Sexual Frigidity Is Caused by Feminism

Marie N. Robinson MD, a Cornell educated psychiatrist devoted her New York City practice to the treatment of frigidity. Her book, The Power of Sexual Surrender (1958) is a revealing study of the feminine psyche. It is out-of-print. Why? It is politically incorrect.

Dr. Robinson says that millions of American women suffer from frigidity. While she explores many different causes, she notes that frigid women universally adopt the feminist view. This view, that a career as a wife and mother is demeaning and men exploit woman, creates an "emotional logjam" which obstructs sexual response and psychological development.

Dr. Robinson writes that a woman's identity lies in an "essential feminine altruism."

Her self-expression and power are based on making her husband and children her first priority. Similarly, her sexual satisfaction and spiritual fecundity depend on self-surrender.

GENDER DIFFERENCES


Robinson says men and women are different by nature. Men are designed for mastery of the external (physical) world, and women for mastery of the internal (spiritual) world and the home. These are not social stereotypes, as feminists argue.

"Women are designed for duties different from those of the marketplace, another kind of stress entirely," writes Robinson. They "tend to lose their essential womanliness if they stay [in the marketplace] by choice." (149)

According to Robinson, modern women have an identity crisis because they think they are no longer needed as women. Before the industrial revolution, the home was the centre of all life and a woman was its heart. She nursed and trained the children, prepared clothing and food, and helped with farm tasks.

The industrial revolution seemed to make women obsolete. Children were not needed and were even considered a liability. Everything could be bought in stores. The home was empty. Children went to school, husbands to work.

Woman's response was to turn against her own femininity. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a feminist manifesto Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) that proclaimed women were identical to men, and promoted maleness in women.

According to Robinson, "the feminist credo thoroughly discredited feminine needs and characteristics and substituted male goals for female goals."(53)

The other response to the industrial revolution was not feminist, but "Victorian." Robinson says Victorian women took "revenge" on men by denying women had any sexual feelings. They "were amazingly successful in convincing men in general and even the scientists of the day that frigidity was indeed a basic attribute of the female." (54)

Thus, feminists and Victorian women both laid the foundations for modern female neurosis.

"The depreciation of the goals of femininity, biological and psychological, became part and parcel of the education of millions of American girls. Homemaking, childbearing and rearing, cooking, the virtues of patience, lovingness, giving ness in marriage, have been systematically devalued. The life of male achievement has been substituted for the life of female achievement." (55)

FEMININE DEVALUATION AND SELF-HATRED

The feminist-Victorian antagonism to men was handed down from mother to daughter so that "to millions of women, hostility towards the opposite sex seems almost a natural law. Although many a modern women may pay lip service to the ideal of a passionate and productive marriage to a man, underneath she deeply resents her role, conceives of the male as fundamentally hostile to her, as an exploiter of her. She wishes in her deepest heart, and often without the slightest awareness of the fact, to supplant him, to exchange roles with him." (emphasis mine 56)

Robinson says that if feminism had brought women happiness, the game might have been worth it.

"But it hasn't been. The game has brought frigidity and restlessness and a soaring divorce rate, neurosis, homosexuality, juvenile delinquency all that results when a woman in any society deserts her true function." (56)

Dr. Robinson writes that once the emotional "log jam" is removed, a woman's natural instincts will flow and health will be restored. Essentially this involves "allowing herself to trust her husband in a very deep sense. It means that she finally realizes that she no longer has to fear or oppose his strength, but that she can rely on it to protect her, to give her the secure climate necessary for the full flowering of her femininity." (153)

For a profound vaginal orgasm, Robinson writes, "the excitement comes from the act of surrender. There is a tremendous surging physical ecstasy in the yielding itself, in the feeling of being the passive instrument of another person..." (158)

On the other hand, the woman who mistrusts her husband's love and, as a consequence, her own femininity has a "difficult, painful, frenetic" approach to life. She is at war with herself. In bed, she has to feel "in control all the time."

Robinson regards the clitoris as a masculine vestige. She implies that a woman may still be frigid even if she is sexually active and mechanically adroit. Feminine sexuality depends on "absolute trust" in a man, which allows a woman to fully receive and fully respond.

Dr. Robinson says there is nothing in life more important than love. She believes marriage is the key to human development. The power of love is felt in the world through this relationship.

"Love means, in its very deepest sense union; union between individuals...It is the most basic and profound urge we have and its power for good is illimitable... the lover partner becomes as important as oneself...This fact is why real love never leads to domination or to a struggle for power..." (129)

FEMINISM AS ELITE DEPOPULATION PROGRAM

The significance of The Power of Sexual Surrender is profound.

By coercing women to abandon their femininity and usurp the male role, feminism throws a spanner in the natural heterosexual mechanism of humanity. Millions of women are condemned to loneliness and frustration. Similarly, men are deprived of the role of protector and provider essential to their development and fulfillment.

The triumph of such a wrongheaded ideology, and the suppression of the truth, signifies that control in the world has passed to a malignant force. As I have shown in previous articles an amoral elite power fosters feminism as part of a long-term agenda to dislodge western civilization from its religious and cultural moorings.

Tax-exempt foundations, the elite media, the CIA and the Communist Party of the USA are all behind the promotion of sexual dysfunction in the guise of feminism.

The purpose is to destroy the nuclear family, decrease population, stunt human development and destabilize society. We are a luxury the super rich can no longer afford. Our government is part of this agenda that aims to create a materialist, totalitarian "New World Order". Feminists who oppose the NWO are in fact its unwitting agents .

CONCLUSION

I encourage women to have careers if they want to, but if they also want marriage and family, career should be secondary. Naturally men and women should be treated equally in the work force.

Robinson's book confirms my thesis that woman wants love and man wants power. Heterosexual marriage is based on the exchange of female worldly power for male love.

A woman who seeks power is neutering herself and her husband. She will not receive love from a man whose identity is based on power. She cannot love someone she competes with. He cannot love her. This is the dilemma of feminists today.

As Marie N. Robinson confirms, woman loves by entrusting her power to the right man, her husband. He uses it to champion her interests. Thus she both empowers him and channels male power in a socially constructive direction. A woman's real power is love, the power of self surrender.
-----

Source: www.henrymakow.com (Sept. 14, 2009)

Friend Quote 9

"New York City is full of self loathing, horny single, miserable people like you and myself and I can't wait to get back to it."

Illuminati Sexuality

In the future, people will no longer bond and create families. 'The couple will no longer be the principal base for life and sexuality. [People] will prefer to choose, in full transparency, polygamous or polyandrous loves.'

The driving force of this trend is technology that frees youth from parental control. The first was the radio, which allowed the young:

'To dance outside the ballrooms and therefore be free of parental supervision- liberating sexuality, opening them to all kinds of music, from jazz to rock, and thus announcing youth's entry into the world of consumption, of desire, and of rebellion.'

A media-dominated culture will create an egocentric populace who 'will be loyal only to themselves.'

With lovers failing to mate for life, 'the world will be no more than a juxtaposition of solitudes, and love a juxtaposition of masturbations.'

The elite goal is to remove love from sex so that they control reproduction. Attali writes that in the twentieth century, society 'sought to evacuate the reproductive role of sexuality by making motherhood artificial, by using increasingly sophisticated methods- pills, pre-mature labor, in vitro fertilization, surrogate mothers.'

In the future, society 'will even go so far as to dissociate reproduction and sexuality. Sexuality will be the kingdom of pleasure, reproduction that of machines.'

Future generations 'will manufacture the human being like a made-to-measure artifact, in an artificial uterus, which will allow the brain to further develop with characteristics chosen in advance. The human being will thus have become a commercial object.'


Source: www.henrymakow.com

Friend Quote 8

"I am always thinking about myself. All of the time, at every moment."

Explaination of Love

"But love is not selfless; it requires an exchange just like every other human bond."


-Our Kind, by Marvin Harris

Mad Men - Illusions

When a man walks into a room he brings his whole life with him. He has a million reasons to be anywhere. Just ask him. If you listen, he'll tell you how he got there, how he forgot where he was going and when he woke up. If you listen, he'll tell you about the time he thought he was an angel and dreamt of being perfect. And in his smile with wisdom, content that he realized the world isn't perfect. We're flawed because we want so much more.

We're ruined because we get these things and wish for what we had.

-Don Draper, 'Summer Man' Episode 8, Season 4

Friend Quote 7

"Treat people with respect and if that isn't possible, avoid them."

Friend Quote 6

"Never listen to what a man says. Watch what he does."

Friend Quote 5

"I'm waiting to meet the man I want to be with. To love him fully, be his emotional support and to be his sexual slave."

2010: The growing appeal of sex without commitment

Buddies in bed times: the growing appeal of sex without commitment
ZOSIA BIELSKI
Published Thursday, Nov. 18, 2010 3:01PM EST

Emma Franklin doesn’t have time for a boyfriend, so her best friend Adam Kurtzman will have to do.

“I’m a doctor,” she tells him in her bedroom. “I work 80 hours a week. I need someone who’s going to be in my bed at 2 a.m. who I don’t have to eat breakfast with.”

“I hate breakfast,” he responds.

And it’s on.

The couple, played by Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, lead No Strings Attached (due out in January), one of a slew of new films about busy, urban thirtysomethings taking up the friends-with-benefits arrangement.

There is Love and Other Drugs, out next week and featuring Jake Gyllenhaal as a Viagra salesman and Anne Hathaway as his cynical sex buddy; and Friends with Benefits (coming next July), starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis as best friends who alternate sex with chest bumps. A new show by the same name is slated to premiere on NBC next year.

