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Scylla Rhiadra

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Everything posted by Scylla Rhiadra

  1. Scylla Rhiadra
    I think that's exactly right -- bad for both men and women. Something that some people don't appreciate is that social, legal, and political reforms that bring about equality are as beneficial to men as they are to women. It's not actually most men who benefit from patriarchy, which merely provides the illusion that they are "empowered" because they have more rights than someone else. Laws around marriage have always, in the West anyway, been predicated upon control over property and wealth. And for that reason, they have been written with the wealthy in mind. Follow the money, as they say. Who benefits? It's not the vast majority of men. In a more SL-related context, although the same kinds of outdated conventions don't apply, I DO think that those men who are NOT willing to treat women as equals in every respect are also cheating themselves. SL is a better place for everyone if it is a more civil and just place.
  2. Scylla Rhiadra
    In the west, the process by which women have gained "personhood" -- and an associated freedom from being considered someone else's property -- has been a very slow and gradual one. While married women were theoretically "persons" in their own right legally, it wasn't until the 18th and 19th centuries that laws granting women the right to possess their own property, earn their own money, etc. were developed. Until the mid-18th century in Britain, men had the right to literally lock up their wives indefinitely. In the US, women were only granted equal rights to file for divorce in the 1930s -- before that date, only men could effectively "escape" a marriage; women were trapped. And laws against marital r*pe, based on the apparently revolutionary idea that a woman's body was literally not the property of her husband to use howsoever he desired, whenever he wished, are astonishingly recent: in the US, marital r*pe was only recognized by all states in the mid-1990s, and some states still do not classify it as a crime of the same seriousness as non-marital r*pe. And don't get me started on reproductive rights, and the loss of control over their own bodies that many women are suddenly facing, or have had to deal with always. In other words, it's complicated: "equal rights" can exist on paper in a statute somewhere, but be effectively nullified by another, usually much older law, still on the books somewhere else. There are a great many different elements involved in ensuring that women are actually and in practical terms "owners of themselves." (This post is a duplicate of one currently being held awaiting "moderation.")
  3. Scylla Rhiadra
    Like . . . "wondering"???? 😏
  4. Scylla Rhiadra
    Yeah. This is a half-step away from Incel-type castigation of "Stacys."
  5. Scylla Rhiadra
    Well, I was, although I'd argue that my generalization applies to both RL and SL -- with the caveat that the pseudonymity and relative safety of SL means that women are likely somewhat more sexually adventurous here. And this is very much why I couched my language so carefully. Sexual habits are changing. I have friends my own age and even a little older who use Tinder for one-time hookups. And younger women certainly do. So, generalized as it is, I suspect my characterization of this gendered difference is becoming less and less pronounced. One minor point, maybe: "relationship" need not mean "romantic relationship." "Friends with Benefits" abound these days, and maybe especially in SL. The virtual booty call is definitely a thing. It is entirely possible, and indeed probably very common, to have sexual relations with someone with whom one has a "relationship" that is not recognizably romantic. Indeed, I have many friends in SL, men and women, who do this. My sense, with all of the usual qualifications, is that women probably value the other, non-sexual aspects of those relationships somewhat more than the men do. This at least is my impression garnered from my conversations with them. I get that. I don't do the sexy time thing: my interactions are, at most, flirtatious, so I don't have those kinds of aesthetic standards, nor do I care so much about their language (because, after all, I'm not going to be emoting with them anyway). Because of the limits that I place upon my own relationships, I value someone who is, well, "nice" -- kind, generous, empathetic, etc. -- far more than I do looks or eloquence.
  6. Scylla Rhiadra
    Well . . . and there are, again, going to certainly be exceptions . . . I think that they do, generally. I think generally that women are more likely to see sex as a component of a larger relationship, and less likely to be interested in one-offs. And that, again, is probably mostly due to social conditioning: women are still taught, to an astonishing degree, that they should seek out "stability" in RL relationships. There are absolutely sure to be a ton of exceptions to that, particularly, maybe, in the world of kink, but it is, again, my experience and observation. I suspect that the same reasoning may lie behind the general tendency (please note the qualification!) of women to be more apt to generate "drama." Drama is generally all about the stability, or instability, or relationships.
  7. Scylla Rhiadra
    Well . . . did you? 😀 MY experience -- and Cinn is right, everyone is going to have different stories -- is that women approach this very differently than men. Women who have been "interested" in me have almost always taken quite some time to get around to the point . . . sometimes, in fact, several meetings. Whereas men often (but not of course always) will launch into "A/S/L" or "Do you voice?" or "Are you married?" or even "Wanna check out my dungeon" within the first 5 to 10 minutes (or sooner) of opening a conversation. The one exception was the woman I complimented in IM for her avi, who responded by sending me a cheesecake shot of herself. Ack.
