Sex wars: Domination

For a long time, I assumed that forming relationships was a completely arbitrary action. It was the outgrowth of being thrust into a situation with a certain person and dependent on how impressive you were to them. After four years in college, it has become abundantly clear to me that this is true. \nForming relationships with the opposite sex seemed to be much more of a slippery slope. I would contend that it takes an amount of wile and subversion. The formative years of my life were spent chasing after girls whom I couldn't get and being disappointed with the ones I could. The common denominator in all these pursuits was the fact that I attempted to fool each one. \nIn each case, I was presented with the challenge of "making this girl mine." In order to do so, I assumed that each understood something about beauty, and if I could understand that beauty, I would be able to transform myself into the illustration of their belletristic fantasies. Eventually though, it came down to physical desire. As Oscar Wilde wrote, and I believed, "Woman are the decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals." \nAs could be expected, the girls whom I would win over were beautiful, but firmly dead in the head. To my complete exasperation, I would always be severely annoyed by them, until finally I fell under the suspicion that I needed to find a girl of more equal footing. Well, after years of searching, I don't think such a woman exists. I've given the subject long hours of study and careful observation, and here's what I know so far. \nIn an interview with musician Patti Smith, famous writer Nick Tosches asked, "Do you feel that girls want to get slapped around?" \n"Yeah," Smith replied, "it's not masochistic or nothing. I just think that women need help in getting their minds out of bed. It's the plight of women. It took me years to get over that, to be totally, physically involved." \nThis is not really a theory that I'm willing to test out, but I think it is true that women have a secret desire to be dominated. This comes more from the idea of the "feminine mystique," that, ideologically, women were prone to accept the roles as wife and mother as the only destiny, thus they had to live for and through their male counterparts. \nAlso, as Smith was beginning to assert, women are the intellectual sex. They chose their mates through a process of attaining goals, which has repercussions in every facet of their life. They deny themselves physical pleasure in order to have some purpose. \nRather than suggesting that women improve their state of mind, it is my secret desire to take advantage of their weaknesses. Unfortunately for you and me, all I could offer you here is banal clichés about the attraction of the bad boy and women's desire to have control over intimate situations and her man's life. The truth is, I don't think I have the energy it would take to dominate a woman; it seems exhausting to me to build up a relationship with someone by putting them down. \nAt the same time, I remain in utter fear of being dominated by a woman. In 1942, Philip Wylie wrote a book called "Generation of Vipers," in which he brought forth the theory of "momism" and claimed that "the women of America raped the men." Basically, he claimed that the housewife, in acceptance and perturbation about her position, consciously attempted to rule her husband and advocate the dependence of her son. \nNow, I'm not about to assert that women are evil and must be destroyed, but due to the feelings of jealousy and power, independence is lost when it comes to relationships. At the heart of this discussion has to be why. It seems that jealously and power evoke much stronger feelings than love and caring. \nIf this has seemed like a stream-of-conscience analysis, that's because it was and probably always will be. This is the known truth to a guy whose knowledge is half-baked, from half-learned ideas bequeathed from the ivory tower and a great rock-and-roll record collection.