Once the domain of college seniors, the friends-with-benefits sexual arrangement (FWB) is being picked up by middle-class professionals in their 30s who have decided they’re too busy for full-blown romantic relationships.

“They’re trying to figure it out and make a commitment to what they can commit to, which in many instances might be their work,” says Margaret McCraw, author of the recent book The Relationship Code.

The idea of prioritizing career over committed romantic relationships takes hold in university: Undergraduates who ranked financial security as their top value in life were most likely to be in a friends-with-benefits relationship, according to a 2008 survey of 1,000 undergraduates published in the College Student Journal.People who are at the start of their careers want something “cozy, casual and convenient,” says Cynthia Loyst, host of the television show Sex Matters on CP24.

“We have our friends as an extended family nowadays. They’re the closest ones to us and we spend a lot of time with them.”

The friends-with-benefits phenomenon has evolved from merely pals who shag to a wide variety of sexual arrangements, including exes who hook up occasionally and bar patrons who stumble home together now and again. More than a one-night stand and less than a monogamous relationship, FWB relieves physical desires without the pretense of emotional or physical commitment.

A 2007 Michigan State University survey of 125 students published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that 60 per cent had dabbled in an FWB arrangement. The relationships had more in common with friendships than romances, and were low on passion and commitment.

Aside from their busy careers, friends with benefits count the marital failings of their parents as one reason not to commit.

“They’re a bit gun-shy: There aren’t that many great models for marriage out there for most people. They’re missing that in their lifetime,” says Dr. McCraw, who is also president of the Behavioral Healthcare Consulting & Training Institute in Baltimore.

But is the arrangement also linked to Generation Y’s childish commitment phobia? In Friends with Benefits, Ms. Kunis’s character Jamie climbs aboard Justin Timberlake and then wonders aloud if they’re too old to be having casual sex, which seems “college-y” to her.

Ms. Loyst echoes Dr. McCraw’s point on this one: “I think it’s less about perpetual adolescence and more a reflection of cynicism or realism around marriage and monogamy. More people are choosing not to put all their eggs in the marriage basket. Many couples I know are starting to think about and discuss the limitations of sex till death do us part.”

Dr. McCraw even hazards that FWBs are more “thoughtful” than their counterparts who went headlong into “starter marriages” in their late 20s.

As for how gender roles play out in the casual-sex pact, a 2010 Colorado State University study revealed some double standards: Men are typically motivated by sex and women by “emotional connection.”

Dr. McCraw says women often want “something more from the beginning,” with some agreeing to the arrangement simply out of desperation. “They wanted something rather than nothing.”

Despite popular assumptions that it’s the woman who ends up getting burned in no-strings-attached arrangements with friends, two of the three new films feature female instigators.

“Women [in their 30s] are extraordinarily focused on career and financial independence. It makes sense that they’d seek out other forms of independence, and that includes sexual independence,” Ms. Loyst says.

But she admits there are consequences, thanks mostly to the muddled linguistics: “On paper, it’s one of those things that sounds really good. You keep it ‘casual’ and ‘simple.’ It’s just about release and sexual playtime. But obviously human beings are complex and emotional, so a lot can go wrong.”

For starters, you can mutilate a friendship, she says. “Even it does work out, it can make for awkward gatherings when you do get involved with more serious partners and still continue to be a part of each other’s social orbits.”

And unless two people are completely honest with themselves and each other, and maintain candour as the relationship evolves, “it’s a huge emotional risk,” Dr. McCraw says. “There’s a physical risk, too, because if they don’t really have a solid foundation with the other partner it’s a health risk.” (The 2008 study found that FWBs are often sleeping with several partners simultaneously.)

Given all the built-in insecurities, it’s somewhat astonishing that thirtysomethings see FWB as a safe emotional alternative to committing to another person. Still, it’s a gamble many are willing to take – given the other options.

“It’s a generation that’s exhausted from dating and this idea of trying to find The One,” Ms. Loyst says.

“If you had the choice between going out to bars, trying to navigate the shark-infested waters of the online scene, or picking up the phone and calling a friend or an ex who you already know and trust, which would you choose?”

See article and more comments here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/the-growing-appeal-of-sex-without-commitment/article1804708/

Friend Quote 4

"A woman should never feel flattered when a man asks if he can come inside after a date."

Cognitive Dissonance is Alive and Well Today

Cognitive Dissonance - The Art of Ignoring What We Not Want to Know

03.01.2009 07:02

http://newsguide.us/index.php?path=/education/psychology/Cognitive-Dissonance-The-Art-of-Ignoring-What-We-Not-Want-to-Know/


The human race is supposed to be rational. The human race is supposed to look at all the available information and make decisions based on rational analysis. That just does not happen.

What really happens is that we live by paradigms. A paradigm is a world view. We live in societies that have a particular world view. If a person lives according to a Christian paradigm they have a different perception of the world to someone who lives according to an Islamic paradigm. There is nothing rational about either, or any other paradigm.

If we lived our rationally our paradigms would be in a constant state of flux, being continuously modified as each new piece of rational information is added. That just does not happen. What does happen is cognitive dissonance as each new piece of information is added.

Cognitive is basically perception, and dissonance is conflict. It would be helpful if psychologists spoke English. But since cognitive dissonance is the official terminology I had better stick to it.

We have a paradigm that has been created by our society, or some sub-group of our society. It is unlikely that our paradigm has any basis in the rational. There is nothing is the concept of paradigm dictating that it needs to be rational other than to support a paradigm that cannot be supported in any other way.

Another, less polite way of defining paradigm is groupthink, where a group thinks as one and the individual conforms to official form of thinking. Groupthink would be used to describe the behavour of the German people in the Nazi years when the individual became an instrument of the state. We are much more polite than that so we live according to paradigms.

The usual way of dealing with cognitive dissonance, individually and collectively, is to be completely blind to anything that conflicts with our paradigm. If we ignore it, it will go away. We have a Western paradigm that relies heavily on an oil based society. If we ignore global warming long enough it will go away. This is an example of how rationality has no place in our paradigms.

This of course will cause conflict. There are those who want to upset our paradigm by bringing changes that may or may not be rational. Cleaning up the planet may be rational but so far the advocates of curbing carbon emissions have so far only created cognitive dissonance, not a paradigm shift.

A paradigm shift occurs when cognitive dissonance becomes too great to ignore and the old paradigm is overthrown. A paradigm shift is not rational. It is not evolutionary. It is revolutionary. It involves major conflict. Sometimes paradigm shifts are bloodless, and some times bloody, but as with physical revolutions the new dictator often becomes as despotic as the old.

A paradigm shift will throw out the good with the bad. Everything is destroyed to make way for the new. We need a shift our attitudes to pollution and other environmental attitudes. There is an urgent need to look at our contribution to conflict around the world. There are many other things that need to be done, but not everything about our present paradigm is bad.

What has this to do with spirituality? Everything. The spiritual movement is filled with literature about the need for a paradigm shift. How a new consciousness or awakening is going to sweep away the old and make the human race bright and shiny again. This revolutionary attitude will not cure all our ills any more than the Bolsheviks bought peace and prosperity to Russia.

Many who follow a spiritual path seek or expect a moment of 'enlightenment', a flash of understanding that changes their paradigm for ever. If we follow this way we ignore everything we don't want to know about until it will just not go away. Then the old is destroyed by the new. Whether or not this 'enlightened' state will be any better than the old paradigm is debatable. Not everything in our 'un-enlightened' state is bad, but it will all be destroyed.

What is the way forward? Be aware of cognitive dissonance. Be aware that we all have a habit of ignoring what we don't want to know about. Ask yourself if you want truth or a truth you will like. The two are not always the same.

If you decide you want truth don't dismiss something just because you don't like it. Instead look at what it holds for you. You might decide to accept it or reject it. More likely is that you will not either accept or reject. Instead the probability is that whatever it holds of value to you will be assimilated and you paradigm becomes evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Remember the old advice that a journey begins with a single step. Each place along the way is another first step. Enlightenment is a journey of little steps, not a blinding flash of light.

As a writer on spiritual concepts cognitive dissonance has a special meaning to me. If I write close to the existing spiritual paradigm (that hasn't shifted in thirty years, same book, different author) lots of people read what I write. If I push the boundaries cognitive dissonance kicks in and I am ignored. This can be frustrating but is all part of the process until evolutionary paradigms take over from revolutionary paradigms.

Hopefully people seeking a spiritual path can come understand that a little small step at a time outside the safety zone will not cause the sky to fall in. That small step soon becomes comfortable is assimilated into the safety zone, and it is time for the next small step.

Learning how to overcome cognitive dissonance is one of those small steps and leads to our spiritual path becoming enjoyable and evolutionary rather than filled with drama and conflict.

To view David's work, and to contact David please go to his website http://www.david-young.com.au. There is a comment question/answer box on the Article page where you can post your question. You can also link through my Bio link on this page.

David Young has been writing for twenty years on any subject relating to the human condition. The human race is capable of much greater things than it has achieved in the past. The key to greater achievements, and the elimination of negatives like war, greed, poverty and oppression (to name a few) is for people to make informed choices based on understanding instead of just leaving it to the experts to tell us what to think.

Much of David's work involves looking at issues and translating them into plain language. If the expert spoke in plain language we would understand that the experts know no more than we do. We are both spiritual and physical beings. The two must go together if we are to be complete in this world. When writing on spiritual subjects this is always tempered with bringing our spiritual being into the world. If one or the other is neglected we suffer. These are the twin motivators of my work. Physical well being and understanding issues so that we have choices, and making those choices from a spiritual base of knowing who we are.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Jon_Young

Practical Ways to Control Your Woman

By Lawrence Mitchell

Relationship Correspondent

http://www.askmen.com/dating/dating_advice_100/107_dating_tips.html

Machiavellian: Suggesting the principles of conduct laid down by Machiavelli; marked by cunning, duplicity or bad faith.

