*] Since marriage is more than sex, evidence that getting married means more sex may not be enough reason to get married. In other words, either way, there is much to consider in deciding to marry or not marry other than sex.

[Read Part 4, about other considerations besides frequency of sex.]

Drinking Women Stay Thin

According to a new study, there is a correlation is women between drinking in moderation and not getting fat. Shari Roan reports in the Los Angeles Times on the study.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston examined data from 19,220 women enrolled in the long-running Women's Health Study. The women, all originally of healthy weight, provided health and lifestyle information over an average of 13 years.

After doing their best to adjust for other factors that influence weight, the researchers found that compared with women who did not drink, women who drank 15 to 30 grams a day -- the equivalent of a drink or two -- were 30% less likely to be overweight or obese at the end of the study period.

Category 4 guys already look for women who drink because drinking gives them an excuse to put out. Leykis advised his "students" to leave – end the date – the moment a woman reveals she doesn't drink, as the pool of easy women who don't drink on dates is too small to be worth playing the odds. It is a bonus that these women will be less likely to gain weight.

On the Los Angeles Times website, the readers seem to have picked up on this.

"covertmoose" wrote:

I have a better reason: the women who party worry more about their personal appearance than those who don't.

Quite possible.

Leykis did advise his students to avoid beer, instead opting for hard liquor or wine. The goal was for the woman to get buzzed, but not send her to the restroom sick or with a full bladder. I would be curious to see if there are weight differences between women who mostly drink beer and women who mostly drink hard liquor or wine.

As for married guys, this is all the more reason to enjoy a glass of wine with the wife.

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.

In Praise of Good Women

I spend a lot of time here pointing out the stupid and evil things that some women (and men) do, and defending men from what I think is unfair treatment. Every once in a while I like offer a reminder that I appreciate good women.

If you poke around male-oriented websites, you can find some where the blogger or, more likely, some of the regular commenters express their dislike or hatred of women as a group. Now, I can agree that a man should be very cautious about trusting a woman - as people in general seem to be getting less trustworthy these days, and our culture generally enables bad behavior in women at the expens of men. I can understand frustration with the current climate between the sexes. But I can't go along with a general dislike of women.

I love women. I love my wife and many things about her and what she does. I love my mother and my sisters. None of these women are perfect, but that's okay. I love my daughter... who is too young to be a woman. I've had some great female coworkers and bosses who have become friends. I had some great women teachers. One of my most favorite singers is a woman. I appreciate the commentary and entertainment provided by women such as Dr. Laura, Tammy Bruce, and Ann Coulter.

Some women have made remarkable contributions to the world as wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, soldiers, leaders, artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, investors, and more. Women literally have a different way of analyzing the world around them and literally think differently, and that is often a valuable thing.

Women bring so much beauty to the world in may ways. I make no apologies for finding the female form to be captivating. Some (heterosexual) guys say they are happier not looking at or thinking about it at all. Just as I don't say marriage is right for them, they shouldn't say they know I'd be happier never admiring or thinking about the female form. They probably are happier never thinking about the beauty of women. But even if I wasn't married, I know I wouldn't be happier never thinking about the beauty of women.

I'm not saying that I think it is OK to leer at women or drool over provocative nude imagery. (Nor am I saying that women are only good as bodies.) But I could stare at my wife all day, and there's nothing wrong with a man admiring the form of a woman who walks by his line of sight, no more so than admiring a doe or a sunset. Sure, we have been marred by sin and admiration can quickly cross over into sinful lusting. There are worse sins, and women really shouldn't make a big deal about it if they catch the man in their life looking at a centerfold.

So while some men declare they would love an existence without having to interact with women, and some of those men look forward to the day when technology will make sex dolls (masturbation dolls, really) almost indistinguishably lifelike in their look, sound & speaking, smell & taste, feel, movement, and behavior - customized to the man's every minute idealized preference – I'm glad I have my wife, flaws and all.

Did You Knock Up Jessie Lauren Canfield?

Jessie Lauren Canfield, 24, of Santa Barbara, California, has been arrested and accused of dumping in the trash a baby she gave birth to at a party.

