Say It Like You Mean It

When it comes to relationships, men say exactly what they mean.

I keep telling my younger girlfriends this, but maybe it takes age or several relationships to experience the reality of it. I’m going to say it again, just because women need to hear it from another woman. (Women never seem to believe it from a man.)

When men talk about relationships at all, they are direct. They say exactly what they mean. There is no hidden agenda. If his mouth is moving and he’s telling you what he’s feeling, then he’s being truthful in that moment. Take heed of what is said and what he chooses to not say.

I’m going to use an example from my own life to illustrate the point, because if I use any of my friends’ they might dropkick me into the next blogosphere.

It’s a Friday night and “Frank,” the man I had been seeing for a while, is over the moon about me, which is great because I’m infatuated too. He tells me, “I can see us growing old together; I know I’d never get tired of you. I love you, I love everything about you, and I think I want to marry you. What kind of engagement ring do you want?” Do I believe him? Abso-frickin-lutely!

Fast forward five days to Tuesday around dinner time: Frank has been silent for a while. When he finally communicates, this is what comes out, “I’ve got [list of seven other things, situations, and people] that I’m dealing with right now as best as I can. I’m overwhelmed and I don’t want to deal with you. I don’t think I can handle a woman in my life right now. You should probably just leave.” Do I believe him? Goddamn right I do!

If you have the intelligence of lichen, you will have noticed that Frank’s two statements (made under a week apart) contradict each other. In the first, he’s clearly feeling the joy and wants our relationship to continue until we’re being wiped down by a nurse at the old folks’ home. In the second, he’s clearly feeling the pressure, he can’t focus on any goals or situations that aren’t in front of his face, and he wants out faster than you can say “lockpick.” While in one phase, he never references his opposite state of mind.  He may have had no cognition that these opposing mental attitudes created a roller coaster in our relationship. The roller coaster ran for months. Yes, both statements were perfectly true. Every time he said them.

Here’s the trick: A man may never say as much as a woman wants him to, but that’s ok. All a woman has to do is listen to what he is saying, not what she wants him to say. When she actually hears what he’s saying, she will probably be able to put together the clues and find some of the answers she sought. She may not like the answers, but she will be able to respond to something real, not just in her head.

With Frank, I had a boyfriend who was internally conflicted about what he needed and wanted in his life. It came out clearly in his words. As a free agent with a vested interest in the outcome of his civil war, I could push for one conclusion or another (and at times I pushed for any effing conclusion at all), but the problem was essentially his. It had very little to do with me or the role I played in his life.

Once I accepted that truth, I had only one obligation. I had to let him know that his inability to think past today’s crisis was jeopardizing his tomorrow’s happiness, if he still considered me a part of that happiness. If there was no change or response on his part, then I had two possible actions—wait it out and hope, or leave. I tried the former for a bit, but I have to live a life too, so I ended up doing the latter.

Ladies, let’s take a couple of broad examples now and apply the theory that men say exactly what they mean.

Ex. 1: It’s six months into it, the two of you are in bed, and you curl into him after sex and ask “So where is our relationship heading?” He replies, “I don’t know.” You say, “Well, what do you think?” He says, “I don’t know. I guess I kinda like where we are now.” He’s not being evasive and he’s not in a fuck fugue. He probably didn’t even think about it until you asked, because whatever the two of you have right now fits his comfort zone. If you are looking for more, you can read a lot into such a neutral statement. That would be a mistake, and so would be pursuing the issue at that moment. If he didn’t think about it before you brought it up as pillow talk, then you’re not going to get a different answer until you back off and let him do so.

Ex. 2: You’re hanging out with a male friend, you’re both drinking, he hits on you, and you ask “Now you want to be more than friends?” He says, “I just want you.” You say, “Well, if you want to sleep with me then you must want something more than friendship.” He replies, “C’mon, don’t you want me too?” That is a classic misdirection. He avoided answering the question, so the answer is “No.” Do not be fooled by his attempt to focus on the sexuality of the moment. He does not want to become your next guy. He wants to get laid and he wants to know if you are horny too. What he is and is not saying tells you volumes but you are not hearing it because you are focused on getting him to admit something that isn’t true for him. Stop doing that.