The Italian philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli, author of Il Principe ( The Prince ), was an exponent of unscrupulous action in the pursuit of political power. His view was that the world of politics was inherently amoral and that as a result, there were no rules. While not a benevolent maxim, it is not altogether illogical even today. When you operate within a dishonorable system, it is reasonable to achieve authority and dominance by any means necessary.

Of course, love and relationships are not amoral pursuits, although some might disagree. Nor will I pretend that they are comparable to the cesspool of corruption that Machiavelli wrote about some 500 years ago in his landmark treatise. Men today can benefit however, from the great philosopher's advice on how to win influence and gain power over others. In this case, "others" refers to women. How convenient.

First you get the women
The topic at hand is as a result, how to manipulate women and get your way. This is what men try to do on a regular basis but with calamitous results. The hold they have on their significant others is so temporary, so weak and so deceptive, that before they even sense it, their woman has them by the balls again.

Is it amoral, as the political reality of Machiavelli was, to dispense this advice? Is it wrong? How can a man and woman foster a lifetime commitment on trust and respect when one is out to manipulate the other for personal gain and satisfaction? Simple. She must never know your intentions or methods to influence her mind.

With wily deceit, you must approach this technique like a martial art: discipline, prudence and stealth are your friends. But whereas in practice martial arts seek to exploit the physical leverage of an opponent to gain the advantage, female mind manipulation in the context of a relationship must use mental leverage to do the same.

Despite the cloak of Machiavellian wisdom, female mind manipulation borrows from the restraint of Confucius, the quiet ruthless practices of Sun Tzu and the meditation of Zen. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there, does it make a sound? If you bend your woman to your will and she is oblivious to the fact, did you even manipulate her mind in the first place? Think about it.

Do you have to be a Jedi Knight of the subconscious to pull this off? Does it have to be this complex? Well to be honest with you, yes. Women are intricate creatures and, unless vulnerable because of innate insecurity, trauma or low intelligence, resist deception with maddening ease.

They question our judgment. They question our expertise. They question our intelligence. They question our taste. It drives us absolutely crazy. In our quest to carve a better life, all we want is an impression of obedience and submission to our masculine dominance.

And I think we deserve it if we earn it. You have to earn it. Otherwise you give real men who know how to control their women with a soft hand and sharp mind a bad name. So here's what you do:

Be a contender, not a pretender...

In order to exert influence and win infinite support from your woman, you need to hold a position of worth in life. You have to stand for something significant. You have to command reverence in your respective field. People should respect your dignity and moral resilience. Why? Simple. Women gravitate toward men of strong character and go to bat for them time and time again. You can be a university professor, a neurosurgeon or a janitor. It matters not. Just be the man who people turn to for advice, counsel and wisdom.

Bend like a reed
Stop me if you know this one:

If a stronger enemy assails you,
better bend like the reed by the stream.
Do not rear like an angry snake
if unremitting prosperity is what you seek.

Following the lowly manner of the reed
a man gains great prosperity in time.
Adopting the overbearing manner of the snake,
he is simply courting death.
*Excerpt from Pancatantra

Your woman may not be a "stronger enemy" or even an enemy at all. There are times however, when she may prove to be a stubborn and formidable adversary. Apply the advice above in order to scuttle convention and curry her favor and loyalty. Remember the moral at hand. Better to bend like a reed than attack like a snake. The reed is buoyant, pliable and endures with time. Mighty oaks may break in a vicious storm, but reeds stand firm and last.

Condition your woman
You have to think like Pavlov in order to condition your woman to behave the way you desire. Your woman may expect you to bark orders at her, criticize her or become angry when she upsets you. But you choose to remain quiet, cast her an intense gaze and speak in a soft tone. Again, you are a reed. In a quarrel or conflict, if you transmit the depth of your disappointment, anger and even rage toward your woman in a cool and quiet manner, not only will you scare her straight, you will gain immeasurable respect and obedience. In good times, when the two of you are in bliss, express your love with as much warmth as possible. Be spontaneous and romantic. Make love to her. Be the man and be her man.

In other words, reward her with affection and attention when she warrants it. Make it comfortable, easy and to her great advantage to submit to you.

Draw her natural feminine instincts out
I'll let you in on a secret: Women want men who take control, not men who are control freaks. The difference is important. Control freaks are narcissists who put their desires and needs first. Men who take control are protectors and leaders. The satiation of their desires and needs are the natural result of the effortless and invisible control they wield. Men who take control take care of their women. They treat them like royalty. They shelter them from harm. They love them and they are loyal. But with a stern voice and demeanor and an unflappable charisma, they engender passionate loyalty in return.

A woman who displays the latter will do anything for her man. She will be a whore in the bedroom, a good mother to his children, a partner in business or in crime, and a fierce defender to his detractors.

The Clint Eastwood tour de force Mystic River has a scene at the end between Sean Penn and Laura Linney that best demonstrates the theory in discussion. In a display of impressive spousal devotion, Linney assures her husband of her steadfast support in the face of a heinous crime. Incredulous, Penn rests his head on the bed as his wife expresses her allegiance and obedience with not only words, but also aggressive sexual advances. "You are the King," she whispers.

How did Sean Penn's character provoke such loyalty in his wife? He was a man who took care of his family. Their respect and the respect of his peers were absolute and pure. As a result, his wife, while no pushover and a strong character in her own right, was ready to exercise his whims and let him lead.

Then you get the power
Be a real man and apply the advice in this article in order to manipulate the mind of your woman and gain control in your relationship. Remember; manipulation is neither cruel nor wrong if you love her. It is wise.

Friend Quote 3

"God, I hate dating so much. Either fuck me or marry me."

Friend Quote 2

"Insecure girls are the best. You're in charge by default."

Respect

Friend 1: Respect for yourself, taking responsibility for your actions and being mindful how you live your life. Being honest with yourself is important, then having respect for yourself easily translates to respect for others. My father would always tell me, "treat others the way you wish to be treated."

Friend 2: Respect is the realization that one is worthy and then acting upon it. A positive feeling of esteem.

Friend 3: (On relationships) I think respect involves two people coming to an understanding which encompasses knowing the other person's boundaries and limits, not crossing the line.

Friend 4: Respect is something that needs to be earned, not that you should disrespect anyone until they do something to humble you. But you should treat people the way you would like to be treated. In family and jobs, there is a hierarchy of people you have to show respect to, but as individuals you would want to be respected by those higher so you would do things that would please them. Actually in relationships it can go the same, you would want to do things for them that you would want in return.

Friend 5: Admiration for another person's attributes.

We're All Narcissists, Whether We Like It Or Not

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is defined by the Fourth Edition Text Revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( DSM-IV-TR , a handbook that mental health professionals use to diagnose mental disorders) as one of ten personality disorders . As a group, these disorders are described by DSM-IV-TR as "enduring pattern[s] of inner experience and behavior" that are sufficiently rigid and deep-seated to bring a person into repeated conflicts with his or her social and occupational environment. DSM-IV-TR specifies that these dysfunctional patterns must be regarded as nonconforming or deviant by the person's culture, and cause significant emotional pain and/or difficulties in relationships and occupational performance.

To meet the diagnosis of a personality disorder, the patient's problematic behaviors must appear in two or more of the following areas:

* perception and interpretation of the self and other people
* intensity and duration of feelings and their appropriateness to situations
* relationships with others
* ability to control impulses

It is important to note that all the personality disorders are considered to have their onset in late adolescence or early adulthood. Doctors rarely give a diagnosis of personality disorder to children on the grounds that children's personalities are still in process of formation and may change considerably by the time they are in their late teens.

NPD is defined more specifically as a pattern of grandiosity (exaggerated claims to talents, importance, or specialness) in the patient's private fantasies or outward behavior; a need for constant admiration from others; and a lack of empathy for others. The term narcissistic is derived from an ancient Greek legend, the story of Echo and Narcissus. According to the legend, Echo was a woodland nymph who fell in love with Narcissus, who was an uncommonly handsome but also uncommonly vain young man. He contemptuously rejected her expressions of love. She pined away and died. The god Apollo was angered by Narcissus' pride and self-satisfaction, and condemned him to die without ever knowing human love. One day, Narcissus was feeling thirsty, saw a pool of clear water nearby, and knelt beside it in order to dip his hands in the water and drink. He saw his face reflected on the surface of the water and fell in love with the reflection. Unable to win a response from the image in the water, Narcissus eventually died beside the pool.

Havelock Ellis, a British psychologist , first used the story of Echo and Narcissus in 1898 as a capsule summary of pathological self-absorption. The words narcissist and narcissistic have been part of the vocabulary of psychology and psychiatry ever since. They have, however, been the subjects of several controversies. In order to understand NPD, the reader may find it helpful to have an outline of the different theories about narcissism in human beings, its relation to other psychiatric disorders, and its connections to the wider culture. NPD is unique among the DSM-IV-TR personality disorders in that it has been made into a symbol of the problems and discontents of contemporary Western culture as a whole.
Description

A good place to begin a discussion of the different theories about narcissism is with the observation that NPD exists as a diagnostic category only in DSM-IV-TR , which is an American diagnostic manual. The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision ( ICD-10 , the European equivalent of DSM ) lists only eight personality disorders. What DSM-IV-TR defines as narcissistic personality disorder, ICD-10 lumps together with "eccentric, impulsive-type, immature, passive-aggressive, and psychoneurotic personality disorders."