If she is convicted of murdering this baby, will we ever find out the name of the guy who made the mistake of knocking up a woman who would carry a baby to term and then dump it in the trash? Just because she'll let you stick it in doesn't mean you should. And... ever hear of condoms?

California has a "safe surrdender of newborns" law, and everything else I want to say about this story I've already said before.

The Law Applies to All

More men are filing sexual harassment claims, reports Associated Press writer Sam Hananel.

During more than two years as a food runner at an upscale steakhouse in Scottsdale, Ariz., [John] Pilkington says his male supervisor groped, fondled and otherwise sexually harassed him more than a dozen times.

I'm a firm believer in the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery. I'm also a firm believer in freedom of association and property rights – things that although are supposedly Constitutional, aren't enforced as well as the Thirteenth Amendment.

My point?

The way I see it, Pilkington had three possible good options if he didn't like the groping:

1. Go to the supervisor's boss or the business owner and complain. The owner should be responsible for the tone of the workplace.
2. Quit.
3. Tell the supervisor that he will quit if he does it again, and then quit if the supervisor does it again.

Now Pilkington, a married father of two, is the star witness in a federal lawsuit against Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar and one of a growing number of men claiming they are victims of sexual harassment in the workplace.

I fail to see why the owners of the steakhouse should be held responsible in a court of law if Pilkington didn't like the work atmosphere. He wasn't a slave. He was free to quit. Somehow, we go the idea in this country that if someone hires you, they are obligated to make you feel comfortable in perpetuity. They aren't – or shouldn't be. They are obligated to compensate you as mutually agreed for the work you do. If I hire someone to add on to my house, I should not be obligated to make sure that person is never offended by anything he sees at my house.

I agree that the supervisor's actions were wrong. But I don't think that everything that is wrong should be addressed in the law or a court.

From 1990 to 2009, the percentage of sexual harassment claims filed by men has doubled from 8 percent to 16 percent of all claims, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Well why not? The law applies to all. Either we have equality under the law or we don't. Some of the people who supported sexual harassment laws, like some supporters of other laws, only meant for the laws to be used by certain people against certain people - but that's too bad. I remember how upset some self-identified feminists, who had been so insistent that sexual harassment claims against (now Supreme Court Justice) Clarence Thomas be taken seriously, got when sexual harassment law was applied against President Clinton. That wasn't supposed to happen. Other feminists, like Tammy Bruce, recognized that Clinton's behavior was wrong and called him on it, and called other feminists out for defending Clinton.

Women still file the overwhelming majority of sexual harassment claims with the EEOC and state and local agencies.

That's a given considering the previous sentence – that 16 perfect of claims are filed by men. The options are kind of limited as to who is filing the rest.

While some cases allege harassment by female supervisors or co-workers, most charges involve men harassing other men.

That's because most men who are being sexually groped or pressured by females or being subjected to females exposing themselves or touching themselves don’t mind it. Okay, so I’m joking. Partially. Actually, it probably has more to do with testosterone. But hormone defenses in court cases don’t work as well for men as they do for women.

In the past, some employers might have shrugged off such antics as "boys will be boys" horseplay or fraternity-type behavior. But the EEOC has been filing more lawsuits involving male victims, saying it wants to send a message that such behavior is unacceptable and unlawful.

So not only have women been successful in making previously male cultures be readjusted to the sensitivity levels for women who are present, but even when a female isn't there, we're still supposed to act like there is a sensitive female there.

What ever happened to people handling things like grown-ups? Harassment is childish, but people used to respond along the lines of "sticks and stones may break my bones...". A clever comeback used to smooth the situation over. A swift kick to the nuts of the groping supervisor would have done much to get the message across.

The EEOC said the abusers would drag some victims kicking and screaming into a walk-in refrigerator, touching and grinding against the victims' genitals and take turns simulating rape.

There's a difference between harassment and assault.