This example brings me to one of the lines men often draw that women frequently don’t recognize or don’t want to recognize, and how it comes out verbally.

When I was 14, I read Kathleen Winsor’s “Forever Amber,” an epic drama set in the court of Charles II using the tribulations of one woman as a lens for examining the culture and events of those times. One line, spoken early on by the character of Bruce Carlton about the anti-heroine Amber, has stuck with me (and I’ll have to paraphrase because I don’t have the book anymore):  “She’s the kind of woman any man would want as a mistress, but no man wants to marry.”

Men still classify women in Madonna/whore terms—or, in modern parlance, as “marriageable” vs. “fuckable.” You say this doesn’t still happen? Yeah, I’ll call that trope and raise you $20. It happens, even with men who don’t have the sexual dysfunction complex of the same name.

No woman wants to be Amber St. Clare. Her life was miserable. Unfortunately, when it comes to the Madonna/whore, wife/mistress dichotomy, I have usually placed in the second mental category–the Amber category. It took me an ashamedly long time to unravel the subtext, but I ascribe it to being deliberately thickheaded. I simply didn’t want to hear what I was hearing, repeatedly, from some otherwise wonderful men who treated me well and were quite nice in every other aspect. I am not marriage material. I am the anti-Mom.

Men are simple when the issue comes down to sex. It’s basic psychology. The first woman almost any man learned to love and respect was Mom, unless she beat him with a coat hanger or left him with the druggies while she got her fix in the backroom. Mom was not sexy. Whatever her other characteristics and personality, Mom was safe, secure, dependable, and trustworthy. A woman who is seen as primarily sexy—whether it’s just a part of her makeup or because she works it too hard—is already down about four rungs on that ladder toward long-term relationship-dom. Why? Because long-term emotional commitments require that you both feel safe and secure with each other, locked in a relationship based on mutual trust and dependability.  I repeat:  Mom was not sexy. If you are the anti-Mom, then you aren’t associated with the required building blocks a guy needs to make a commitment.

This is great if you don’t want a commitment from him, either. It sucks if you want to be and/or think you are a contender for his heart.

And, in case you missed it, I just related an important piece of translation:  If the guy you are newly dating tells you that you are sexy, he’s already put you in the “fuckable,” not “marriageable” category. I’m not saying you can’t change or broaden his perception over time, but first you’ll have to convince him to treat you like real person in his real world, instead of like the best booty call he’s ever laid. You can try, but he may not be worth the Herculean effort. Good luck with that.

In general, I believe women do men a disservice when it comes to relationships. I take it as given that women analyze such things more than men do–probably more than we should and more than most relationships deserve. It seems to come hard-wired into our gender. But many women also prejudge men as less capable of or willing to express what they feel, what they want, and what they mean.

I don’t believe men are less capable at all. Rather, I believe that women could learn from men how to communicate more succinctly and directly. Respond to what is said, not to what you think it means. If you need clarification, be clear about what and why. When you ask something or say something in return, don’t “lead the witness.” Say it like you mean it.

Actually, that’s true for most communications: Say it like you mean it.

Metanaturality

My Word of the Week is “Metanaturality.”  You won’t find it in Oxford’s. I’ve coined it because modern religion and philosophy haven’t coined a word that describes my belief system.

In recent weeks, I have been asked about my religion by four different people. This is always an odd experience because my religion is hard to explain, and it doesn’t come with a pre-wrapped evangelical sales package. Paganism is an umbrella term that encompasses nearly every kind of anti-monotheistic belief system that still uses deity archetypes.  Pagans aren’t out to convert anyone because there is no unifying creed to which people can be converted. Even trying to explain “Why Paganism?” becomes a semantic challenge, because the language we use to describe our spiritual reality relies heavily on metaphysics and very little on common myths and theories of transcendental rewards.

