Interesting Poll of Men and Women

Chris Michaud reported for Reuters on a poll conducted by AskMen and Cosmo. The headline was “Half of men would ditch woman who gained weight?” This is how it starts:

Men are more concerned with their partner's body type than women but they also seem to value family more highly, according to a new survey released on Tuesday.

Is it really news that men are more concerned with their partner’s body? Only to those people who have had so much "education" they believe there is no real difference between the sexes.

Nearly half of men questioned in the poll of 70,000 people said they would ditch a partner who gained weight, compared to only 20 percent of women.

A lot of the other half of the men are lying. I’ll get back to this below.

Two-third of men also said they had fantasized about their partner's friends, while only one-third of women had done so.

Two-thirds of men admitted this. A typical man only avoids fantasizing about any semi-attractive unrelated female through actively, intentionally stopping himself.

While only 18 percent of women said they would want their mate to be better endowed, more than 51 percent of men said they wished they themselves were.

A Problem With Same-Sex "Marriage"

As you no doubt know, New York became the latest state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. There’s nothing I have to say that isn’t already said at The Opine Editorials, except for a few notes.

For example… Did you know that this is causing a problem for courts when it comes to divorce?

It's true.

When lesbians divorce, the courts have to do extra work to find men to ding for the alimony.

It's no easier when gays divorce. The courts have to do extra work to find a woman to assign custody of the kids.

Thank you... I'll be here all week.

She Might Have to Go Younger or Older

It's not easy for a 50-something woman in this position. MISSING OUT IN WYOMING wrote in to Dear Abby:

I am a 54-year-old woman who, after a long marriage and unavoidable divorce, is ready to date.

Sorry you went through that. The divorce could have been avoided by choosing wisely and treating kindly. Choosing wisely, thought, can be difficult if someone hides who they really are before you marry them.

I work out daily, am active in my church, take classes, and socialize with women and married couples. I'm in excellent shape and am told I'm attractive and fun.

All good things.

There are few available men my age (or a little younger or older) and almost all of them seem to be looking for women in their 40s, 30s or even 20s.

This is true - that there are few available men, since almost all people get married. A heterosexual man that age is likely to be married or remarried, or divorced at least once.

Here's the heart of this letter:

Why are men my age so unwilling to date women their age?

The short, brutal answer is: Because they don't have to. Men tend to gain money, power, and fame, as they get older, and that makes them more desirable to women. The more of these things a man gets, the more and hotter women he has available to him. Sure, women appreciate hunks, but the bottom line is that the kind of women these men want (young women who will provide sex for little effort/time/money invested) are usually going to choose the guy with money/power/fame over the younger, hunky guy who is living paycheck to paycheck. These men have those women available to them, and they are going to pick those women before picking you.

"Hotter" for most men often unavoidably means "younger", because men are visual creatures who prefer tighter, perkier, less damaged/aged female skin.

When these men get older, they may look or a woman who will be able to take care of them in their old age, but for now, they want sex with hotter women. A lot of them have been married before and it isn't what they want right now, or, even if they are looking or a wife, they want her to be hotter and deferring to his age and experience.

They don't want another friend. They don't want someone with whom they can discuss politics or deep subjects. They want a younger, hotter, fresher body.

I write all of this as a guy who, during my wayward younger years, thoroughly enjoyed the company of a woman your age. The older women I dated were attractive, sexy, and a lot of fun and could carry on an intelligent conversation. But I wasn't looking to marry any of them, or travel with them, or anything like that. It was conversation, perhaps a movie, perhaps dinner, and most definitely about fornication.

Am I destined to spend my life without romance?

There is probably a man your age out there who is right for you and wants you. Maybe you've ignored a few of them already because they are "boring". Chances are, though, he'll be of modest means because the guys your age who are better off do have the option to go younger. If it really is romance you want you'll increase your odds if you are willing to date men significantly older than you or to play the cougar by seeing younger men… who can't find women their age because they are dating the men your age. If you want a husband it is going to be difficult, but not impossible, to find someone your age; it will be nearly impossible if you expect him to be much better off financially than you.

Dear Abby responded:

I can't speak for "all" older men, but many of them in our youth-obsessed culture look for women considerably younger because it helps them fool themselves into thinking they are younger than their years.