DSM-IV-TR specifies nine diagnostic criteria for NPD. For the clinician to make the diagnosis, an individual must fit five or more of the following descriptions:

* He or she has a grandiose sense of self-importance (exaggerates accomplishments and demands to be considered superior without real evidence of achievement).
* He or she lives in a dream world of exceptional success, power, beauty, genius, or "perfect" love.
* He or she thinks of him- or herself as "special" or privileged, and that he or she can only be understood by other special or high-status people.
* He or she demands excessive amounts of praise or admiration from others.
* He or she feels entitled to automatic deference, compliance , or favorable treatment from others.
* He or she is exploitative towards others and takes advantage of them.
* He or she lacks empathy and does not recognize or identify with others' feelings.
* He or she is frequently envious of others or thinks that they are envious of him or her.
* He or she "has an attitude" or frequently acts in haughty or arrogant ways.

In addition to these criteria, DSM-IV-TR groups NPD together with three other personality disorders in its so-called Cluster B. These four disorders are grouped together on the basis of symptom similarities, insofar as patients with these disorders appear to others as overly emotional, unstable, or self-dramatizing. The other three disorders in Cluster B are antisocial, borderline, and histrionic personality disorders.

The DSM-IV-TR clustering system does not mean that all patients can be fitted neatly into one of the three clusters. It is possible for patients to have symptoms of more than one personality disorder or to have symptoms from different clusters. In addition, patients diagnosed with any personality disorder may also meet the criteria for mood, substance abuse, or other disorders.
Subtypes of NPD

AGE GROUP SUBTYPES. Ever since the 1950s, when psychiatrists began to notice an increase in the number of their patients that had narcissistic disorders, they have made attempts to define these disorders more precisely. NPD was introduced as a new diagnostic category in DSM-III , which was published in 1980. Prior to DSM-III , narcissism was a recognized phenomenon but not an official diagnosis. At that time, NPD was considered virtually untreatable because people who suffer from it rarely enter or remain in treatment; typically, they regard themselves as superior to their therapist, and they see their problems as caused by other people's "stupidity" or "lack of appreciation." More recently, however, some psychiatrists have proposed dividing narcissistic patients into two subcategories based roughly on age: those who suffer from the stable form of NPD described by DSM-IVTR , and younger adults whose narcissism is often corrected by life experiences.

This age group distinction represents an ongoing controversy about the nature of NPD—whether it is fundamentally a character disorder, or whether it is a matter of learned behavior that can be unlearned. Therapists who incline toward the first viewpoint are usually pessimistic about the results of treatment for patients with NPD.

PERSONALITY SUBTYPES. Other psychiatrists have noted that patients who meet the DSM-IV-TR criteria for NPD reflect different clusters of traits within the DSM-IV-TR list. One expert in the field of NPD has suggested the following subcategories of narcissistic personalities:

* Craving narcissists. These are people who feel emotionally needy and undernourished, and may well appear clingy or demanding to those around them.
* Paranoid narcissists. This type of narcissist feels intense contempt for him- or herself, but projects it outward onto others. Paranoid narcissists frequently drive other people away from them by hypercritical and jealous comments and behaviors.
* Manipulative narcissists. These people enjoy "putting something over" on others, obtaining their feelings of superiority by lying to and manipulating them.
* Phallic narcissists. Almost all narcissists in this subgroup are male. They tend to be aggressive, athletic, and exhibitionistic; they enjoy showing off their bodies, clothes, and overall "manliness."

Causes and symptoms
Causes

At present there are two major theories about the origin and nature of NPD. One theory regards NPD as a form of arrested psychological development while the other regards it as a young child's defense against psychological pain. The two perspectives have been identified with two major figures in psychoanalytic thought, Heinz Kohut and Otto Kernberg respectively.

Both theories about NPD go back to Sigmund Freud's pioneering work On Narcissism, published in1914. In this essay, Freud introduced a distinction which has been retained by almost all later writers—namely, the distinction between primary and secondary narcissism. Freud thought that all human infants pass through a phase of primary narcissism, in which they assume they are the center of their universe. This phase ends when the baby is forced by the realities of life to recognize that it does not control its parents (or other caregivers) but is in fact entirely dependent on them. In normal circumstances, the baby gives up its fantasy of being all-powerful and becomes emotionally attached to its parents rather than itself. What Freud defined as secondary narcissism is a pathological condition in which the infant does not invest its emotions in its parents but rather redirects them back to itself. He thought that secondary narcissism developed in what he termed the pre-Oedipal phase of childhood; that is, before the age of three. From a Freudian perspective, then, narcissistic disorders originate in very early childhood development, and this early origin is thought to explain why they are so difficult to treat in later life.

CAUSES IN THE FAMILY OF ORIGIN. Kohut and Kernberg agree with Freud in tracing the roots of NPD to disturbances in the patient's family of origin—specifically, to problems in the parent-child relationship before the child turned three. Where they disagree is in their accounts of the nature of these problems. According to Kohut, the child grows out of primary narcissism through opportunities to be mirrored by (i.e., gain approval from) his or her parents and to idealize them, acquiring a more realistic sense of self and a set of personal ideals and values through these two processes. On the other hand, if the parents fail to provide appropriate opportunities for idealization and mirroring, the child remains "stuck" at a developmental stage in which his or her sense of self remains grandiose and unrealistic while at the same time he or she remains dependent on approval from others for self-esteem.

In contrast, Kernberg views NPD as rooted in the child's defense against a cold and unempathetic parent, usually the mother. Emotionally hungry and angry at the depriving parents, the child withdraws into a part of the self that the parents value, whether looks, intellectual ability, or some other skill or talent. This part of the self becomes hyperinflated and grandiose. Any perceived weaknesses are "split off" into a hidden part of the self. Splitting gives rise to a lifelong tendency to swing between extremes of grandiosity and feelings of emptiness and worthlessness.

In both accounts, the child emerges into adult life with a history of unsatisfactory relationships with others. The adult narcissist possesses a grandiose view of the self but has a conflict-ridden psychological dependence on others. At present, however, psychiatrists do not agree in their description of the central defect in NPD; some think that the problem is primarily emotional while others regard it as the result of distorted cognition, or knowing. Some maintain that the person with NPD has an "empty" or hungry sense of self while others argue that the narcissist has a "disorganized" self. Still others regard the core problem as the narcissist's inability to test reality and construct an accurate view of him- or herself.

MACROSOCIAL CAUSES. One dimension of NPD that must be taken into account is its social and historical context. Psychiatrists became interested in narcissism shortly after World War II (1939–45), when the older practitioners in the field noticed that their patient population had changed. Instead of seeing patients who suffered from obsessions and compulsions related to a harsh and punishing superego (the part of the psyche that internalizes the standards and moral demands of one's parents and culture), the psychiatrists were treating more patients with character disorders related to a weak sense of self. Instead of having a judgmental and overactive conscience, these patients had a weak or nonexistent code of morals. They were very different from the patients that Freud had treated, described, and analyzed. The younger generation of psychiatrists then began to interpret their patients' character disorders in terms of narcissism.

In the 1960s historians and social critics drew the attention of the general public to narcissism as a metaphorical description of Western culture in general. These writers saw several parallels between trends in the larger society and the personality traits of people diagnosed with narcissistic disorders. In short, they argued that the advanced industrial societies of Europe and the United States were contributing to the development of narcissistic disorders in individuals in a number of respects. Some of the trends they noted include the following:

* The mass media's preoccupation with "lifestyles of the rich and famous" rather than with ordinary or average people.
* Social approval of open displays of money, status, or accomplishments ("if you've got it, flaunt it") rather than modesty and self-restraint.
* Preference for a leadership style that emphasizes the leader's outward appearance and personality rather than his or her inner beliefs and values.
* The growth of large corporations and government bureaucracies that favor a managerial style based on "impression management" rather than objective measurements of performance.
* Social trends that encourage parents to be self-centered and to resent their children's legitimate needs.
* The weakening of churches, synagogues, and other religious or social institutions that traditionally helped children to see themselves as members of a community rather than as isolated individuals.

Although discussion continues about the location and forms of narcissism in the larger society, no one now denies that personality disorders both reflect and influence the culture in which they arise. Family therapists are now reporting on the treatment of families in which the children are replicating the narcissistic disorders of their parents.
Symptoms

Most observers regard grandiosity as the most important single trait of a narcissistic personality. It is important to note that grandiosity implies more than boasting or prideful display as such—it signifies self-aggrandizement that is not borne out by reality. For example, a person who claims that he or she was the most valuable player on a college athletic team may be telling the truth about their undergraduate sports record. Their claim may be bad manners but is not grandiosity. On the other hand, someone who makes the same claim but had an undistinguished record or never even made the team is being grandiose. Grandiosity in NPD is related to some of the diagnostic criteria listed by DSM-IV-TR , such as demanding special favors from others or choosing friends and associates on the basis of prestige and high status rather than personal qualities. In addition, grandiosity complicates diagnostic assessment of narcissists because it frequently leads to lying and misrepresentation of one's past history and present accomplishments.

