Today’s subscriber edition of Planet Waves will be on its way shortly. This week I cover the Nessus-Asbolus square that made such a big hit in my recent podcast. I look at the natal chart of Larry Flynt, the inventor of hardcore pornography. There’s also an extended weekly horoscope. Mailing takes about an hour, so if you’re an subscriber expect it in your inbox by about 10:15 am EDT. To purchase this issue on its own, please click here. For a free one-month trial subscription, click here.
Dear Congressman Weiner:
I’ve worked many years in Washington and I’m proud to say that I’ve contributed most of my adult life to working for the liberal democratic causes. I know all too well how hard everyone works there, sometimes 12 hour days and weekends, too. I support the effort to serve the public, and I know you do, too.
This is a wild time and there are all kinds of people needing help — good honest people struggling to put food on the table and keep the house over their head. Everyone needs to keep their eyes on the prize here, soldiers home and economy pumping out jobs like mad.
To the extent that you can support the people in this effort, to serve the public, you will continue to do so. It may very well be time for you to step aside as your own health and wellbeing is getting in the way here. While I was not a true believer in rehab for … whatever it is that one might go to rehab in your situation … I am sure you will do the right thing for you in this regard. We, the public, are not in a position to decide what’s best for you as we have such limited information AND, and this is major here, we have so many other issues that remain front and center in our lives.
Go and be well. I wish you the best and know that should you find a way to get it together you will return to the House at the right time. Please consider out there ready to replace you, someone better able to focus on the needs of the rest of us.
Thank you and best of luck,
Mary McKie
Eric,
Thanks for doing this! Please pass this on to Congressman Weiner’s staff member:
Dear Congressman Weiner,
Despite what the pundits say, despite what the Democrats in Power say, despite what the media says, PLEASE do NOT resign! We ALL need your voice to support We The People. We need your vision of Our America where the People have a decent chance of raising our kids and saving for rainy days without greedy corporate masters pushing us into imminent serfdom.
Congressman, my family has four voters and none of us cares about what you did in your private life. What WE care about is what you have been doing in your public office and you have been fighting for US. Please stay and fight for us. Please remind those nay-sayers that it isn’t your private actions that help We the People, it is your stellar record of working so hard for the little guy, the Main Street American, that really matters. Your voters put you there for a reason; let’s not let the private issues you are going through distract us from the real work you have done and will do. We NEED you to remain in office.
Please, stay the course and remain in office!
Sincerely,
David Harrington
Carrie Harrington
Natasha Harrington
Ayanna Harrington
on behalf of our other two under-age children, Kiara and Preston, and all the Americans on Main street.
This is my tuppenceworth as I try to sort out or unravel these horrible knots we get into.
A definition for the sexual act that I find useful would be,
‘The merging together (becoming ‘one’) of the ‘male’ and ‘female’ for a time, wherein lies the potential for the creation of new life.’
We regard the Sex act as something we do in the physical external world that we can see, know about and experience, but that external experience is actually the metaphor, or model or mirror of what needs to happen Internally for us to be truly creative and ‘give life’ to our own creations/expressions.
Using this definition gives us insight into the process or method of creativity from within the self.
Internal creativity requires the relationship and cooperation of the internal male and the internal female to merge together to become one for a time.
The Roman Catholic church takes this definition completely literally to mean only ‘male’ plus only ‘female’ and only to procreate children, leaving Catholics in a mire of definitions of ‘male’, ‘female’ , ‘procreativity’ and so on.
Every one of us, no matter what gender we are, has an internal male and female.
Our society promotes and admires as the masculine ideal…
Might, power, control, strength, independence, money, intelligence/education, speed, visibility and being active and ‘out there’; all of them useful for defeating others in competition,
And denigrates, denies, and despises the opposites…
smallness, powerlessness, vulnerability, weakness, dependence, poverty, lack of intelligence/education, slowness, passivity, the hidden, invisible or less obvious, and the ‘in here’; all of which can be used, abused, exploited and preyed upon. These are the characteristics of the ‘feminine’; Nature, Women, children, the elderly and the sick, all of whom will do better under protection rather than exploitation.
In our society little boys are fiercely and bitterly socialized to the masculine ideal, and we can tell this is so because still the greatest taunts to masculinity are all associated with women or girls or their parts.
The more a man wishes to belong to the ‘masculine’ world as the power base, the more he will have to deny his own ‘feminine’ as weakness. We fear the things we denigrate because we most definitely don’t want to be that, and the masculine ideal becomes afraid of any internal potentially female trait.
But, how then is he going to be able to have any internal relationship between his own masculine and feminine? And the answer is ‘he can’t’, which leads to numerous problems with sexual relationships in the external world, because the more one denigrates the internal other, the less one can relate to the external other.
Over the years, lack of real relationship in the sex act results in less satisfaction with sex and the upping of the desire for stimulation and gratification at the physical level. For many men this means increasing the risks involved to heighten the stimulation.
Attending to the stimulation and satisfaction of sexual gratification simply because you want it is akin to needing a loo because you want to pee. The choice is entirely yours as to what sort of loo you like and your method of ‘peeing’, with the proviso of ensuring that you treat your ‘loo’ with respect for it, and don’t piss on others (or yourself for that matter).
As an aside, I find it interesting that a trans-sexual was attacked by black women as he wanted to use the Ladies and got hurt, poor thing.
White men are at the top of the power heap.
Black women are even further down the power heap than white women.
This white male is demanding that as a trans-sexual, he receive the ‘rights’ (!?) accorded to women, including invading women’s space and privacy. He’ll still have male expectations even if he hasn’t managed to get to the top of the heap, and he will still have the male strength/muscles to help him get what he wants. This person is/was still ‘throwing his power around’.