That might be the way a woman thinks, but not the way a man does. It really is as simple as younger generally = hotter. Yes, there are unattractive 20 and 30-somethings, but few women have hotter bodies at age 54 than they did at 34 or 24. Like it or not, a man's ability to attract someone in the dating world tends to increase as he gets older (to a certain limit) and a woman's tends to decrease. This is one of the big reasons why marriage "protects" women and is advantageous for women.

When you're 54 and you’re with your husband of 20+ years, he has that love and bond and history and experience and memory and vows with you. Your body turns him on in part due to these factors. That isn’t the case with the unmarried men who are strangers to you, who will have a more difficult time being turned on by the mere sight of you across the room. It is easier for them to be turned on by looking at that 20 or 30-something they don’t know either, and that makes them more likely to approach that other woman rather than you.

You are physically, socially and intellectually active, so stop allowing yourself to be marginalized and consider dating men who are younger. It worked for Demi Moore.

Not a bad suggestion.

Deflation and Sagging

This is one of those brutally honest posts that necessitates my anonymity, to protect the innocent (not me… my wife). It is about body parts, not the economy. You are warned.

File This Under No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Or, perhaps, be more cautious. Chino Hills is located just outside of Los Angeles County in southern California’s benighted Inland Empire, kinda in the heart of the four-county block of LA, the OC, and the Inland Empire. Phil Willon reports at LATimes.com:

A Chino Hills woman who was trying to hang a bird feeder from her second-story patio lost her balance and fell to her death early Monday morning, authorities said.

The woman, who was not identified, died after an unsuccessful attempt by a Chino Valley Fire rescue crew to resuscitate her.

Sad.

According to a report by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, the woman was trying to hang the feeder from a wood beam directly above her patio ledge around 3:45 a.m. She fell two stories down, landing on a concrete floor near the base of a staircase.

That was awfully early in the morning. Did she work a night shift? Was she unusually tired? That can impair perception, coordination, and judgment.

Sometimes we get complacent in familiar surroundings, such as home, and aren't as cautious as we should be. She may have put up bird feeders like that many times with any close calls. My sympathies to her loved ones.

Change VAWA to VAPA

Phyllis Schlafly, a favorite target of Leftist feminists who usually "forget" to explain where and how she is wrong, talks about the problems with the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in this installment of her column that calls on WAVA to be rewritten.

For 30 years, the feminists have been pretending that their goal is to abolish all sex discrimination, eliminating all gender differences no matter how reasonable. When it comes to domestic violence, however, feminist dogma preaches that there is an innate gender difference: Men are naturally batterers, and women are naturally victims (i.e., gender profiling).

Starting with its title, VAWA is just about as sex discriminatory as legislation can get. It is written and implemented to oppose the abuse of women and to punish men.

Ignoring the mountain of evidence that women initiate physical violence nearly as often as men, VAWA has more than 60 passages in its lengthy text that exclude men from its benefits.

Schlafly isn't just complaining. She has specific recommendations.

For starters, the law's title should be changed to Partner Violence Reduction Act, and the words "and men" should be added to those 60 sections.

The law should be rewritten to deal with the tremendous problem of false accusations so that its priority can be to help real victims. A Centers for Disease Control survey found that half of all partner violence was mutual, and 282 scholarly studies reported that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men.

Currently used definitions of domestic violence that are unacceptably trivial include calling your partner a naughty word, raising your voice, causing "annoyance" or "emotional distress," or just not doing what your partner wants. The law's revision should use an accurate definition of domestic violence that includes violence, such as: "any act or threatened act of violence, including any forceful detention of an individual, which results or threatens to result in physical injury."

If refusing meet a wife's every request is considered domestic violence, the concept is trivialized. There are women who are beaten by their shack-ups or husbands, and their plight should be taken seriously, not equated to disagreement.

Women who make domestic violence accusations are not required to produce evidence and are never prosecuted for perjury if they lie. Accused men are not accorded fundamental protections of due process, not considered innocent until proven guilty and in many cases are not afforded the right to confront their accusers.

Here's another specific problem:

Feminist recipients of VAWA handouts lobby legislators, judges and prosecutors on the taxpayers' dime (which is contrary to Section 1913 of Title 18, U.S. Code), and the results are generally harmful to all concerned. This lobbying has resulted in laws calling for mandatory arrest (i.e., the police must arrest someone -- guess who) of the predominant aggressor (i.e., ignore the facts and assume the man is the aggressor) and no-drop prosecution (i.e., prosecute the man even if the woman has withdrawn her accusation or refuses to testify).