  8. Scylla Rhiadra
    I had been wondering, to be honest . . . !
  9. Scylla Rhiadra
    Higher divorce rates = fewer people condemned to sharing the balance of their lives with people they no longer love. Sounds like a kinda good thing to me. I'm not sure why "married for life" is a desideratum.
  10. Scylla Rhiadra
    Because there is an endless array of things that we do that have zero to do with evolution, and a whole bunch of things that we now frown upon that would similarly be prompted by that mechanism. We have "values" and "ethics." We read poetry, listen to music, admire art, play video games. And we don't abandon our ill or aged merely because they are, in evolutionary terms, a "burden" on our own survival. How actually "important" is that men be strong, i.e., "manly" in our Western culture? How many men really need, in their day-to-day lives, to be more muscular than I am? (Other than the opening jars thing, of course!) We aren't automatons merely being yanked around by hard-wired urges and responses, Arielle. We have free will, consciousness, make choices that have nothing to do with "evolution." We have developed our own logic that is very different from the simple evolutionary mechanisms imposed upon other species.
  11. Scylla Rhiadra
    Well, I suppose. I generally reject the argument that one's emotional responses to interactions are less relevant or "real" if they happen here. Yeah, I can't be hit or beaten up in SL. But I can be insulted, condescended to, complimented, etc. And it's real people doing that, just as it is in RL. I can't really see a reason why I should be less insulted or upset about being called a "b*tch" in SL than if it happens in RL?
  12. Scylla Rhiadra
    Except that the OP is not addressing the expectations of actual flesh-and-blood women. It's merely resurrecting (for a kazillionth time) certain socially-determined stereotypes about women and their relationships with men. And this, of course, cuts both ways. Women who expect their men to be "manly" are similarly conforming to socially-conditioned ideas of what constitutes "masculinity" and being a "desirable man." We'd all be a lot happier, I suspect, if we spent more time addressing our preconceptions born of conventional group-think.
  13. Scylla Rhiadra
    We're talking jars, Arielle, not "cans." Please pay more attention. (ALTHOUGH, actually, a discussion about how to get really crappy can openers to work properly would also be useful!)
  14. Scylla Rhiadra
    Sure, but in the meantime it's become a really useful thread for those of us who have trouble opening jars! Which is actually a more real problem than women's "unreasonable expectations." Me? I have "unreasonable expectations" that jars designed to be opened can be opened by anyone with even moderately strong hands. Priorities, Persephone, priorities!
  15. Scylla Rhiadra
    LOL Yes. His affair was undoubtedly her fault, because, well, "man have appetites, need to sew their wild oats," etc., right?
  16. Scylla Rhiadra
    Oh right! I forgot a third expectation. They need to be able to open jars.
  17. Scylla Rhiadra
    Thank you!!! And yes, I agree. I only own one of their dances (which is a wonderful jazz jitterbuggy thing), but I need more. And these are great candidates!
  18. Scylla Rhiadra
    I have only two expectations, really, from the men I interact with -- in RL, or in SL -- and they're the same that I expect from women. I expect to be treated with respect or, at the very least, civility. And I expect them to judge me, if judge they must, for who I am, and not who they wish I was.
  19. Scylla Rhiadra
    I've been searching for a decent shuffle dance for EVER; the ones I've found are sped up and jerky looking. For some reason I never thought to check out Paragon. You wouldn't mind telling me the name of the dance, would you?
  20. Scylla Rhiadra
    I'm not really nosy. I'm just photographed that way.
  21. Scylla Rhiadra
    This is absolutely my LAST pinup picture. Probably. (ETA: Changed up image for one edited in Photoshop, rather than Pixlr.)
  22. Scylla Rhiadra
    I didn't pay a great deal of attention to that, but the ones I did notice did not, tbh, surprise me in the least.
  23. Scylla Rhiadra
    Pfffft. Writing things out has never stopped me from saying a lot of dumb things! Amateurs, all of you.
  24. Scylla Rhiadra
    Well, duh! Yes!
  25. Scylla Rhiadra
    You mean . . . inspiring strong, hard men who are dedicated to fighting fascism? I can live with that! Go get 'em, boys. And I'll be here waiting at home when you're done. 😘 We all do what we can to help the cause!
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