Other symptoms of NPD include:

* a history of intense but short-term relationships with others; inability to make or sustain genuinely intimate relationships
* a tendency to be attracted to leadership or high-profile positions or occupations
* a pattern of alternating between unrealistic idealization of others and equally unrealistic devaluation of them
* assessment of others in terms of usefulness
* a need to be the center of attention or admiration in a working group or social situation
* hypersensitivity to criticism, however mild, or rejection from others
* an unstable view of the self that fluctuates between extremes of self-praise and self-contempt
* preoccupation with outward appearance, "image," or public opinion rather than inner reality
* painful emotions based on shame (dislike of who one is) rather than guilt (regret for what one has done)

People diagnosed with NPD represent a range of levels of functioning. Otto Kernberg has described three levels of narcissistic impairment. At the top are those who are talented or gifted enough to attract all the admiration and attention that they want; these people may never enter therapy because they don't feel the need. On the second level are those who function satisfactorily in their jobs but seek professional help because they cannot form healthy relationships or because they feel generally bored and aimless. Narcissists on the lowest level have frequently been diagnosed with another mental disorder and/or have gotten into trouble with the law. They often have severe difficulties with anxiety and with controlling their impulses.
Demographics

DSM-IV-TR states that 2% to 16% of the clinical population and slightly less than 1% of the general population of the United States suffers from NPD. Between 50% and 75% of those diagnosed with NPD are males. Little is known about the prevalence of NPD across racial and ethnic groups.
Gender issues

The high preponderance of male patients in studies of narcissism has prompted researchers to explore the effects of gender roles on this particular personality disorder. Some have speculated that the gender imbalance in NPD results from society's disapproval of self-centered and exploitative behavior in women, who are typically socialized to nurture, please, and generally focus their attention on others. Others have remarked that the imbalance is more apparent than real, and that it reflects a basically sexist definition of narcissism. These researchers suggest that definitions of the disorder should be rewritten in future editions of DSM to account for ways in which narcissistic personality traits manifest differently in men and in women.
Professional and leadership positions

One important aspect of NPD that should be noted is that it does not prevent people from occupying, as well as aspiring to, positions of power, wealth, and prestige. Many people with NPD, as Kernberg's classification makes clear, are sufficiently talented to secure the credentials of success. In addition, narcissists' preoccupation with a well-packaged exterior means that they often develop an attractive and persuasive social manner. Many high-functioning narcissists are well liked by casual acquaintances and business associates who never get close enough to notice the emptiness or anger underneath the polished surface.

Unfortunately, narcissists in positions of high visibility or power—particularly in the so-called helping professions (medicine, education, and the ministry)—often do great harm to others. In recent years a number of books and articles have been published within the religious, medical, and business communities regarding the problems caused by professionals with NPD. One psychiatrist noted in a lecture on substance abuse among physicians that NPD is one of the three most common psychiatric diagnoses among physicians in court-mandated substance abuse programs. A psychologist who serves as a consultant in the evaluation of seminary students and ordained clergy has remarked that the proportion of narcissists in the clergy has risen dramatically since the 1960s. Researchers in the field of business organization and management styles have compiled data on the human and economic costs of executives with undiagnosed NPD.
Diagnosis

The diagnosis of NPD is complicated by a number of factors.
Complications of diagnosis

NPD is difficult to diagnose for several reasons. First, some people with NPD function sufficiently well that they do not come to the attention of therapists. Second, narcissists are prone to lie about themselves; thus it may take a long time for a therapist to notice discrepancies between a patient's version of his or her life and information gained from others or from public records. Third, many traits and behaviors associated with NPD may be attributed to other mental disorders. Low functioning narcissists are often diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder (BPD), particularly if they are female; if they are male, they may be diagnosed as having antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). If the person with NPD has a substance abuse disorder, some of their narcissistic behaviors may be written off to the mood-altering substance. More recently, some psychiatrists have pointed to a tendency to confuse narcissistic behaviors in people with NPD who have had a traumatic experience with full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Given the lack of clarity in the differential diagnosis of NPD, some therapists are calling for a fundamental revision of DSM-IV-TR definitions of the personality disorders.

An additional complication is posed by economic considerations. The coming of managed care has meant that third-party payers (insurance companies) prefer short-term psychotherapy that concentrates on a patient's acute problems rather than on underlying chronic issues. Since narcissists are reluctant to trust others or form genuine interpersonal bonds, there is a strong possibility that many therapists do not recognize NPD in patients that they are treating for only a few weeks or months.
Diagnostic interviews

Diagnosis of NPD is usually made on the basis of several sources of information: the patient's history and self-description, information from family members and others, and the results of diagnostic questionnaires. One questionnaire that is often used in the process of differential diagnosis is the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Disorders, known as the SCID-II.

The most common diagnostic instrument used for narcissistic NPD is the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). First published by Robert R. Raskin and Calvin S. Hall in 1979, the NPI consists of 223 items consisting of paired statements, one reflecting narcissistic traits and the other nonnarcissistic. Subjects are required to choose one of the two items. The NPI is widely used in research as well as diagnostic assessment.
Treatments

Treatments for NPD include a variety of pharmacologic, individual, and group approaches; none, however, have been shown to be particularly effective as of 2002.
Medication

As of 2002, there are no medications that have been developed specifically for the treatment of NPD. Patients with NPD who are also depressed or anxious may be given drugs for relief of those symptoms. There are anecdotal reports in the medical literature that the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, which are frequently prescribed for depression, reinforce narcissistic grandiosity and lack of empathy with others.
Psychotherapy

Several different approaches to individual therapy have been tried with NPD patients, ranging from classical psychoanalysis and Adlerian therapy to rationalemotive approaches and Gestalt therapy . The consensus that has emerged is that therapists should set modest goals for treatment with NPD patients. Most of them cannot form a sufficiently deep bond with a therapist to allow healing of early-childhood injuries. In addition, the tendency of these patients to criticize and devalue their therapists (as well as other authority figures) makes it difficult for therapists to work with them.

An additional factor that complicates psychotherapy with NPD patients is the lack of agreement among psychiatrists about the causes and course of the disorder. One researcher has commented that much more research is necessary to validate DSM-IV-TR 's description of NPD before outcome studies can be done comparing different techniques of treatment.
Hospitalization

Low-functioning patients with NPD may require inpatient treatment, particularly those with severe self-harming behaviors or lack of impulse control. Hospital treatment, however, appears to be most helpful when it is focused on the immediate crisis and its symptoms rather than the patient's underlying long-term difficulties.
Prognosis

The prognosis for younger persons with narcissistic disorders is hopeful to the extent that the disturbances reflect a simple lack of life experience. The outlook for long-standing NPD, however, is largely negative. Some narcissists are able, particularly as they approach their midlife years, to accept their own limitations and those of others, to resolve their problems with envy, and to accept their own mortality. Most patients with NPD, on the other hand, become increasingly depressed as they grow older within a youth-oriented culture and lose their looks and overall vitality. The retirement years are especially painful for patients with NPD because they must yield their positions in the working world to the next generation. In addition, they do not have the network of intimate family ties and friendships that sustain most older people.
Prevention

The best hope for prevention of NPD lies with parents and other caregivers who are close to children during the early preschool years. Parents must be able to demonstrate empathy in their interactions with the child and with each other. They must also be able to show that they love their children for who they are, not for their appearance or their achievements. And they must focus their parenting efforts on meeting the child's changing needs as he or she matures, rather than demanding that the child meet their needs for status, comfort, or convenience.


http://www.minddisorders.com/Kau-Nu/Narcissistic-personality-disorder.html

Friend Quote 1

"I like how my walls feel."

Mad Men Quote - Beautiful, Insecure Women

"Pegs, a woman who looks like that will never sound confident because she never is confident. Honey, it's god's gift to bachelors; the juiciest gazelle is the easiest to catch."

Ken Cosgrove to Peggy Olson
-Episode 13, Season 1: The Wheel

Mad Men Quote - Poor Little Rich Boy

"I'm not a phoney. It's so obvious why you're seeing her. A supermarket check out girl? Conversation must be stimulating. Lettuce cost a nickel." (Joan)

"What a relief. You're just jealous." (Paul)

"Because you're the one that got away. You, out there, in your poor little rich boy apartment in Newark or wherever. Walking around with your pipe and your beard. Falling in love with that girl just to show just how interesting you are. Go ahead what part is wrong?" (Joan)


In conversation, Joan and Paul
From Flight 1, Season 2 - Mad Men

Men and Women in Society Today - Dave Chappelle

Spirituality

Spirituality has a different meaning to each of us, it seems. A standard definition would be: "A sense of meaning and purpose; a sense of self and of a relationship with 'that which is greater than self".

Currently, Religion and Mysticism seem to have the monopoly on Spirituality. Theistic religion often regards a 'relationship with god' or divine creator, as a spiritual relationship, while Mystics will often find a relationship to a 'supernatural' force or power. The bottom line is that, almost universally, spirituality has to do with a 'relationship' on one level or another. In most perspectives, it is associated with a person's 'place' or 'meaning' in life... whatever that may be.

As subjective as these things can be, we begin to recognize changes in these notions, for social progress tends to carve a path for understandings that stand the test of time. In the modern age, we have the ability to look far in our past and examine what our ancestors used to consider 'real', and then compare those ideas to what we understand today. Many "spiritual practices" which have existed in the past, no longer exist due the understandings that have come about in regard to natural phenomenon. As a base example, early religions often 'sacrificed' animals for certain purposes... this rarely happens today, as the relevance of such an act has proven pointless in its desired effect. Likewise, rarely do people perform 'raindances' in order to influence the weather... today we understand how weather patterns are created, and ritual practices have no provable effect.

Similarly, the idea of 'praying' to a god for a particular request, has also statistically proven to have little effect on an outcome, not to mention the evidence to support a personified creator doesn't exist in any scientific way...rather it is often derived from ancient historical literary speculation and tradition.

Establishment Religion, in many ways, seems to be rooted in a perceptual misunderstanding about life's processes. For instance, it presents a worldview which often puts the human on a different level than other elements of nature. This 'spiritual ego' has led to dramatic conflicts for generations, not only between human beings, but inadvertently between us and the environment itself.

