Seeing Women As People (Females chime in on this!)

We have been condituoned to view women as commodities and we see adverts with beer bottles in the shape of a womans body etc etc and a natural consequence of the human body being used to sell things that our purchase makes us the 'rightful' owner of is going to make us possesive, competitive, lustful, greedy, jealous etc and all the other symptoms of living in a society that is actually quite insane and driven by the need to be and have more. Add all that to the messages we absorb from porn (and lots of other not so healthy 'influences') and we got one hell of a messed up collective psyche. But at least more and more of us are waking up to all of this and if its going to change the only way we can do it is from the inside out, one person at a time slowly overcoming the fear of reaching/speaking out whilst being the changes we want to see in the world (yep I'm fresh from typing in the censorship thread!)

And I agree that, for me at least, this challenge is not about getting laid because how does that move us beyond all of the above? Theres more to life than fucking and sucking and it sometimes feels like the average man I meet has been reduced to an animal with not much more on his mind than sex, food, sport (competition), work, shelter etc and yet we are capable of so much more than that.

And its that competitive/sport element that makes us compare girlfriends/wives, worry what people think about us and has created the new bullshit religion of 'celebrity' in which we are 'groomed' into believing that if you dont look a certain way, have a particular type of partner, drive the right car, live in the right kind of home with all the right trimmings etc etc then you are a nobody. Shame on you!!

Bill Hicks was right when he said U.S.A stood for the United States of Advertising! And it's not just America, like most diseases it has spread and is currently at its most rampant!

And 'advertising' works...

"Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t even like." ~Will Rogers

And how many men have you met who view their partners as a commodity, something they own, even on a subconcious level? I even heard some country record on the radio earlier in which a woman was singing to her 'man' "your still the one I cling to, the one that I belong to" (or something?) Just a harmless lyric some might say. Yes but that mentality is everywhere and it adds up to the sum total of a culture that is fundamentally flawed and thank goodness sites like this are appearing and addressing the balance even in a small way. Whats that old saying, even the great oak comes from a nut that stood its ground! And your considered a 'nut' when you exercise your right to sanity in a mad world and if that's the case then I for one am mad as a fucking hatter and PROUD of it!! I read a great car sticker recently that said 'I dont suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!'

Ahem

 

Beautiful women are human. It's taken me a long time to really make myself believe that, and it's part of my addiction. To this day i still struggle to think of beautiful women as something other than goddesses

What i mean by that is kinda confusing, but my whole life, ive put beautiful women above me as almost magical, mystical beings. This image has been helped along by pornography, of course. Women arent the angelic sex objects that I've always fantasized about, they are human beings. They arent divine. They shit, they puke, they stink, they lose teeth, they look like hell, they will cut you to the bone. Again, part of my problem is the fact that I deify beautiful women and put them on such a high pedestal, how can i not want them? How can i not want to sample her every essence? I see a woman from a distance, and am captivated - then when i get close sometimes i realize.... blech.. she's actually pretty gross.

But had i not gotten close enough to notice that, i would have let my fantasies carry me on to the next one, and on to the next one, until i cannot wait to get home and yank my crank to all these hotties ive been slavering over all day, and my porn harem. Yet it is all make-believe, in my head i created this "virtual reality" of angelic beings who practically sweat perfume and shit honey that ive seen that day, and it just isnt true. I need clarity, reality, and quite frankly i need to grow the fuck up.

One of my more revealing experiences was finally getting access to an attractive woman's underwear that i had lusted after for a long time. In my mind, she was an absolute goddess. I could not envision her taking part in the base human things we all do. No way. So, being a friend of a friend i found myself at her place, and as luck would have it had access to her laundry hamper in her bathroom. To say I was fucking overjoyed is putting it mildly, i just about had a coronary when i opened that lid and saw underwear. Locked door secure, i slowly picked them up and realized - they were an absolute mess, and not a good one. Undaunted, i dug further - they were ALL like that. Not only was she unhygenic, she must be walking around with a rash to have that level of uncleanliness.....

Besides being an incredible letdown, it was a glimpse of the reality of a "goddess". They arent goddesses, they arent angels, they are people too, no matter how pretty and perfect they may seem. A lot of it is makeup and the "virtual makeup" we apply to them in our minds.

 

I'm a woman and I can promise you we are just guys with boobs and less sticky out bits 'down there'! I grew up in a household of girls and guys and there really is no difference if you take away the make up, dresses, high heels and socially-designated personalities (we are told constantly to act, speak and think a certain way - which, as Anon pointed out, has only increased in intensity). At our core, we are exactly the same. A bunch of chemicals get added once a month that make us seem mental for a couple of days (and trust me we feel as mental as we act - like being drunk/drugged for guys) but otherwise we are just, as my dad likes to say, 'funny shaped blokes'! All the 'mystique' and 'magic' you experience is a combination of media (how much TV/advertising do you watch every day) and socialisation (basically other people passing on the ideas they have learned from the media).

 

I read all of the above posts and it is truly eye an opening perspective on media and porn molding OUR perceptions of the opposite sex. I have been struggling the last few weeks to reach my goal of 7 days (a start to a long journey hopefully) and I can confidently say that this is going stay true me with me as I move forward. A heartfelt thank you to those who posted.

 

Im not sure about this? Has anyone ever read 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'? The title is a bit off putting for some but the book is really good and explains many of the differences between men and women, how lack of understanding these differences leads to 'the battle of the sexes' and how knowledge of these differences can and does resolve them and creates harmony etc. Men and women are supposed to be different, complementary opposites, the dance of yin and yang etc and these differences need to be honoured and understood as the synergy of male/female, yin/yang is the spark of creation itself and in a world that has become so out of balance/male/yang oriented never before have we so needed the balancing/nurturing female/yin 'energies' and when things go so out of balance (and they surely are) there are dire consequences but fortunately nature ensures that any 'excess' always leads to its opposite. I remember the 1980s when women started wearing 'power shoulders' to be more like men to address inequality etc and then the 90s when in England we had 'girl power' with thousands of young girls downing pints of lager and acting like 'lads' and unless I totally missed the point that did nothing for the collective female psyche whatsoever other than subjugate feminimity by thinking to be more of a woman you had to be more of a man and surely nature didnt intend it that way? So describing women as 'blokes with boobs' just doesnt sit right with me but please dont get me wrong as each to their own and I dont necessarily want to throw a spanner into a really good thread etc. And neither am I going all Ned Flanders (read my other post in this thread!) I just thought this was worth a mention

 

I know this works for me ... look into her eyes next time you make love and believe me, you'll see her as a person and forgot about her other parts.

Not in a relationship currently, but soon ...


Oh and that "Men are from Mars stuff ...". I once heard a professor from Cambridge (UK) say the following :

"Women are easy, but difficult to understand. Men are difficult, but easy to understand"

Make sense of that one ! I guess that's why he's got the Ph.D.


Stay spartan.