Tag: feminism

Thinking about intimacy

~ patponderslife ~ 6 Comments

Warning: This is not my typical post. In fact, depending on how you look at it, it could be considered offensive. However, if you don’t flinch at viagra ads, are okay with talking about breast cancer or menstrual pain, ask yourself: why did this topic make me uncomfortable?

I’m curious about the trend that some are describing as sudden. Women, so I hear, are opting out of dating. Some are saying that they are choosing their own company—with or without a good book and/or an animal companion—to the dating game.

First, let me place myself firmly in the married-for-over-fifty-years category. I was dating so many years ago that the pool, so to speak, was people we went to school with, worked with, or who were introduced to us by friends or family. Very few girlfriends ended up married to a ‘stranger,’ someone no one knew. And, needless to say, there was no internet, so there were no dating sites.

That said, I read. I keep up. And I have a daughter with a daughter. And I’m a feminist, so therefore interested in what’s going on in the world of women, part of which is coupling. I’m crusty enough to say that we, like all the other creatures on this planet, have a prime directive: assure the survival of our species. Procreate. It’s built into us, it is what causes us to be attracted to a member of the opposite sex, and to do what comes naturally with them.

The percentage of beings that aren’t wired that way is small enough that it in no way interferes with the prime directive, so don’t bother to argue with me about them.

So, what’s going on?

Lots of things, I would guess.

Number one, it’s a hassle. Way too much of one. To put yourself out there and sort through the eligible choices, then dress up, meet somewhere safe, take your own transportation, have a plan B, make sure your friends know where you are, etc. etc.

Number two attaches to number one: it’s scary. You never know about a stranger, no matter how clean and shiny his profile is. It’s too easy to fake everything, and the horror stories—although most of them are fictionalized TV shows—feel like warnings.

Number two attaches to number one: it’s scary. You never know about a stranger, no matter how clean and shiny his profile is. It’s too easy to fake everything, and the horror stories—although most of them are fictionalized TV shows—feel like warnings.

Number three, lots of women these days are pretty self-sufficient and have or make enough money to support themselves in a manner that suits them with enough left over to treat themselves at least occasionally. They don’t need someone to provide for them.

Which takes us to number four:

Have you shopped in CVS recently for, say cough remedies or Ace bandages, and made your way over to the personal care aisle? Good lord, the variety of personal vibrators is awesome. Who walks into a pharmacy and chooses a vibrator for personal care and pays for it without blushing? Today’s women do, that’s who! Not to mention the Amazon choices that they can buy and have delivered the next day with no one knowing that they haven’t given up on pleasure just because they aren’t dating.

I posted a joke on a Facebook group that I love for their irreverent, raucous fun that does not include being mean or rude, nor will it allow political comments. It’s called Writers, Readers, and Other Tom Foolery. It took me awhile to gather my nerve to post this joke, and you will see why: A woman walked into a pharmacy and asked, “Where are your vibrators?” The clerk nodded, crooked his finger and said, “Come this way.” as he turned and walked toward the personal care aisle. The woman then said, “If I could come that way, I wouldn’t be buying a vibrator.”

Within a couple of hours 143 people responded. Most of them by far posted laughing emojis and said (essentially) “Good one!” Only one lady said she thought the site was supposed to be clean fun, and lots of people encouraged her to lighten up. What I remember most about all that was the comments I got from women—probably younger ones—who not only got it, but also who participated in giving themselves pleasure routinely and weren’t embarassed to admit it. One woman even said it was how she relaxed enough to sleep every night. Every night! I applaud her willingness to talk about it. We’re all conditioned to talk about pain–all kinds–but embarassed to talk about pleasure. Why that is that? Maybe that’s a topic for another post.

Anyway,: back then, at the time of my joke, I hadn’t even heard about the trend to give up on dating, but once I did, I began to wonder. And then I went to the drug store and was surprised. Which led me to question if the personal care aisle at CVS had anything to do with it.

What do you think?

My Day with Gloria

~ patponderslife ~ 1 Comment

In the eighties, After I got immersed in my beautiful career in south Florida, I invited Gloria Steinem to speak at a women’s empowerment event at Palm Beach Community College. Fortuitously, it happened to fall on election day 2000—the one where George W. Bush became President because Palm Beach County’s ballots were so confusing that people of average or lower intelligence messed them up. The recount ended up taking so long that the Florida Supreme Court declared the winner and we tipped the electoral college votes to Bush. Al Gore, with his high ideals about saving Planet Earth conceded.

But back up just a day or two: In the middle of the recount, Gloria spoke at our event. She was inspiring, funny, and genuinely warm, but I don’t remember exactly what she said because before the applause died down, we started asking her if she could do anything about the recount and the hanging chads, and she went calmly to work rallying the important people she knew to see if she could get some clarity. She stayed with us even though she had other engagements. She was amazing. We were in a panic, even then knowing that the planet couldn’t afford a Bush presidency, but she posed for a photo with me. And I found it today, forty years later, while cleaning up, so that when I die the kids aren’t faced with a mountain of stuff that means nothing to them.

The day I met Gloria Steinem came rushing back. I remember everything about it—the mood of sheer terror over the election, the passionate commitment to feminism and progressivism, the fight for diversity, equity, and inclusion, even though those terms weren’t a thing yet. Freedom and justice for all. Tolerance of difference, kindness for people less fortunate, empathy for people struggling to find a better life, hope that women would be able to find their way onto the arena, that they would have a say, be heard, earn respect, show the world that they had a lot to contribute.

Instead, we went to war with the wrong country and set Iraqi women back hundreds of years. From a secular existence where they had a place in society, we condemned them to religious servitude and ignorance for all the years to come. No coming back from that.

Since then, have women in the US make any progress at all? Sure—at a glacial pace.

I thought I’d live to see a woman in the White House, and when we ran a person who had experience, wisdom, and brilliance, I knew the time had come. The most qualified human being in the entire country lost to a buffoon. Thanks to Russian trolls. And he’s back! Bested another woman—not as qualified, but certainly more dignified—back to do more extreme damage. He’s vengeful and petty this time and has surrounded himself with toadies who will sell their souls to kiss his ring. Environmental protection is of a thing of the past. We will put profit ahead of the survival of our grandchildren. We will burn fossil fuels, drill into the ocean, and we will pollute Earth until it is uninhabitable—by us, anyway. He will help us prove that homo sapiens don’t deserve this beautiful planet with its millions of exotic animals and vulnerable plant life. We are a failed experiment, I’m saddened to predict.

What does any of that to do with Gloria Steinem? Just this for me: It was a time of so much hope. I spent a day with a woman who, with so much class, fought the good fight and made me proud to have had my picture taken with her. I’m grinning in that picture, and I remember feeling that we could do anything then. I love remembering that day.