However, as time has moved forward, Science has shown how human beings are subject to the exact same forces of nature as everything else. We have learned that we all share the same atomic substructure as trees, birds and all other forms of life. We have learned that we cannot live without nature's elements... we need clean air to breathe, food to eat, energy from the sun, etc. When we understand this Symbiotic relationship of life, we begin to see that as far as 'relationships' are concerned, our relationship to the planet is the most profound and important. The medium by which this is expressed, is Science, for the Scientific Method has allowed us insight into these natural processes, so we can better understand how we 'fit' into this life system as a whole.

This could be called a 'spiritual' awakening.

This realization, which has been proven by science, is that humans are no different from any other form of nature, while our integrity is only as good as the integrity of our environment, to which we are a part. This understanding presents an entirely different 'spiritual' worldview, for it forces the idea of interdependence and connection, at its core.

The interconnection of the whole of life is undeniable in the most basic sense, and it is this perpetual 'relationship' of total interconnectivity that is not fully realized by society overall. Thus, our modes of conduct and perception are largely out of line with nature itself... and hence destructive.

Nature itself is our teacher, and our social institutions and philosophies should be derived from this foundational and, invariably, 'spiritual' understanding.

The faster this spiritual awakening spreads, the more sane, peaceful and productive society will become.


Take from:
The Zeitgeist Movement
http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?Itemid=59

The Truth is Never Pretty - 3

"I know that if I cheat on my love, I can and will feel no remorse."

Feminism, a Hoax, or a Real Solution?

"We must introduce into their education all those principles which have so brilliantly broken up their order."
Protocols of Zion, 16

by Henry Makow, Ph.D.


In a recent article "Outraged Moms, Trashy Daughters" by Anne Kingston, (Macleans, Aug 16, 2010) mothers lament that their daughters now see "empowerment" in terms of pleasuring males.

While the feminist mothers saw power as financial independence and rejected female "objectification," their daughters accept the pornographic message of pop music and advertising. In the words of one mom, they "believe their purpose in life is to be sexual beings who please men."

"A blow job is like shaking hands," said another mom. "Their attitude is: 'We're emancipated, we're liberated, we're in control. They see [it] as power; I see it as giving their power away."

Yes but: Who taught girls they could have sex outside of courtship, love and marriage?

Feminists did. Feminism brainwashed young women to see husbands as oppressors and family as bondage. There was no longer any reason to restrict sex to love and marriage.

Understandably, feminists don't want to admit their teachers have betrayed them. Feminism was created by elite social engineers to reduce population and undermine marriage and family.

Even while they wring their hands, feminists are blinded by their ideology. (The article veers off into a discussion of how feminism is still relevant.)

The words "love," "marriage," "husband" and "family" do not appear in the article. No wonder they can't understand the problem and what to do about it.

Both mothers and daughters are victims of deliberate social subversion. A woman's career used to be wife and mother. She consecrated her sexuality for the man she loved, the father of her children, her protector and provider.

Young women today are up a creek. They don't know how to be women and men don't know how to be men. But one thing that hasn't changed is - men don't marry sluts. These girls are going to be left high and dry once their sex appeal has faded.

They obsess on looking beautiful but don't know that true beauty comes from within, from a spiritual purity. This means rejecting all coarse influences and behavior. It means focusing on what is good, true, human and inspiring.

In the past, men had to prove their love and commitment before they could have sex. As a result, women were cherished and given a lifelong role (mother, wife) that satisfied their deepest emotional needs.

Now they have been reduced to amateur prostitutes and corporate widgets.

"I don't meet many girls who feel good about themselves, even though they are totally gorgeous," one social worker says.

How could they ... giving their bodies to strangers who dump them?

Girls figure they must give away sex or boys will get it from other girls. That's like saying, "if I don't let muggers rob and beat me, other girls will."

The other word totally absent from this article is "father." Girls could get love, self respect and guidance from their fathers. But I'm guessing their feminist mothers drove their fathers away.

It's not too late for girls to learn to be women again. There can be no sex without courtship and love. If other girls want to give it away, let them suffer the consequences.

Girls can become feminine again by making marriage and family their first priority. If they refocus, they can regain the path to fulfillment and happiness.


Taken from Henrymakow.com

Women Who Want to Watch Porn

If you’re a girl who has never really seen pornography, admitting to yourself that you want to watch porn or explicit sexual imagery may take some — or a lot of — forethought. And if you think that all porn is nothing more than pool boys and women with poor payment negotiation skills and eternal bad hair days (or worse: women being coerced into doing something they don’t want to), then the realities of today’s porn will come as quite a surprise.

One of the major obstacles that we women face is the widely held notion that women don’t respond to sexual imagery as men do — a notion that is absolutely untrue. We are told we won’t like it. But on our own, with a wide selection of the many different kinds of porn, and especially porn made by women, for women — we find out that we do. Recommendations for high quality pornography made by women, expressly for women are at the end of this article.

In her 1994 study, Dr. Ellen Laan of the University of Amsterdam proved that women respond physiologically to sexual images, even when the women said that the porn they watched was boring or unarousing. When seeing the sex onscreen (whether from male or female directors), their genitals congested quite robustly, thank you very much.

According to many studies, lots of women watch porn, and like it, too. We can find out how the performers feel about their work by reading their blogs and doing our homework on the pornography we’re considering. This is the first time in history that female porn performers have the freedom to talk about their work unfiltered. Now that the Internet has given female porn viewers the privacy to explore our reactions to explicit sexual imagery on our own terms, we’re finally allowed to decide for ourselves how we feel about, and react to porn.

Many women are finding that pornography is a sex toy that is as reliable and their favorite vibrator, and is as versatile — it can be easily shared with their lovers. Lots of women watch porn, and are none the worse for it. Read why in my CNN article Are more women OK with watching porn? (cnn.com).

Women like to watch, and — guess what — it’s not exactly “breaking” news. In late 2007, Nielsen Netratings revealed that 1 in 3 users of porn were women, and over 9 million American women accessed adult sites in September 2007 alone. The same year (2007), a sociology researcher at conservative Brigham Young University found that half of young women surveyed believe that viewing porn is an acceptable way of expressing sexuality. And in women-friendly boutiques such as Babeland, women make up 80% of the porn rental and purchase market.

Going back in time, in a 1987 Redbook survey of over 26,000 female respondents nearly half stated that they regularly used porn. And it’s not just the “wild ones”, either: a 2003 poll by taken by Today’s Christian Woman readers found that even good church-going women were peeking at the odd bit of porn: over 34 percent of female respondents to their online survey self-disclosed that they had deliberately gone looking for porn. Articles from sources such as The New York Times and MSNBC have asked “What Women Want” and answer themselves with the resounding response, “Women are hungry for porn.” In 2004, the New York Times told us in no uncertain terms that Women Are Tailoring Porn to their Eyes. In the 1996 book Defending Pornography by ACLU president Nadine Strossen, “Women, either singly or as part of a couple, constitute more than 40 percent of the adult videotape rental audience. . .” In 1989, Good Vibrations added adult videos to their catalog, at the demand of female staff and customers. And as consumers, women are changing a market once considered a boys’ club — female directors like Candida Royalle are selling hardcore erotic videos made by women, for women at the rate of approximately 10,000 titles a month.

What Can A Girl Expect? A New Woman’s Guide To Porn

Once you feel okay with using porn as a sex toy, there are a few things you need to know before you get started. First, keep your expectations in check — you’re not going to see anything like the mega-budget Hollywood blockbusters (but with sex included) that you’re used to. Why not? Because outside of Hollywood studios, no one has that kind of money, or those resources to throw around, especially in a film genre that’s controversial.

A great place to start is this free chapter from my book The Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn: Chapter 3 – I was a Porn Virgin (oprah.com). You can also click to listen to the introduction and hear my personal journey looking for good porn for women.

The quality you’re going to see is like daytime soap operas; with simple sets, standard lighting, digital cameras, and barely there acting. Unless you go with a film from a bigger studio — because the world of porn has a studio system just like in Hollywood. The big studios have bigger budgets, better sets, actors who might have gone to acting school, writers who have writing experience, and directors who are more likely to take their craft seriously.

If you go to amateur free sites like xTube or YouPorn, you’ll see a range of quality, all the way to down to exhibitionists with phonecams. And yes, the websites make sure it’s all legal. They have to: they are being monitored closely by the government and pornographers who want to make sure everything is legal and not stolen.

Just like with any other sex toy, it helps if you’re aroused before you begin watching porn. When you’re ready to click play, be sure to have the following items ready: lube, a dildo, vibrator, and/or towel, and the remote control or mouse. Having a sex toy ready if you need it is handy because if the video turns you on (and you subsequently want to get off), then you won’t have to interrupt the moment to search around for your toys.

But why the remote control and/or your mouse? Controls are the only really required item for porn viewing: you’ll need to fast forward through anything you don’t like, or whatever distracts you from your arousal — be it lame dialogue, a sex act you don’t prefer, or an unsightly boob job. For some people this seems like a hassle at first — why can’t they just make the “perfect” porno?

Porn comes in so many flavors and viewers bring so many different appetites to the table that the makers of porn try to appeal to as many tastes as possible in a relatively short amount of time. Porn has to get to the point pretty quickly in order to retain horny viewers who usually want instant gratification, and so like Hollywood, they’ve boiled down what they think viewers want into formulas. In mainstream porn that means typical-male type formulas — that is, typical males of about twenty years ago. With online porn makers, indie studios, European and global directors, and women directors, you’ll find a much wider range of porn because they perceive their viewers as more diverse.

