Aug 10
It used to be that men pressured women to have sexual intercourse with them. And despite the fact that it meant risking years of unhappiness for us (unwanted pregnancy, unwanted children), for ten seconds of bliss or relief for them, we’d do it. How stupid was that?
Of course, without the weight of …
Jul 25
[I wrote this piece back in the early 90s when Gwen Jacobs did her thing (yay, Gwen!), but apparently it all still needs to be said. A couple years ago, I was ‘spoken to’ by a neighbour for taking my shirt off on a hot summer day …
Jun 22
There’s an interesting phrase. Man, woman, and child: those are my options, are they? Identifying oneself by one’s sex is a prerequisite for adulthood: if I don’t want to identify myself by my sex, as either a man or a woman, I’m left with identifying myself as a …
May 27
Motherhood is unfair to women in a way fatherhood most definitely is not. Not only are there the physical risks (pregnancy and childbirth puts a woman at risk for nausea, fatigue, backaches, headaches, skin rashes, changes in her sense of smell and taste, chemical imbalances, high blood pressure, diabetes, anemia, embolism, changes in vision, stroke, …
May 19
If he changes a diaper, he’s father of the year.
If he cooks something, anything, he’s a chef.
If he marries, but otherwise continues to live pretty much as he has to that point, he’s suddenly respectable.
If he continues to pay a child’s ball game into adulthood, he gets paid …
May 12
“For guys who inexplicably want to do the thing that makes babies without wanting to support the inevitable babies, the obvious solution would be child support insurance — 0 to 18 plus college and professional school to say, age 30. They would have to sit down with their insurance agent and describe their sex lives …
May 08
It’s not just an enthusiastic spillover of violence and aggression. The act of sexual intercourse is too specific, too far removed from the other acts of wartime violence and aggression. Shooting a person twenty-five times instead of once or twice would be such a spillover; forcing your penis or something else into a woman’s vagina …
May 03
It’s Monday night basketball, an all-comers pick-up game, supposed to be fun and a good sweat. But week after week I steel myself against the anger, the frustration of not knowing how to correct the problem, and the despair of not being able to even begin to do just that. Eventually it happens: this time …
Apr 29
At one time, bank tellers and secretaries had a certain prestige – the time when such positions were held by men. Schoolteachers used to be schoolmasters – before women entered the classroom. People who boast that many doctors in Russia are women fail to mention that doctoring in …
Apr 25
I bet a man came up with that term as well.
But what most intrigues me here is how? I mean, what exactly made the first man to introduce the term think that approaching a woman for, what, a date? sex? was like hitting (on) her???
It does not bode well when the very initiation …