Again, I do not justify harassment. It is morally wrong. But what we're seeing is a predictable result of 1) women making inroads into previously male-only professions and positions; 2) a general increase in crudeness and sexuality in the culture; and 3) the ideas that we have a right to ongoing employment regardless of what our boss thinks and a right to not be offended or uncomfortable when interacting with other people.

I'll stop here before I end up rewriting the rest of what I already wrote in this previous entry.

There's a lot of truth in this video from Saturday Night Live.

Married Men Get More Sex - Part Two

I hear/read that married people have more (and more satisfying) sex than people who aren't married. As someone who is now married, this hasn't been my experience – probably because we have young two children. (See Part One) And there are plenty of people who claim experience that goes against this well-known data.

Why?

Even without my own personal experience, we know that: 1. Statistics can be misleading, and 2. Individual cases can be different. For example, if marriage is 90% likely to mean more sex, then there is 10% for whom remaining unmarried means more sex, or at least the same amount.

Here are some considerations for studies/polls that say married people have more sex than unmarried people:

1. We don't know how much sex any particular person would be having if that person had chosen a different path. In other words, we don't know how much sex married John Doe would be having if he had decided to shack up instead, or just had a series of steady girlfriends, or stayed single but dated. We don't know how much sex bachelor Mark Smith would be having if he had married instead.

2. Perhaps the kind of people who are likely to have more sex are the kind of people to get married to begin with. (I discussed both of these first two points before.) Let’s face it, a young, healthy, tall, outgoing, rich, attractive man is more likely to attract a wife or a sex partner. He can attract sex partners without being married.

3. How is the data obtained? Anonymously and alone? Couples meeting with counselors? Unwritten memories – like when morbidly obese people swear they've been eating nothing other than 1000 calories a day of low-fat, low-suger food for the past two years? Are these people keeping a journal? As "liberated" as women are these days, many will lie about how much sex they have had outside of marriage. Women will frequently lie about sex outside of marriage toward claiming fewer partners and encounters than they have really experienced, because they don't want to admit to behavior that they think will make them look slutty. Conversely, married people may overstate the amount of sex they are having becauase they think that is what they are supposed to say.

4. Mixing the USA or Canada or Great Britain or the Netherlands in with Saudi Arabia or Bangladesh or Guatemala or Malaysia or whatever doesn't quite work. Even comparing rural areas in the USA with major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles makes a difference. Some places are more discouraging – by law or socialization or general culture – to unmarried sex than others. Check the bar/club to church ratio. Of course the average unmarried person living in a small town where everyone belongs to the same Baptist church or Mormon stake (I think that's what they call it), with or near family is going to be having less sex than the average married person. But what about the bachelor who lives in a condo tower in the middle of a densely populated area where nobody knows - or cares - that he brings various women he barely knows back to his pad?

5. "Unmarried" is a huge category. It can include: a) 10-17 year-olds, b) people in comas or otherwise severely physically limited including very elderly widows, c) people with hormonal imbalances and thus no sex drive, d) the incarcerated , e) the deployed, f) monks/priests/nuns who have taken a vow of celibacy, g) others who have resolved to abstain until marriage h) LGBT, i) people in the process of getting divorced or are newly divorced, j) people shacking up, k) unmarried people with a regular partner but not living with that partner, l) people who are single – you get the idea.

The best studies will compare people who are married to people who are unmarried who are the same ages, roughly the same economic status, and in live in close proximity, breaking the categories of "unmarried" down into sexually active people who a) shack up; b) do not shack up but have a steady partner; c) play the field.

There's a lot more to discuss about this topic, so this series will continue.

[Read Part 3, in which I give a disclaimer about moral considerations.]

I Don't Want to Go On Vacation

We're going on vacation later this year. We're going to attend a wedding in another part of the country, so that got the ball rolling. Then my wife decided she wants to get together with some old friends and pen pals. But it couldn't be the same day as the wedding, which is on a Saturday, so she chose the following Saturday for the get-together. I just found that part out. I had been hoping for a trip that was going to be an extended weekend. Instead, it is going to be over a week.