It has been a long time since anyone has questioned me about my beliefs.  My own practice tells me that when the Universe keeps throwing something at you, it’s for cause or reason.  Since I do not doubt my own beliefs, perhaps I’m being asked because it is a service I can perform. That there is a need for someone to say what I can say, or for someone to hear it.

So, here is the RDC version of what I believe. I think it holds true, as a philosophy, for many other pagans, regardless of which religion has been adopted and how closely s/he follows a particular spiritual path.

I believe that the Universe is at least sentient, and perhaps even fully conscious.  I do not believe it is god, because it is natural. In fact, since we and everything we experience is a part of the physical Universe, there is nothing supernatural, and therefore nothing transcendental.  However, I believe that many of the phenomenon that others call “supernatural” (e.g., ghosts, after-life experiences, reincarnation, psychism, paranormal activity, occultism) exist as real, in this Universe and they are all natural occurences. We have not yet discovered and codified the natural laws that create such phenomena, but we experience them and, lacking a better method of explaining them, we resort to spiritual or religious practices to explain them to ourselves.  Some of these stories may be more accurate than others, in that their analogies are more precise.  The more precise analogies eventually engender more followers because they “feel true.” But all of them are stories we tell ourselves to explain what we do not fully understand.

The best of us recognize that these are stories and that we use our creative ability to draw parallels to actual physical truths; when we have better knowledge of the underlying physical truths, we can adapt the stories to reflect that.  The worst of us believe the stories themselves are the truth, and stop looking beyond the analogies to find deeper meaning and connectedness in the natural world.

For here is the physical truth which underpins the metaphysics of a pagan:  Everything is interconnected.  Anyone who can quietly observe nature for a half a day can see this truth in action for himself. Ecology shows us how air, soil, water, plants and animals are intricately tied together. Sometimes the loss of one species in an ecosystem will presage the collapse of the whole.

And I believe that what is true on Earth, to good extent, can be extrapolated to be true for the Universe as a whole.  I will use the human body as my analogy here.  If the Universe is All There Is (the whole body), then it would have to be sentient, since we find sentience here. The galaxies within it would have to be interconnected, as our own bodily functions are, and even our ecosystems are, here. Every element you find in space is also a part of us.  It is not by accident that there are so few Earth-like planets in the Universe.  It is logical to me that Earth, which has a rare self-sustaining, organically living system, is a part of the central nervous system of the Universe. It is also makes sense to me that we aren’t necessarily the brain. If we are, then it would be Earth as a whole–interconnected, growing, and experiencing itself–that is the brain, not just the humans on it. The other possible conclusion is that we are one of several “Earths” out there. To carry the anatomical analogy forward, we haven’t found another Earth because the Universe would not require as many “brain cells” as it would other cells for other functions, as a percentage of its entire “body.”

Many people when they look at the Universe and try to find their place in it are awed, humbled, lost in and depressed by the vastness. I believe that Earth is significant, but the humans on it are not as important to the Universe as the experience of the whole is. The Universe is quite copacetic with humans eradicating themselves from its face—if it happens, it makes way for a different kind of life with a difference kind of experience to take over and inform.

This is my own philosophical belief and the premise for my spiritual and religious practice. I call it metanaturality, since I haven’t found a term already in existence for it.

As for why I am pagan, and what specific religious practices I use, it is nearly, but not quite, moot. I have a couple of traditions that I am most comfortable with, and a couple of others from whom I borrow liberally because they speak to the way my mind organizes information and tells stories.  In practice, I use the rituals I need to use when I feel a need to connect into the greater web of life. The web is there, whether or not I follow a particular practice, or use a ritual.  Sometimes I choose the ritual because it is simply soothing—like a call and answer or a communion service—and it helps me ground and center.  Sometimes the ritual is a device for gathering energy to me, or for focusing/directing my energy outward—like a gospel song or a prayer.  Since I have a very natural, metaphysical world view, I find the pagan archetypes with their animal and plant spirits and their nature deities, much more conducive to making that connection happen, and their language for explaining the “as yet unexplained” phenomena more accurate to my own experience than the language in any monotheistic belief system.