She goes on to cite the same thing Michael Barone cited in a column I discussed here.

Victims of actual domestic violence have an obligation to 1) remove themselves and anyone for whom they are responsible from the situation, and 2) document the abuse, and, depending on how serious the abuse is, 3) following through in prosecution. Law enforcement should definitely cooperate, but not abandon the "innocent until proven guilty" approach. This will not only protect the victims (and thus allow them to leave the victim status behind), it will also protect others from becoming victims.

Becker and the Pecker

This is going to be... big... news. Maybe you've already heard it. From the Orange County Register:

A woman is behind bars after police say she poisoned her husband, cut off his penis and threw it in the garbage disposal because he "deserved it."

He probably "deserved" it the way some women "deserve" to be beaten or sexually assaulted.

At about 9 p.m. Monday, officers went to a home in the 1400 block of Flower Street [Garden Grove, California] after a woman called 911 and reported a medical emergency, Garden Grove police Lt. Jeff Nightengale said.

Officers found a 51-year-old man tied to the bed and bleeding from his groin, he said. The man, who has not been identified, underwent emergency surgery at UCI Medical Center in Orange and was listed in serious condition, Nightengale said.

The 48-year-old woman, Catherine Kieu Becker, is accused of using an unknown poison or drug in her husband's food to make him sleepy, Nightengale said. She then tied him to the bed and, as he woke up, she cut off his penis with a knife, Nightengale said.

That would make it premeditated. Perhaps a lawyer will still manage to come up with a hormone defense.

The victim told detectives that he believed there was something wrong with the food Becker prepared for him, Nightengale said.

So he was complaining about her cooking? Is that why he deserved it? Oh, wait, he means that he was poisoned.

Becker and the victim are going through a divorce, he said.

Okay guys, one of the first rules about divorce is STAY AWAY FROM HER!

Becker was arrested on suspicion of aggravated mayhem, false imprisonment, assault with a deadly weapon, administering a drug with intent to commit a felony, poisoning and spousal abuse, Nightengale said.

What, no "illegal dumping of biological" waste? Let's see if she is actually held accountable.

Crazy women are fun in bed. Until they cut off your pecker.

By the way, it's California, so even if she is guilty, she is STILL entitled to half of the marital assets, and, if he earned more than her, alimony. Now, he can certainly sue her for what she (allegedly) did to him, and I hope he does.

Men, choose wisely. Add this woman to the "Do Not Date" list.

A Case of Alimony Fraud

Any government program is going to have abuses, fraud, waste, etc. That is one reason why I support the idea that the best government is tightly limited government. Government-decided alimony is no exception.

FURIOUS IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST wrote in to Dear Abby:

My parents divorced 20 years ago. The court approved a mutual agreement that Dad would pay monthly alimony until Mom remarried or one of them died.

In states like California, this is standard if the marriage lasts ten years or more. It is ridiculous. There are very few cases in which this is warranted.

He has never missed a payment.

Sounds like a law-abiding man. You're not going to see his face on a billboard. You're not going to see his story on Lifetime.

I have recently discovered that Mom secretly married her live-in boyfriend 11 years ago, but has continued receiving the alimony without telling my father.

On the plus side, at least she didn't continue to shack up like some women do to take advantage of the insane alimony system. This is why the "until marriage" thing does not work in alimony.

Is she committing a crime for which she could be arrested? And is her husband guilty of any wrongdoing?

Well, see, there's the negative side. Your mother is a fraud. That's the nicest word I can use about her. Other men might use words that rhyme with itch and blunt, but not me. I'm not a lawyer; I have no idea if her husband can be held criminally responsible for aiding her fraud or "receipt of stolen property." She is likely a tax cheat as a result of this, and he could be as well.

I am extremely upset over this and want to do something to correct this injustice.

Good for you. Even more so if you are a female. I have no idea if you are.

It isn't fair.

Welcome to the battle of the sexes as far as the law goes.

Dear Abby responded:

Marriage certificates are public records, so get a copy of your mother's and mail it to your father. He needs to stop paying the alimony, and he can sue her in family court for any money she wasn't entitled to. His next move should be to consult an attorney and decide how he wants to handle this.

Exactly. Good advice.