The formulas always include six to seven sex scenes, a standard set of positions and couplings, actors and actresses with mostly-shaved genitals, men with larger than normal penises, and women with larger than normal breasts — with a few notable exceptions. An oft-voiced complaint is that the men are acceptable when unlovely in fitness and form, while the women’s bodies must conform to a standard: underweight, blonde hair, big lips, and big boobs (the Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery Association is always well represented). Without fail, the men always pull out before orgasm and ejaculate on the women’s breasts, face, ass, or vulva, so the viewer can see it. To say the least, little emphasis is placed on female orgasm and ejaculation, but that’s changing as you read this right now.

Think about what expectations you’re bringing to your first porn watching experience and you can make a selection that won’t leave you high and dry, or in the worst-case scenario, angry at the genre, or feeling bad about yourself. What ideas turn you on — small breasts, big butts, women in charge, realistic plots, blowjobs, two gals and a guy, male anal penetration, group sex? This may not be your list, but you get the idea.

Get clear on what you want to avoid by making another list of things you don’t want to see — do you get turned off by fake breasts, hairy men, rimming, toe-sucking, facial ejaculation, two women together, or watching anal sex? These are just examples to get you brainstorming about what you’ll want to look for, and what you’ll want to fast forward through. You may find more to add to either list as you view tapes — sometimes we find things that turn us on or off that we didn’t even know about.

Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it might make us feel uncomfortable. Don’t blame yourself or feel bad if you get turned on by a fantasy that you would otherwise find offensive in your day to day life. Porn is constructed as a fantasy, and if you knew the work behind the scenes that went into making these videos convincing, I’m guessing you’d be more turned off by how fake porn really is.

Knowing what you like and dislike can help enormously when selecting a tape. You can single out many of your preferences before you rent or buy, and then skip the parts you don’t care for. The reviews on the Babeland and Hot Movies for Her websites are very helpful in these matters — I know, I’ve been writing these reviews for years. The reviews and ratings can also help you select videos that address finding things you don’t usually see on the blue screen, such as an all-natural cast (enhancement-free), internal ejaculation, attention to cinematography and lighting, great acting and excellent plot.

As a general rule, the websites I screen and recommend never carry a film that is demeaning or abusive toward women, or include any racist or discriminatory content — of any kind. I make sure the porn that I endorse — and companies like Babeland and Hot Movies for Her — portray healthy sexuality, meaning that they depict positive attitudes about sex (no sexual shame allowed!), and women getting off as much as the men — there’s always attention to female pleasure involved. The websites I promote who sell porn are all women-run. The porn I and my affiliates recommend typically won’t model unsafe sex practices, such as penetration that goes from anus to vagina (which causes infection), or inserting toys anally that can get “lost” in the rectum. Whenever something that’s borderline or potentially button-pressing comes up, but the video has an overwhelming redeeming quality (such as a stand-out sex scene or contains something underrepresented in porn), we all make sure that the descriptions you see warn you about it.

There are certain things in porn that are going to be hard to avoid if you don’t like them. Facial ejaculation (men ejaculating on women’s faces) is pretty much a standard. So are surgically enhanced bodies. I hear a lot of complaints about both of these things. I can’t offer much by the way of explanation when people find these things icky or strange, except to say that some people, somewhere, like these things. Well, I hope they do, because they have an awful lot of porn to watch.

Top women-run, sex-positive, porn websites I recommend include:

* Babeland
* Hot Movies for Her
* Girls Out West
* For the Girls
* Cinema Erotique
* Erika Lust
* Anna Span’s Diary
* Candida Royalle / Femme Productions
* Tristan Taormino / Pucker Up

Source:
http://ourpornourselves.org/women-who-want-to-watch-porn-what-to-expect/#more-203

The American Woman vs. The Muslim Woman

On my wall, I have a picture of a Muslim woman shrouded in a burka[1].

Beside it is a picture of an American beauty contestant, wearing nothing but a bikini.

One woman is totally hidden from the public; the other is totally exposed. These two extremes say a great deal about the clash of so-called “civilizations.”

The role of woman is at the heart of any culture. Apart from stealing Arab oil, the impending war in the Middle East is about stripping Arabs of their religion and culture, exchanging the burka for a bikini.

I am not an expert on the condition of Muslim women and I love feminine beauty too much to advocate the burka here. But I am defending some of the values that the burka represents for me.

For me, the burka represents a woman’s consecration to her husband and family. Only they see her.

It affirms the privacy, exclusivity and importance of the domestic sphere.

The Muslim woman’s focus is her home, the “nest” where her children are born and reared. She is the “home” maker, the taproot that sustains the spiritual life of the family, nurturing and training her children, providing refuge and support to her husband.

In contrast, the bikinied American beauty queen struts practically naked in front of millions on TV. A feminist, she belongs to herself. In practice, paradoxically, she is public property. She belongs to no one and everyone. She shops her body to the highest bidder. She is auctioning herself all of the time.

In America, the cultural measure of a woman’s value is her sex appeal. (As this asset depreciates quickly, she is neurotically obsessed with appearance and plagued by weight problems.)

As an adolescent, her role model is Britney Spears, a singer whose act approximates a strip tease. From Britney, she learns that she will be loved only if she gives sex. Thus, she learns to “hook up” rather than to demand patient courtship and true love. As a result, dozens of males know her before her husband does. She loses her innocence, which is a part of her charm. She becomes hardened and calculating. Unable to love, she is unfit to receive her husband’s seed.

The feminine personality is founded on the emotional relationship between mother and baby. It is based on nurturing and self-sacrifice. Masculine nature is founded on the relationship between hunter and prey. It is based on aggression and reason.

Feminism teaches woman that feminine nature has resulted in “oppression” and that she should convert to male behavior instead. The result: a confused and aggressive woman with a large chip on her shoulder, unfit to become a wife or mother.

This, of course, is the goal of the social engineers at the NWO: undermine sexual identity and destroy the family, create social and personal dysfunction, and reduce population. In the “brave new world,” women are not supposed to be “nest” makers, or progenitors of the race. They are meant to be neutered autonomous creatures that indulge in sex for physical pleasure, not for love or procreation.

At his press conference on Sunday, Donald Rumsfeld said that Iranian women and youth were restive under the rule of the Mullahs. He implied that the US would soon liberate them. To Britney Spears? To low-rise “see-my-thong” pants? To the mutual masturbation that passes for sexuality in America?

Parenthood is the pinnacle of human development. It is the stage when we finally graduate from self-indulgence and become God’s surrogates: creating and nurturing new life. The New World Order does not want us to reach this level of maturity. Pornography is the substitute for marriage. We are to remain stunted: single, sex-starved and self-obsessed.

We are not meant to have a permanent “private” life. We are to remain lonely and isolated, dependent on consumer products for our identity, in a state of perpetual courtship.

This is especially destructive for woman. Her sexual attraction is a function of her fertility. As fertility declines, so does her sex appeal. If a woman devotes her prime years to becoming “independent,” she is not likely to find a permanent mate.

Her long-term personal fulfillment and happiness lies in making marriage and family her first priority.

Feminism is another cruel New World Order hoax that has debauched American women and despoiled Western civilization. It has ruined millions of lives and represents a lethal threat to Islam.

I am not advocating the burka but rather some of the values that it represents, specifically a woman’s consecration to her future husband and family, and the modesty and dignity this entails...[2]

By Henry Makow

http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/532/

Hope

"One thing we do know: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment."


- A New Earth by: Eckhart Tolle

Sexual Liberation is Illuminati Subversion Pseudo Religion

By Henry Makow PhD
2-20-5


Throughout modern history Illuminati bankers have used sexual "liberation" to subvert society and establish their subtle tyranny.

The Illuminati bankers need to introduce "world government" in order to translate their unjust monopoly over credit into total world control. (http://www.savethemales.ca/000808.html )

They realized that they couldn't take control until they destroyed the family. This was a central plank of the Communist Manifesto in 1848.

Every major "revolution" in modern history has increased Illuminati banker control and the sexual revolution is no exception.

The bankers encouraged sexual dissipation using their various "progressive" fronts: liberalism, feminism, socialism and communism. The great appeal of left wing movements has always been the promise of "free" sex (i.e. free of the restraints of love & marriage.)

How is free sex subversive?

A healthy society is concerned with its survival and the propagation of its values. This requires that new generations are born and raised in a healthy manner, i.e. in a nuclear family. In a healthy society, women are honored for nurturing and educating the young, a role for which they are naturally suited.

Thus, the bankers set out to undermine and disparage women's role as wives and mothers.

They extolled "sexual liberation" because promiscuous women are less dedicated to family, and less attractive and suitable as wives and mothers. Furthermore, if sex is freely available, men have much less incentive to marry or be faithful.

Women were brainwashed to think they were being "exploited" by their family and should seek fulfillment in career and independence instead.

The bankers used paid subversives like Betty Frieden (http://www.savethemales.ca/000185.html) and Gloria Steinem (http://www.savethemales.ca/180302.html ) and the mass media to make it seem that Feminism was a spontaneous occurrence.

At the same time, they severed sex from marriage and procreation and exalted romance as the main source of fulfillment. Hollywood practically has angels singing hosannas when the stars have sex. It created this bogus religion.


THE TRUTH ABOUT SEX
Sex is a natural function like eating food. If we didn't have food, we would think about nothing else.

Because of the gender confusion (caused by Fe-manism) many people are sex starved and obsessed. Society suffers from arrested development manifested as an adolescent preoccupation with bodily functions, genitals, pornography and homosexuality.

