It is a well-known phenomenon that a subset of women will become enamored of jailed criminals, sometimes even rapist-murderers. That Van der Sloot guy seems to be the latest example.
What's the deal in the female psyche that creates this extremely odd behavior? The evolutionary attractiveness of the "bad boy" is well established, but this is really taking it to the extreme.
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While I'm at it, and on a somewhat different note.
The difference between groups of women watching male strippers and groups of men watching female strippers. When men watch women strip, you can feel the sexual ambiguity: she has something they want and she flaunts it, giving her power over them...but they can consider her a whore and a slut and she will have a hard time avoiding that judgment. The sleaze factor is essential to the exchange. When women watch men strip, a very recent phenomenon, you don't get any sense of condescension or judgment or sleaze from the groups of women, who are usually loudly laughing and screaming and having a great time. The men flaunt but seem not to lose their power and status.
The difference between groups of women and girls enthusing over male singers/performers and (a more rare occurrence) groups of men enthusing over female singers/performers. Group hysteria (remember the Beatles, or even Sinatra's fans) or sexual display to catch the attention of the man: I am thinking of the country music concerts where the standing room in front of the stage is reserved for young and beautiful groups of women, who often dance with their arms above their heads, the more to shake their boobs at the star. For men responding to female stars, it's usually military men...who react in a way that combines the reactions of both genders to strippers...sexual tension along with a lot of hooting and happy hollering...And then there's the female stars who draw large groups of gay men...gotta think about that one.
5 comments:
imho: buncha mistakes here. can't write now, though.
Mistakes? Mistakes?!
But this is Ex Cathedra...there are no mistakes!!!!
Okay then: not mistakes but points that need elaboration in the development of dogma.
Well, maybe omissions, rather than mistakes.
1. About women who fall in love with criminals, including those with no chance of parole and redemption into outside life:
-interesting that we see in this an essentially feminine or at least female behaviour -- not as a diseased frame of mind that afflicts some tiny minority of women.
-maybe it’s an extremely dysfunctional version of womangirl’s belief in the power of her love to redeem and heal. (The crazy narcissistic correlate that afflicts some men is a belief in ‘sexual healing’: a depress’d woman or girl can have her set of typically female worries and hangups zapt out of existence by a guy’s supreme ability in bed.) … While channel-flipping at my brother’s house, I noticed this scene in a movie: a terribly distraught man is weeping, and a womangirl consoles him by caressing and kissing him. Maternal caresses and kisses can be consoling for children, and for the child in us -- but when the kisses and caresses are erotic we are turn’d on, rather than consoled. I’m not sure how that particular movie episode turn’d out, but to have sexuality administer’d to serious sorrow seems to me dismissive. … Admittedly, even strictly maternal TLC administer’d by a seriously attractive womangirl will tend to arouse a hetero guy even when she is trying to take his sorrow seriously. I suppose if the sorrow is felt to be not all that grave, the guy will go with the eros and put his sorrow on the shelf until he can deal with it later.
Maybe there’s an imitatio Christi -- or Christ imitated woman’s love -- in loving the unloveable criminal. Some women with the dysfunction under discussion perhaps love without fancying that they find any quality worth loving in the criminal. But others either actually find some loveable quality (I guess it’s possible), or imagine some loveable quality in him. (The Christian God doesn’t find anything to love in us qua us: we of ourselves merit eternal separation from Him, but via faith, sacraments, etc, we partake of Christ who is loveable by God. God doesn’t love us but loves Christ in us via the Incarnation. And Christ did the Incarnation from his love of the Father, not from his love of us: He instrumentally loved us motivated by His love of the Father. … No doubt there’s verses aplenty in the New Testament that could be interpreted as indicating that God loves us qua us, but Christianity never put together such a doctrine -- I mean, one that teaches God or Christ loves Mary Smith because she is kind and loving and patient and brave -- possibly adding to this that she therefore deserves eternal life. Certainly Christianity has never taught or imply’d that God or Christ LIKES any of us. … If the God construed by moral Christianity (the Christianity that this or that mystical Christianity has always depended) actually became “incarnate” -- I mean, if a real live person spoke and acted in accord with the character of this God -- what an absurd jerk! What would it mean to ‘love’ such a person? … Like if this Person appear’d, and started going around asserting “You are all imperfect and merit everlasting torture! For example, you are “selfish” instead of eagerly negating your good for others’ good and happiness. If someone attacks you, you try to defend yourself instead of letting the aggressor stomp all over you, even though it’s quite possible he had a horrendous childhood. But if you confess your total subworthlessness and confess further that I am morally perfect and the way everyone should be, then you will indirectly become worthy of eternal life.”
