Ehm, we are talking about a situation where a woman is sitting next to her boyfriend and not voicing what she wants because she expects him to read her thoughts. You are missing the mark here, although i agree with the rest of your sentiment.
Dunno. I don’t think she literally expects him to read her mind but this is rather an allegory of sorts.
And here comes the thing that her life doesn’t happen in a vacuum. She has been conditioned in all other parts of her life since she was only 12-year-old to not show sexual desire outwardly. It takes a lot of wisdom to understand not to apply in this situation something that you have accepted as a basic axiom of life.
Yeah, it would be much better to be outspoken about one’s needs, but that’s a very big thing to demand of a young and inexperienced woman. Relationship skills grow during the relationship. They are not something innate.
As long as the rest of the girl’s life conditions her to a certain behaviour, I would be primarily angry at those things conditioning her to that shit and only secondarily to her not recognising she has been conditioned to bad behaviour and should unlearn that usually necessary behaviour in certain contexts.
It is also a very big thing to demand of young and unexperienced men to be vocal about their desires, because men are also being conditioned to have only a few states - stoic, angry or horny. So we are on pretty even ground here, because admitting that last part is not that easy if you are a decent guy and respect your partner. And if that man is worth a shit, he will respect you and not just want to fuck you every waking moment, while also having other interests that are a very healthy thing to have.
Demanding that people do their part in a relationship and voicing what they need to feel appreciated is not a big ask, it is the basis of any relationship. Demanding that a partner drops whatever they are currently doing because you feel horny might be ok or might be rebuffed, and both are valid answers and have to be respected. But the important part here is that YOU ASK, and not air the dirty laundry on social media instead because you were not capable of initiating a dialogue with your partner.
Yup. Completely agreed.
Romantic relationships have a strong tendency to be very dysfunctional precisely because of this. It’s made worse by most girls not knowing how limited a guy’s emotional repertoire is required to be, and most guys not knowing how strongly the society is conditioning girls to mute their desires.
And for this, that you ask for, to be possible some day, we really must do better!
Current society is pushing all genders too much into stereotypes, and it is harmful to all of us, i am with you on this one. I am GenX, and i am keenly aware about what society wanted me to be - a man with a very limited amount of possible emotional expression. I am lucky that i escaped that rigid framework because of the people i met in my life.
The current patriarchy is harmful to all of us. Men are reduced to a few basic emotional responses, while women are muted alltogether.
These things can only improve through open and honest discourse between genders (which luckily is happening! Not everywhere and equally distributed, but it is occurring) to make all genders aware that the most important thing is being open about what they need and how to fulfill it. That is really the basis of any stable relationship.
Ehm, we are talking about a situation where a woman is sitting next to her boyfriend and not voicing what she wants because she expects him to read her thoughts. You are missing the mark here, although i agree with the rest of your sentiment.
Dunno. I don’t think she literally expects him to read her mind but this is rather an allegory of sorts.
And here comes the thing that her life doesn’t happen in a vacuum. She has been conditioned in all other parts of her life since she was only 12-year-old to not show sexual desire outwardly. It takes a lot of wisdom to understand not to apply in this situation something that you have accepted as a basic axiom of life.
Yeah, it would be much better to be outspoken about one’s needs, but that’s a very big thing to demand of a young and inexperienced woman. Relationship skills grow during the relationship. They are not something innate.
As long as the rest of the girl’s life conditions her to a certain behaviour, I would be primarily angry at those things conditioning her to that shit and only secondarily to her not recognising she has been conditioned to bad behaviour and should unlearn that usually necessary behaviour in certain contexts.
It is also a very big thing to demand of young and unexperienced men to be vocal about their desires, because men are also being conditioned to have only a few states - stoic, angry or horny. So we are on pretty even ground here, because admitting that last part is not that easy if you are a decent guy and respect your partner. And if that man is worth a shit, he will respect you and not just want to fuck you every waking moment, while also having other interests that are a very healthy thing to have.
Demanding that people do their part in a relationship and voicing what they need to feel appreciated is not a big ask, it is the basis of any relationship. Demanding that a partner drops whatever they are currently doing because you feel horny might be ok or might be rebuffed, and both are valid answers and have to be respected. But the important part here is that YOU ASK, and not air the dirty laundry on social media instead because you were not capable of initiating a dialogue with your partner.
Yup. Completely agreed.
Romantic relationships have a strong tendency to be very dysfunctional precisely because of this. It’s made worse by most girls not knowing how limited a guy’s emotional repertoire is required to be, and most guys not knowing how strongly the society is conditioning girls to mute their desires.
And for this, that you ask for, to be possible some day, we really must do better!
Current society is pushing all genders too much into stereotypes, and it is harmful to all of us, i am with you on this one. I am GenX, and i am keenly aware about what society wanted me to be - a man with a very limited amount of possible emotional expression. I am lucky that i escaped that rigid framework because of the people i met in my life.
The current patriarchy is harmful to all of us. Men are reduced to a few basic emotional responses, while women are muted alltogether.
These things can only improve through open and honest discourse between genders (which luckily is happening! Not everywhere and equally distributed, but it is occurring) to make all genders aware that the most important thing is being open about what they need and how to fulfill it. That is really the basis of any stable relationship.