If we have plenty, we know that, divorced from love, "sex is the biggest nothing in the world." (Andy Warhol)

Similarly, romantic love is mostly infatuation based on the expectation of some great advantage (usually sex and security.) I have seen businessmen generate the same kind of heat when making a lucrative deal. But, like AOL-Time Warner, romantic mergers often go sour.

A marriage based on sexual attraction is like a chair with one leg. True love is based on character, personality and trust, tested over a long period of time.


YOUNG WOMEN
The inflated status of fertile young women is another characteristic of our Illuminati-induced dysfunction. These women remind me of poker players recklessly overplaying their hand. They have lost the capacity to love, and sex is a paltry substitute.

Their dependence on sex appeal is very tenuous. The shelf life is short and competition is fierce. Jaded males can look at 1000's of practically identical naked women on the Net these days without being turned on. Increasingly they need drugs to respond and I suspect /disgust/ with women is the unconscious reason. Viagra and Cialis sales are in the billions.

Does it make sense for men to use these drugs?

Socrates said that when he no longer had a sex drive in old age, he was "released from the jaws of a wild beast." Why would a man take a drug to be captive once again?

Hormones generated by the testes cause the male sex drive that takes control of the mind. Just how powerful are these hormones?

Consider: Most young men would agree that their sisters are barely tolerable. However, /other/ men's sisters are a source of endless wonder and fascination. What's the difference? Sex of course.

Do harmless drugs exist that could suppress the production of these mind-altering sex hormones? Perhaps they could be made available to young men.

Then women, deprived of their magical spell, could be seen clearly and men could concentrate on something else. When a man falls in love based on a girl's character, he could go off the drug.

Of course, a better solution is for people to marry (or establish a long-term loving relationship) at a much younger age (i.e. 18-21) like they used to.

People decry marriage because sex declines in importance over time. I thought that was the purpose of marriage.

Sex belongs to an age-and-stage, i.e. courting and procreation. We weren't meant to be obsessed with it for our whole lives. There are much more important and interesting things to do.


CONCLUSION

Modern women are the victim of a monstrous hoax perpetrated by Illuminati bankers and their lackeys in media, government and education.

Women have been defrauded of a secure and essential social role, that of wife and mother. In exchange they have accepted the shaky role of sex objects and worker drones.

They tart it up with terms like "freedom" and "independence" but many are lonely, bitter and increasingly desperate. They have been cruelly duped by an evil power and we all suffer as a consequence.


Sex is used by the Illuminati as a 'reductum ad absurdum'. Everything good in life, culture, love, caring, justice, beauty, art, politics and intelligence; is flattened by what has become a sick societal obsession.

The Illuminati use sex to corrupt and debase. The pornography that floods our in-boxes is part of a widespread campaign to degrade us. A morally degraded people are a weak people, and a weak people are easily disinherited.

http://www.rense.com/general63/amak.htm

The Truth is Never Pretty - 2

"Under all that bravado, I'm actually really really scared. I am only strong because I have to be, in order to survive."

He Said/She Said: Sex Drives - 1

She Said: Almost Never.

He Said: Sometimes 12 time a day, sometimes I am too tired to get involved but, then when she wants it, then I am too tired, she will want it 5 hours later, I am so tired. In the middle of the night, early in the morning, but I can get into it all day. I'm horny all of the time.

She Said: I'm the sluttiest prude ever. I'm the horniest girl ever.

He Said: I think about sex about once every six seconds. I would describe my sex drive as relentless and uncompromising. I think about sex every time I see an attractive woman. Really, I think about fucking all the time. I masturbate several times a day.

She Said: Neutral 'til triggered. Like if I have sex I want it all the time and its hard to not have sex after having it but later if I don't, I'm ok until I have it again.

He Said: The description I most commonly give to my sex drive is burdensome. The reality that, as a man I am naturally compelled to try and sleep with as many woman between the ages of 20 and 40 as is humanly possible is, to put it mildly, a huge distraction. For me, it amounts to a distraction (and I think I may be somewhat unique in this) for three reasons:
1.) Because having lots of sex is not a long-term goal of mine.
2.) I can't merely appreciate just looking at an attractive women. It just makes me feel like I've been derailed from doing work, improving existing relationships, getting in shape, creating art, etc. I realize this seems borderline pathological, but it's not something that plagues me. It's just more or less how I feel being posed the question.
3.) I have legitimately made a well thought out and conscious decision to be with someone for the long-term and realize for this to flourish it requires conscious attention and concentration.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

Origin

This is a quotation from Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887:

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

Acton was preceded by William Pitt the Elder, who voiced a similar thought in a House of Lords speech in 1770:

"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my lords, that where laws end, tyranny begins."

Thoughts?

From the Phrase Finder: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/22900.html

Walls of Repression - Psychology of Compartmentalizing Sex

By compartmentalizing their sexuality, men often lose control in dangerous ways

President Clinton wags his finger, looks America in the eye, and announces, "I did not have sex with that woman." George Michael wags another part of his anatomy and discovers just how public a park restroom can be. Capt. Rich Merritt commands 90 marines and makes gay porn videos on the side.

These three men and others like them lead tightly controlled, highly disciplined lives. At the same time, they act out sexually in career-threatening, dangerous ways. What's going on here?

Compartmentalization, for one thing. That's the psychological term for placing several different aspects of one's life in separate baskets and believing they can remain apart forever. However, when it comes to sex, some experts believe the issue goes beyond compartments to walls: Some men erect high barriers in a subconscious attempt to isolate parts of their lives. As the president, the entertainer, and the Marine Corps commander show, it seldom works.

According to Isadora Alman, a board-certified sexologist who writes the syndicated newsweekly column Ask Isadora, there are three ways to act on sexual feelings: expression, suppression, or repression. The first method is straightforward; the second may cause a person to think, I'll have that sex or make those films when it's less dangerous; the third--repression--is the reason televangelists sermonize against sin moments before hiring prostitutes. The more driven a man is in his professional life, Alman says, the more likely he is to repress sexual feelings.

Michael Shernoff, a New York City psychotherapist, has as clients powerful men who spend their workdays controlling other people. Their fantasy, he says, is to not be in control. "That's not necessarily pathology," Shernoff points out. "People have a variety of needs that may not be met. And it's not necessarily a homosexual issue either. Isn't one of the glories of sex--for all of us--to lose control, moan and scream, and maybe even wet the bed?"

American men, Shernoff adds, are often afraid of passion and losing control. "Well, a healthy loss of control can be freeing and spiritual," he says. "The problem comes when people lose control in dangerous ways, like having an affair with Monica Lewinsky the same time the Paula Jones case was hanging over Clinton's head." In Merritt's case, discovery of his video career when he was in the Marines would almost certainly have resulted in a court-martial.

Although the president has proved that compartmentalization, building walls, and risky behavior are not necessarily gay issues, they do affect many gay men, says New York City psychotherapist Douglas Nissing. "It's the way many gay men survive," he explains. "As we grow up in unsafe spaces, we learn to cut ourselves off from our personalities. We put certain feelings in one box, others in another. This disintegration leads to sexual behavior that is so cut off from the rest of our lives that the consequences are not a cause for concern or even pause."

"People wall off part of their life because there's stigma or shame attached to it," adds Betty Berzon, a Los Angeles psychotherapist and author of Setting Them Straight: You Can Do Something About Bigotry and Homophobia in Your Life. "And the price is higher for gays. People can admit having affairs and illegitimate kids or drinking problems, but being gay is still a problem for many Americans."

The tendency to wall off parts of one's life appears to be more common among men than women. "Although I don't have a lot of experience working with lesbians around this issue," Nissing says, "my hunch is that women have a greater breadth of expression of their sexuality in general, so hiding-or walling off--one's sexuality has less impact on women than on men."

Also, gay men who are open about their sexuality are less apt to compartmentalize their lives than those who are closeted, experts say. "If you're out, you are more accountable about your life and your sexual activities than if you're in," Nissing says. "If you're in a relationship and everyone knows it, you're less prone to act out."

The closet takes many forms, points out Michael Cohen, a psychotherapist in Hartford, Conn. "If you hide your sexual orientation or your fantasies or emotional needs, then that repression will leak out in other parts of your life," he says. "For some people, it's expressed as anonymous sex in a rest stop or video store; for others, it's unsafe sex when you know better or even depression."

If the problem is "disintegration," then the solution is "integration." Berzon says, "It's important to be integrated in all parts of your life. I see patients who say that being gay isn't a problem, but then I find out they aren't out to their families, so it's clear they still are not fully integrated."

As a therapist, Nissing tries to help people understand their sexuality so they can "reintegrate their idea of what it means to have intimate social, emotional, and sexual relationships with whomever they choose."

For example, he says, "if George Michael walked into my office, I'd try to help him understand why he felt he had to hide his sexuality. I'm not saying that judgmentally--as a famous person, he probably had good reasons--but the goal would be to get him to understand his behavior so he wouldn't have to meet partners in a public rest room."

As for Merritt, Shernoff would want him to understand the motives behind making porn films while being a Marine Corps commander. Perhaps, Shernoff thinks, Merritt was saying, "I've had enough of this double life. I'm ready to get busted and move on."

Merritt is hardly the first powerful, in-control man to take sexual risks. But for all of those who do, experts say, the outcome is inevitable. Compartments and walls must come tumbling down.

Walled off

Therapists say men who are driven professionally--like President Clinton, entertainer George Michael, and retired Marine captain Rich Merritt--are more likely to compartmentalize their sexual feelings.

by Dan Woog, author of Friends and Family
Jan 1, 1999


http://www.healthyplace.com/sex/articles/psychology-of-compartmentalizing-sex/menu-id-66/