When this article was first posted, a guy grabbed the first comment on the version that I
posted to the feminist blog Feministe, protesting that I clearly don't get the men's side of this equation. I don't usually get super angry about comments on the Internet, but in that case I did, and I had to take a while to calm down.
There was a mild comment fracas. Eventually, in response to that guy, I wrote:
I worked really hard on this article to try and note both:
A) how men's perspective might make this difficult for them, but simultaneously B) why men's insecurities aren't actually an excuse for men to treat women badly.
In my experience women are actually extremely aware of men's insecurities. Women frequently silence themselves and put up with a lot of crap because we are afraid of "emasculating" our man, as I specifically noted in the article.
Given that this was an article about:
1) a woman's experience,
2) and what it's like to be a woman,
3) and why this issue is difficult to take on as a woman,
4) and why women shouldn't allow men's insecurities to shut us up...
... can you see why I would avoid putting a lot of text towards describing men's insecurities in loving detail?
Now. With that having been said....
One of the guys in the Clarisse Thorn Manliness Brain Trust (tm) emailed me with some thoughts in the wake of this article. Once again, I want to emphasize that I don't want anyone to feel that they "ought to” give a crappy partner "another chance” if that partner is treating them badly. I spent years giving a terrible boyfriend millions of second chances because I kept telling myself that he was just "insecure." Walking away from that oh-so-"insecure" man was one of the best choices I ever made. Nonetheless, I think that the following comment from my Manliness Brain Trust (tm) friend might be useful for some people:
When I first saw this post, my first thought was that I have to pass it on to a couple of the people I'm involved with, who have difficulty reaching orgasm because it's an awesome, awesome article. My second thought was that it seemed like Clarisse didn't really grok the guy's side of this exchange.
Somewhere among Sth, 7th and 9th thoughts, was the notion that I'd be a jerk to raise that point in the comments. This article is a great reference for women working through difficult climax issues and there's no need to drag the conversation off to the guy side of the experience... So I sent Clarisse an email about it instead. Because the thing with Unification theories is that they're never all the way done. And things could have been so much easier for Clarisse if her boyfriends didn't suck. Maybe some insight into why they sucked would help with the ongoing development of the model, or at least provide some
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