Virginia Gets Its Own Bachmann

Virginia is a competitive state.  It doesn’t like to be outdone, especially when it comes to conservative fanaticism.  Just when the residents thought it couldn’t possibly become more ridiculous than a Ken Cuccinelli run at the Governorship, a new lunatic has stepped up to seize the Holy Cup of Cray-Cray.  Meet E.W. Jackson, the Republican candidate for Lt. Governor, who makes Cooch’s Teapublicanism look like a Disneyland B ticket.

Jackson is a lawyer and Baptist minister who thinks that yoga leads to Satanic possession and that Planned Parenthood is worse for black people than the KKK.  In the Jackson world view climate change advocates are hysterical (not in that good way, either), and you can’t find a single mention of him that doesn’t refer somewhere in the text to his rabidly homophobic slurs.  Oh yeah, and giving him money is as good as giving God money, and much better than charitable giving to the poor.  (He really is a modern politician.)

In short, Virginia has found its own Michele Bachmann wannabe–a candidate potentially so publicly embarrassing that he causes people to think twice about relocating to the state.  On a positive note, The Daily Show and Colbert Report will not lack for fodder, so maybe we’ll get some rubbernecking tourist traffic from this trainwreck.

Link

A great article in New York Magazine which finally demystifies… the obvious.

When Women Pursue Sex, Even Men Don’t Get It

Here’s the take away, from the bottom of the 5th paragraph:  “Women like having sex. They don’t like being socially punished for it.”

I’ve never understood why most men don’t like women to be assertive about their sexual needs and desires; it’s an attitude that seems both counter-intuitive and counter-productive.  This article explains much about why I am still happily single.

My Favorite Bikini Body

An unscripted shot of Elizabeth Taylor (with Richard Burton) off the Amalfi Coast in June 1962 during the filming of “Cleopatra.” Confident in both her gifts and her body, it was no wonder she was labeled “trouble with a capital T” in a society that prefers their women modest and slightly servile, even after 40 years of alleged equality. I didn’t identify with her until after her death, but I should have. She was always exactly who she was.

A Liz Taylor Body in a Cheryl Tiegs World

By the time I hit puberty in 1978, Elizabeth Taylor was legend, but was no longer considered the ideal womanly form that she had been during my mother’s adolescence.  Cheryl Tiegs and Farrah Fawcett had redefined beauty for my generation to mean blonde, leggy, tan, and vaguely Californian, with 5 more inches in height and half the curves that Taylor possessed.  By age 16, I was 5’1⅔”, 108 lbs. with a naturally waspy waist and an ass that was one full size larger than my bust.  I didn’t conform.

I never would conform, but it took me until age 28 to stop wanting to.  From what I read, I got out of the head game early.  Some women hate their bodies for life, thanks to a pervasive media influence that runs through more than $160 billion in marketing money every year to tell women how they should look.

This is quick and dirty research.  The $160 billion/year statistic comes from a May 2003 article in The Economist analyzing advertising trends in the beauty business. Would you believe it was the only free, publicly available source I could find willing to put a hard, aggregate number on it?  Don’t be surprised: The amount spent today, 10 years later, is indubitably higher, and the related industries that make up the beauty business have a vested interest in women not understanding to what extent they are being brainwashed every day. The Economist total includes make-up, hair and skin products, perfumes, cosmetic treatments (botox, boob jobs, etc.), and health and diet ads.  It does not include the fashion industry, which, if quantified, would substantially increase the total, considering that the womenswear market itself is projected to hit $621 billion in 2014. (The $621 billion factoid comes from a MarketLine industry report.)

But this post is not about brainwashing, or even the impossible physical standards we impose upon women.  It’s about loving yourself when you are a woman, because summer is the season when we all love to hate ourselves as women.  As the clothes come off to accommodate the hotter temperatures, the TV, Internet, and print ads increasingly push diet and fitness on us, desperately sure that each and every female on the planet wants to lose 5, 20, or 40 lbs. before we hit the beach on vacation.  And many of us respond with equal desperation.