But I digress.
About a womangirl’s undressing: even in the degraded venue of a strip show, but definitely when done in privacy for a boyfriend or husband, this is a religious experience for hetero guys, maybe even for some nonhetero guys. Partly because of the desire and awe and gratitude that is in guys, but also because of the meaning her body and thus her nakedness has for the womangirl -- vulnerability but also power and especially glory and value or worth. When a womangirl can’t believe in her glory, can’t feel her glory, no amount of reassurances and beggings from her husband or boyfriend can enable her to enjoy undressing for him. … A guy doesn’t relate to his body and nakedness in any similar way, and therefore his undressing and nakedness can’t mean anything similar.
I’ve heard that women laugh at male strip shows. I wonder is this in part to vent stress? But surely also because in fact the male body looks like a ridiculous sort of contraption -- even the best versions are still ridiculous. I suppose that they can be curious to see a naked man, and curious also what the embrace of a naked man would feel like. (I sense that an attractive male body is determined almost entirely negatively for them: no off-putting qualities; hence, to make love with such a guy would not be irksome physically, and thus would be freed up for the psychical interpersonal meanings.) … Fine clothing on a man is frequently mention’d as very attractive for womengirls: much more exciting for them to meet a nice, prosperous, prestigious etc guy in a brooks brothers suit than to meet the young Brad Pitt in swim trunks (a speedo would be offputting). Especially since almost all womengirls even when young feel that they are far too unattractive to be naked with Brad Pitt.
Only those very very few guys who are deem’d super-attractive physically do not induce in womengirls an awe remotely comparable to the awe womengirls experience, so they seem to me, for a beautiful womangirl: this awe is similar to that felt by men for a beautiful womangirl, although women do not wish to see the beautiful womangirl naked, or to undress for them. (Gay men seem to feel that there are many many beautiful men in the world, and hetero men feel that there are many many beautiful womngirls in the world. But womengirls seem to feel that there are very few beautiful men -- usually they can name all such men that they have seen in their lives -- and many many beautiful womengirls in the world.) The true correlate for womengirls is, I suppose, to see their own little children: this is their ‘religious experience.” For womengirls, the beautiful man is a distant third in terms of glory after the beautiful womangirl and the beautiful child. … The glory of a man for a womangirl occurs indirectly, in terms of his manner, position, wealth, talent, personality, ….
If men don’t “lose their power and status” in male strip shows for women, I guess that’s because men don’t have any power or status (glory, charisma; value, worth) in their embodiment as such or in their nakedness and undressing. But a guy who is a Chippendales stripper would NOT be a status boyfriend, fiancé, husband for a womangirl. So despite his physical attributes, a male stripper has a very low value psychically.
Addendum: my guess -- without having ask’d any womangirl about this reality -- is that a womangirl cannot have a satisfying erotic daydream or fantasy in which she is not the centre of attention. A hetero guy can be the centre of attention in his fantasy, but he can in his own fantasy be the mere worshipper, not the worship’d, not the centre of attention. (I assume this is so also for gay male fantasy.) This male-female difference seems to me very significant psychically, or at least interesting. (I wonder how this is for lesbians.)
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