Comments Please

[Dana Sheets]

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but any reasonable person understands a nonverbal yes

Imply vs Infer
The difference between the meaning you are sending out and the meaning that is decoded by the person receiving it.

Yes there are many universals in human body language and in our physical/sexual relationships they are often backed up & enhanced by chemical messages. But it isn't always clear and simple messaging.

Women are becoming sexually viable at younger and younger ages. It is common now to hear of girls that start their menstrual cycles as young as 8 or 9 years old - and are showing the secondary sexual characterizes - pubic hair, breasts, etc.
So at a chemical level (nonverbal) their bodies are putting off the messages of being an available female for up to 10 years before most of society says it's OK to have a baby. So a woman 18-20ish could really be honestly sexually frustrated at a physical level. Her body is peaking in reproductive ability and her society is telling her to go college or get a job and have babies later. So that's mixed message #1

Mixed Message #2
The young adult brain and the adult brain are physically different and do not reason in the same way. There was a program on public television last night about how the teenage brain doesn't decode nonverbal messages very well.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/interviews/todd.html

Basically - the program showed that young adults process nonverbal messages more in the pre-frontal cortex than in the frontal cortex where adults process them. So teens are actually responding with more emotion and less reason than adults AND they're more likely to make mistakes in decoding those non-verbal messages.

Now - date rate doesn't only happen to young women and isn't only committed by young men. But as date rape is on the rise and much of that population is younger - I think the things I've brought up play a role.

So Bill - I think your comment works for adults 25 and over. They're all speaking the same language - physically, chemically, and cognitively. However - for those under 25 there is still lots of room for those nonverbal messages to be misread. AND, we all make mistakes - even with verbal messages so that has to be room for even more error in nonverbal message interpretation.

Add to all this the well known (and now being studied) fact that there is this big disconnect in the young adult brain between actions and consequences and you've got a recipe for even more mistakes and poor decisions. Mixed Message #3.

Finally boys are on the "go forth and conquer" mindset and girls are raised with the "keep your legs crossed" mindset despite what their bodies are asking for. And there's Mixed Message #4.

[Bill Glasheen]

Dana

Well stated.

Now that you mention it... I can't tell you how many times as an adolescent and young adult that I got the "mixed messages." You know... start with passion and explicit physical contact, respond with intensity, send the "go GO GO" signal, and then... stop. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!!!!!!!! Or the "I'll do everything but..." syndrome. These poor girls - as you suggest - have an internal battle going on. The body says yes but the conscience says no. The DNA says make babies NOW with THAT alpha male and the society says be a good girl, get your degree, and marry a doctor.

You bring up another very interesting point. Women are now reaching menarche at an astonishingly young age. Better nutrition means fertility starts earlier. What the heck are we doing throwing "babies" into adult bodies so early and telling them they can't use them for what they are made for? That's like giving a teenage boy a Lamborghini and telling him he must obey the speed limit.

And yes, the secondary sexual characterists come early too. And don't you think a young girl likes the attention? Even if one is a "good girl," that attention - and the male behavior that go along with it - is POWER. A little girl suddenly learns that she has the power of behavioral modification over young men long before she has developed her EQ. What a mess!

Points well taken, Dana.

Want to hear a family anecdote? Dad never told me squat about the birds and the bees. I learned about it from other family members at age 13. I would subsequently read books on it at my best friend's house whenever I spent the night over there. As for my family, well at age 6 my number 1 son came home one day and asked me what "gay" meant. Oye!!! Can't really cut to the chase now, can we? I needed to go from nothing to age 18 in one conversation with him. I did this - of course - because I wanted to reinforce the idea that he would come to me for such information instead of learning "the real deal" from other boys and girls on the street. Anyhow, that is AWFULLY early. But what's a parent to do? The cat's out of the bag and kids are growing up faster than their bodies are ready.

- Bill

[LeeDarrow]

Glasheen-Shihan,

So THAT'S why you became a Doctor?