It’s all about the bikini bodies…

Do you have a bikini body?  I do.  A bikini body is a body in a bikini, that’s all.  I don’t even care that a quarter of my FB friends will be appalled that I wear one when I go swimming.  I’m not wearing a tankini, and don’t get me started on the “swimdress,” a garment so poorly designed for actual swimming that even Michael Phelps would fail a qualifying meet if he wore one.  I could have gone maillot, but all the maillots “designed” for women of my age/size were predominantly black with bling around the bust.  Bling is an idiotic, impractical addition if you are wearing a suit to swim, and I’m not trying to pretend I’m 1” thinner.  If you are still wearing a Miraclesuit hoping to hide your “flaws,” trust me, in a swimsuit, everyone knows you aren’t actually 1” thinner, no matter what color the suit is.

Screw the advertising monsters.  Summer is the perfect season to get outside and enjoy what your body can do.  The only person who has to live and move in your body is you.

So here’s my rule of thumb for all women during swim season:  If the suit makes you feel supported when you move in it, buy it.  If the suit makes it easier for you to move in the water, buy it.  If the suit makes you feel more confident about going into the water, or enhances your experience of being in the water, buy it.  But if you are buying a suit strictly to camouflage some self-perceived bodily deficiency, Don’t Buy It.  Pick the “less appropriate” swimsuit instead, and enjoy what you are doing instead of worrying about what you are showing.

I’m proud of my bikini.  It’s the first one I’ve bought in 13 years, and there’s barely a speck of black in my entire suit:  It’s bright lime green with color-blocking.  I am a short, milky-skinned, overweight 46-year-old and I’m sure that someone out there is tsk-ing as s/he reads this.  If you are tsk-ing, ask yourself if you shouldn’t be working your mind as often as you work your body.  You are as much a victim of marketing-induced prejudice as I was.  Bodies are amazing systems designed to be used and enjoyed in all shapes and sizes.

Oh, to be young again!

What interests me about the Youth vote is what their normal is–as a part of their political environment.  For their whole lives, abortion has been legal, homosexuality acceptable, and ethnic diversity a normal part of their culture. I think the fiscally conservative part of the Republican platform could win more of the Youth vote because no one under age 30 expects to retire after 25-35 years with the same company.  They have been raised in an adaptable, fluid job market, where a good position lasts 10 years at most and retirement plans are purchased individually.  But the Republicans would have to modify–possibly even dump–large chunks of the right-wing social agenda in order to appeal to them.  For the millennials, even more than Gen X and Gen Y, religious, racial, and sexual diversity is taken for granted, and the rights and opportunities fought for by older generations naturally belong to all people.

For a look at their numbers and how they affected the 2012 election, check out PolicyMic at http://www.policymic.com/articles/18900/electoral-college-results-how-the-youth-vote-cost-romney-the-presidential-election.

Glutton for Punishment

As a glutton for punishment (haven’t we all spent more than enough mental energy on this?), I’m reading talking-head summations about why the election went as it did.  And it occurs to me there’s a real problem with demographics and exit polls.  Take this paragraph from Slate (“How Obama Won,” by John Dickerson):

Voters are deeply divided by race and age. The president can credit strong support from women. He led by 11 percentage points among women, while Romney led by 7 points among men. There was also an Obama advantage among younger voters. He grabbed a majority of those under 45. Older voters broke for Romney. Obama lost the white vote by a larger margin than in 2008 when he got 43 percent of the vote. On Tuesday, he got just 40 percent of the white vote. They represented virtually the same share of the electorate as before. But Obama made up for that deficit by winning handily with minorities which represented an ever so slightly larger share of the vote.

Ok, let’s say you are a white female, age 43 and you participate in this exit poll.  Are you being categorized as white, female, or under 45 for purposes of these snapshots?  Demographics have their place and can be help us understand our changing electorate, but most of us do not identify ourselves as a demographic because we fit more than one category.

Looking solely at the demographics begs a question:  Can an over-55 white dude win the White House again, or would that happen only if both party candidates are over-55 white dudes?  (Hello, 2016!  Kevin McCarthy vs. Mark Warner?)