I WONDER why feminists have not been vocal in attacking alimony policies - not all, just some - which presents women as unable to take care of themselves? It is a throwback to when women didn't have equal access to the workplace, property ownership, and the academy. If a feminist truly cares about equality and women not being treated as property, shouldn't she be against lifetime alimony in most cases? I get the importance and purpose of alimony in cases when the agreement was for a husband to earn in the income and for the wife to maintain the home and raise the children; she'll need time to establish herself in the working world. (This should all be required prenuptial stipulations, IMO) But for life?

Isn't there some way this situation can be made better? Perhaps through a "divorce insurance" policy? I could see having a policy where if the spouses stay married until one of them dies, the policy pays the survivor, provided the survivor didn't kill the deceased. If they divorce, the policy pays the "alimony". I'm no insurance expert, so feel free to tell me I'm smoking crack.

I really do think that this is one of those things couples should have to state in writing before getting married what the agreement is going to be. A husband-to-be should be able to voluntarily agree, before marrying, to lifetime alimony, but I think it is a bad thing to have as default in most cases. Especially in states with no-fault divorce.

I'd be curious to know the circumstances of the marriage and divorce.

Will the Academy Get Even More Hostile to Men?

Townhall.com can be a great place to find conservative opinion on current issues and breaking news. They feature a wide variety (and thus sometimes they disagree with each other) of columnists who fall under the "conservative" designation (which means they might be in the GOP, or libertarians, or fiscal conservatives, foreign policy conservatives, social conservatives, etc.). The site is part of Salem Communications, which is a media company that has a lot of radio stations and syndicated programs with some of the best talk show hosts.

Today, I wanted to point out a column from a couple weeks back by Michael Barone.

He points out the university used to be place in society where you would find the widest allowance of free expression. But things have changed:

Today, we live in an America with enormous cultural variety in which very few things are considered universally verboten. But on campus it's different. There, saying something considerably milder than some of the double entendres you heard in cable news coverage of the Anthony Weiner scandal can get you into big trouble.

What brought this on?

These reflections are inspired by a seemingly innocuous 19-page letter on April 4 from the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights to colleges and universities. The letter was given prominence by Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which has done yeoman work opposing restrictive speech codes issued by colleges and universities.

OCR's letter carries great weight since there are few things a university president fears more than an OCR investigation, which can lead to losses of federal funds -- which amount to billions in some cases.

In my opinion, the only institutions of higher learning that should be getting federal funding in the first place are ones doing work (such as training) for the military, or some other Constitutionally-stipulated federal government work.

The OCR letter includes a requirement that universities adopt a "preponderance of the evidence" standard of proof for deciding sexual harassment and sexual assault. In other words, in every case of alleged sexual harassment or sexual assault, a disciplinary board must decide on the basis of more likely than not.

That's far short of the requirement in criminal law that charges must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. And these disciplinary proceedings sometimes face charges that could also be criminal, as in cases of alleged rape.

Uh-oh. This means things are going to get even worse for men - a minority on campus already.

Lukianoff notes that campus definitions of sexual harassment include "humor and jokes about sex in general that make someone feel uncomfortable" (University of California at Berkeley), "unwelcome sexual flirtations and inappropriate putdowns of individual persons or classes of people" (Iowa State University) or "elevator eyes" (Murray State University in Kentucky).

All of which means that just about any student can be hauled before a disciplinary committee. Jokes about sex will almost always make someone uncomfortable, after all, and usually you can't be sure if flirting will be welcome except after the fact. And how do you define "elevator eyes"?

Simple. "Elevator eyes" are when a man looks in the general direction of a woman and she finds him unattractive or dislikes him for any reason, and she wants to complain about him. Isn't that easy?

As Lukianoff points out, OCR had other alternatives. The Supreme Court in a 1999 case defined sexual harassment as conduct "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, and that so undermines and detracts from the victims' educational experience, that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution's resources and opportunities." In other words, more than a couple of tasteless jokes or a moment of elevator eyes.

Now now, the Supreme Court is only to be listened to when it says something these people like.

Look, fully half my ancestors were women, I have sisters, I have a wife, I have a daughter. I don't want them to have to deal with sexist hate or crude behavior. But this is being ridiculous and downright dangerous. You may be sympathetic to this cause, especially if you are a woman who has been subjected to crude comments, but do you want your brother, your son, your husband, your male friends to be railroaded off campus on the whims of a, perhaps, emotionally or psychologically unstable woman?

For sure, throw violent people off campus and into prison. Remove anyone on staff or in the student body who is proven to persist in actual harassment. But if it is going to be merely "he said vs. she said", her word is going to be given more weight.

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?