Sorry, just couldn't resist, sitting here, stuck in the office til 5.............

With respect (and humor, of course!),

Lee Darrow, C.Ht.
PS Happy Labor Day Weekend, folks!

[Deep Sea]

I just dunno. From the converations I overheard, later part of a cell-phone conversation, then being alone for a few minutes with a young woman in an elevator in a coed dorm earlier this evening, I put together some pieces and swear to God, that all young women have on their minds is sex and not much else, at least those who reside in coed dorms.

With that said, coupled with this date rape phenomena, in addition to thinking that those who do the date rape route are power freaks, I now think that some reasons could be sexual insecurity on the part of the young male. Seems that he is being pushed off the perch he occupied for thousands of years, and is loosing/has lost control over women, and is no longer the aggressor but now the hunted.

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Allen Moulton from Uechi-ryu Etcetera

[Ted Dinwiddie]

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is loosing/has lost control over women

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Never had it, never will.

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is no longer the aggressor but now the hunted

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Girl Power!

Times are different, for sure. I think all the stereotypical roles are going the way of the dodo. That is good. I also think that several decades have been spent recognizing and empowering women and it should continue. But, the boys that have been born and raised during that time and those that will be in the future, need some help now.

My mom and her tennis/shopping/carpool buddies used to have conversations about this when they didn't think anybody was listening. Until now, these were the only women I knew of who were concerned about the effects of the misandry bred by the women's rights movement. These mothers of sons of the sixties and seventies knew then what the "experts" are finally saying now.

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ted

"I learn by going where I have to go." - Theodore Roethke

[This message has been edited by Ted Dinwiddie (edited September 02, 2002).]

[Ian]

Young women, Sensei Moulton's sample aside, have a lot of other stuff on their minds... they're exceeding men in numbers and performance now in college, for one thing. But since they're becoming more and more allowed to talk about sex the way young men have for a long time, we hear it more often.

Hopefully there's a more generous assessment of the sexuality of the past than man = aggressor, woman = hunted. Not that I have many kind things to say about the history of gender roles and sexual politics.

The newer sexuality is NOT one of role REVERSAL but merely one of role sharing. So some women are asking men out, so some women don't want dinner paid for, so more women are opting out of the man market altogether... the truth is that overall there's STILL a perception of men SEEKING (hopefully not hunting) women more so than the other way around. Who asks whom to the prom? Despite a little relaxation in the old rules there's little going on that puts men at a disadvantage (can someone fill me in?)

What's wrong with this culture and sexuality, IMHO, is, in a marked simplification:

1) the idea that sex is taken instead of given / shared.
2) the idea that someone is entitled to sex--generally held by men and not women
3) the idea that sexual promiscuity or "success" is an accomplishment instead of shallow and risky
4) unrealistic perceptions of body, with unattainable ideals of buffed models on one side, glutuonous popular culture on the other side feeding desire for thinness, when FITNESS ought to be the goal
5) a popular culture devoid of meaning and focused on idiotic movies, expensive clothes and appearances.
6) the persistent idea that women are supposed to be made up as if they're unfit to look at without colored goop on their faces, dressed in silly clothes and shoes that are bad for them, and left without clothes on their legs in january, all so they can look like, or more like, sexual objects. Which is why they're too often discussed or pictured as objects, or dismissed (who would call a male Katie Couric "perky" or when discussing a male Janet Reno, criticize his looks instead of his actions?)
7) Some (I haven't yet figured it out) tension in (the young, particularly) male that makes them perceive gender relations as an antagonistic affair such that they feel they have to TAKE from women, and FEAR anything feminizing or feminine that might stain their reps, such as all things gay, because gay makes men less manly (per some opinions). This tension is one of sexism, because the idea that women are to be used and not related to, and that anything feminine / gay is threatening, implies that female is not as good.

In other words, I think a shallow sexist culture makes men likely to abuse women. I'm not for Amish culture, but it's not shallow, and it's not about women as sex objects, and I don't hear much about sexual conflict within it.