Both campaigns played the Electoral College game well, but the charges of voter fraud and poll tampering played on precinct demographics.  If we the people want to become more than our demographics–more than pawns on the two-party chessboard–we should take a hard look at electoral reform before it becomes a critical, revolution-inducing issue.

Anatomy of a Vote

I hold this truth to be self-evident:  For most Americans who do vote, each has a set of litmus-test issues that preselect the candidates from which s/he will choose.

For me, the litmus test is equality.  That whole “all [beings] are created equal” schtick is my dividing line.  I don’t care what your religion, age, skin color, sex, sexual preference, gender identity, ethnic background, or place of origin is.  If you are over the age of consent, you have the right to equal opportunity, equal pay, equal treatment before the law, and equal access. And you deserve the right to and should shoulder the responsibility of voting for the people who will, through the legislative process, either expand or limit those rights.

(For the record, I would also include domestic pets and livestock over a certain age among those who have rights, because they, too, are dependent in some part upon the laws our society creates, but they lack the ability to cast a vote.)

Having this litmus test does not mean I am closed to some political parties, but it does mean that, in any given election, I will automatically discount (sometimes severely) the viability of any candidate who does not profess utter neutrality, at the least, and open acceptance, at the best, of this principle.  Rights are granted to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority or ruling faction.  If you believe that “might makes right,” then I want you off my ballot.  I’d prefer you to be escorted out of my country, but I’ll settle for off my ballot.

The litmus test does not mean that I think that reproductive rights, affirmative action, or gay marriage are the most important issues to deal with, especially at a federal level.  It does mean that I can not trust a candidate to leave our basic rights untouched while s/he is putting our economy back together or figuring out the best strategy to get our asses out of intense Middle East involvement.  In fact, I feel there is a real danger of losing basic rights in the current political climate, because the aggregate needs of the country are focused on immediate concerns (disaster relief, job creation, taxes, Afghanistan) and too many people are willing to bargain away what they do not value right now (freedom to change and pursue long-term goals in the future through collective political will and persuasion) for relief from short-term hardship.

Rights matter, because we do not yet live in a Utopia when/where most people do feel that all of us are created equal.  Most people would prefer to scapegoat than ensure equality. Worse, many people are convinced that, because we have equality written into our Constitution, we don’t have to expand, ensure, and protect our right to it.

(I may be guilty of flogging this point.  C’est ma vie!)

Once a candidate establishes adherence to this basic principle, I then feel free to consider all of their other aspects:  Policies, ideals, track record, background, experience, character, amiability, competency, etc.

The second test I run the remaining candidates through is an integrity check.  Sometimes all candidates on the ballot fail this, and it becomes a matter of sifting through to find the least bruised apple in the bushel.

The third test I run any remaining candidates through is a stupidity check.  I do not want a stupid person in office, because he will not think critically about the counsel s/he is given from hi/r party, advisers, family connections, major donors, and other People To Whom S/He Owes Hi/r Election.  Everyone who runs for office will owe someone down the line–I take that for granted.  Therefore, I also take a certain amount of nepotism for granted.  But I am voting for an individual official, not an industry or demographic mouthpiece.  That’s a public trust, and I expect whomever wins the office to be aware of it and take that trust seriously enough to curb hi/r cotillion of D.C. wannabe debutantes when it is in the best interest of the public to do so.

By the time I’ve finished running all the candidates through my Three-Prong Validity Exam, I’ve usually cut my options down to two to four people.  And with those two to four people, I can then apply my own calculations and priorities based on what I think the country needs, how I believe certain issues should be handled, and whether there’s anything in their platforms that looks fair and balanced within my calculus.

The saddest part of the process is that the primaries and the two-party system usually knock my real options down to one long before I get to put my political calculus into play.

It’s a Lemon

I know that this is probably the last thing anyone is talking about concerning Thursday night’s debate, but the highlight of the entire 90 mins. — for me — was Paul Ryan saying “Mitt’s a car guy.” So funny on so many levels, some of which can only be reached by elevator.