Vacations are great when you work have the kind of job in which work doesn't accumulate. For example, if you’re a waiter, someone else is going to do the work while you’re gone. That's not how I make my money. For me, vacations mean either losing money or doing the same amount of work – just doing it before and after my vacation, in addition to all of the other work I would normally do. This stress can be countered by having a relaxing vacation.

I don't expect this vacation will be relaxing.

We've traveled a couple of times with one kid. One of the trips we consider a bad memory. Now we have two young kids.

Flying in general has gotten to be more of a hassle and more expensive ever since 9/11. Flying with young children is even more of a hassle. If I was flying some place for a week, I used to be able to pack all I needed into whatever I was carrying on with me. No chance of it getting lost. No waiting for it to be unloaded. That went out the window with getting married – add a couple of kids, and forget it!

I'm one of those people who do not want to be a burden or annoyance on others. So I really don't want to subject other passengers to my kids if they start screaming or getting restless, and I know kids can be bothered by airliner pressurization.

I wish we had the time to take a train. My family took a couple of long train trips when I was a kid, and I liked being able to walk on the train to stretch my legs and see the scenery. Having a private cabin avoids being an annoyance others.

Flying itself doesn't scare me, though someone near and dear to me was killed in an airplane crash. I get more concerned when we land and I realize I'm going to get into a rental car and drive unfamiliar roads, which is far more dangerous. We're doing that, too. Even "better" – the airport into which we'll be flying will mean having to drive for a couple hours to get to our destination. Gotta strap in those car seats – hopefully the airline won't lose them or delay them (that happened to us before).

Someone has to keep an eye on the house while we're gone, and we have to make arrangements for the dog. That's likely going to be another expense, and less than ideal for the dog.

So, will the kids really behave during the wedding? I have my doubts. Kids get bored silly at such things. It is not in their nature to sit there quietly for long periods of time while people they really don't know go through a formal ceremony. I'll remove them if they can't handle it. Maybe we should add to such ceremonies magic tricks, fire-breathing, and puppets that look like fruit singing annoying songs about sharing?

And then there's sex. I don't see how that's going to happen on this trip. I probably won't even be able to let off steam.

If I recall correctly, it was on the last flight I took with my wife before we had kids that we discovered how much she liked it when I let my fingers do the walking up her skirt right there in our seats. Some dude was sleeping on my other side (or doing a good job of faking it) and we had a blanket to conceal what was going on. From what I understand, this is not uncommon. My wife was turned on something fierce. She's one of those "good girls" who gets a thrill from being "bad" in ways like that. Ain't going to be able to do that this time.

I really don't want to go. Sending her alone or with one or both kids isn't an option. Beyond reading up on some tips to minimize the things I won't like about this trip, I'll need to just stop thinking about it so that I don't stew over something I can't change.

Any advice or tips on preparing for this trip?

Sometimes I read back through entries like this think I'm too uptight and enjoy being alone too much, and as a result I'm robbing my wife and kids. Presenting a happy, pleasant front is good. It is even better if it is genuine.

Biblical Manhood Blog Gets Mothballed

I'm sad to see another good blog get mothballed.

There now plenty of blogs and other online places that defend men and masculinity - but some (not all) by attacking women as a group.

There are places that tell men gpod reasons why they should not get married - but many of them encourage men to go ahead and fornicate.

There are "father's rights" and "men's rights" bloggers.

There are plenty of "Christian" or "conservative" blogs encouraging men to marry and procreate (and casting suspicion on those who don't), and blaming men for most, if not all, of the sufferings and discontents of women, and placing (almost) all of the blame on husbands for anything a woman sees as a problem in marriage.

But Biblical Manhood has been a thought-provoking place that first and foremost called on men to follow Christ. The blogger skillfully applied the Scriptures to defend masculinity, men, and being unmarried, often exposing the problems in some of the statements made on some major Christian websites and some cultural problems in general.

I hope the blog is left intact, unlike some other good ones that have been deleted. I will be moving it in the column on the right, since it will no longer be updated.

Keeping a blog going can be challenging. We all should have our priorities, and when blogging interferes with more important matters, or the topic has run its course, then stopping makes sense. But that doesn't stop me from missing some bloggers who have left.