Women don’t actually like being at the bottom of the heap; we get irritated and angry when we are treated as a powerless thing; black women probably even more so.
Thus, however much I might not condone the actions of the black women, I can certainly understand them.
signed
a grumpy old woman
To Anthony,
(Mr. Weiner sounded a bit off..),
You have two choices, you always have two choices.. Let it all out and support the new paradigm, or stand with the ‘old’ guard and watch Rome burn.
If you learn how to face your fears, we’ll go to the Moon again!
You have to be honest though. ..And this world is changin’ for the better..
(..If you fucked up too bad for our conversation in this time, you might want to get out.. If you got a leg, stand on it, damn it!)
I’m a cat from California, and Even Our Representatives can be voted out!
..be honest, get the vote, and do something useful in the 3-ring.. Please..
Jere
I don’t have a letter but I would like him to stand strong; we have suffered through real criminals in our political system and what we are discussing, he is no criminal.
Now is a time to redefine our sexuality and have it NOT be criminal (especially to suffer quietly and then have (perhaps poorly) expressed repressed sexual urges shaken in one’s face.
And his peers (that confused party called the Dems) should get a grip and rally around him rather than taking up the pre-fab and tired conservative retoric.
Another great plate full of nourishing food from Planet Waves.
Much to absorb here.
Ever grateful.
Anyone from Planet Waves who wants to write to Weiner can post what you want to say here. I am in direct contact with one of his staff members, who is aware that I was writing about him. I will pass the letter on. ef
I agree fully with Eric re: the most powerful track this drama could take would be for the congressman to stay. Finding a way for this strong male energy to not be rejected yet still be seen as a “professional” ( even though how we define that at the moment is rather hypocritical, as has been said here) would be a really good statement about our collective healing. Sadly, it may be too late. I sincerely hope not. This cathartic moment could be a really good thing for our changing times, for our collective and most especially for the congressman and his family. WOW. What a karmic task to take up for all of us. Much gratitude to him at the soul level.
Agreement with Len…..Eric, you continue to go above and beyond.
I remember as a kid not being able to understand what all the ruckus was around Larry Flint and Hustler (I dunno, there just always seemed to be a ruckus around) After all, he advertised Sex and Beauty and Kink and between the controversies over him and the pictures I actually got to look at in Harper’s Bazzaar magazine*, well that and all my budding sexualitly felt really good. (* might be more clothes on the models in fashion mags but no less sex).
Personal moment – and astrology no doubt – point to this current healing moment in Spades; and in Flints.
I am a just as much a fan of porn, of sex work as I am of sex in general. We have discombobulated so much and this moment is surely an opportunity for shift and healing.
I’ve been making my way through a book called The Threesome Handbook A practical Guide to Sleeping with Three by Vicki Vantoch.
I’m not particularly learning anything from the book, but it is circulating through a group of friends and therefore important reading for me. I’m not much for labeling – have always had this “idea” that my sexuality is simply part of my humanity and therefore I Am – but it is a useful tool for many and Ms. Vantoch is not afraid to help push new ways for thinking (As well as offering truly practical advice!)
(btw, the book’s pretty PC for anyone interested. hey, if we lived in a different time and place I’d even give it to my kids.)
xo
finally had a moment to catch up on these comments. wow — great stuff. i’d love to add my own thoughts, but most of it has been covered and i am behind in my day.
in particular, thanks to gwind for the way you discuss discussing rejection in men and our projection onto them. and green-star-gazer — thanks for the npr link. very fascinating.
i was going to send rep weiner an email urging him to stay in office and let this blow over, but it looks like one has to be a constituent — which i am not, despite frequent visits to NY state the past couple years. i may try calling, though i can only imagine the voicemailbox is probably full.
much else on my mind, astrologically, personally, relationally, dream-ly, orgasmically…. may go off to do some sorting and thinking. i had a cool dream this morning, which i realized upon awakening has something to with leaving behind an old identity — using ridiculously obvious symbolism.
now the tricky part: letting it happen now that i’m awake again.
anyway, back to the healing and growing and loving, yes?
Yes Len I used that term this morning in a conversation — this is a healing moment and for that reason I am adamantly against Mr Weiner resigning his position. Part of that healing is we all grow from this, we don’t just toss him and forget about him.
alright, in fr. the hinterlands again, (everyone rolling eyes), no, I might have something here,
we’ll see…
first, check this out: http://earthsky.org/human-world/happy-men-confident-women-not-as-attractive-to-opposite-sex
I know, weird place for that, but I was checking some astronomy stuff for the upcoming week and putting in my planner…
k. – I think this conversation is spectacular..and esp. the victim/victimizer roles we can get caught up in..this is always timely, this needs to be discussed, it’s pretty huge. as someone who has Victim written all over their natal chart, I want to say that even though that sounds ‘bad’ I find it gives me actually deep insight into people, their motives, their troubles, & where they can get caught, as well as where there is potential to liberate, revolutionize all that..
maybe because for a long time I was traveling around in that territory..so I have a good view of what it’s like to be a victim, as well as seeing right into my victimizer’s eyes-deep.
keep in mind here, that your ‘victimizer’ is oftentimes your own self turned on your self.. does that make sense? (feeling need to draw drawing..but we’ll continue)
the beauty of the situation is with *awareness*, i.e. the work that is encouraged, shown, & demonstrated Here, at PW, the Choice is revealed. or the choices (little c for other paths). that Choice was delineated in Wed. podcast, as
– Drive for Power
-Will to Survive
which I would say are the two “Action” choices, and there is of course, a third option,
-Status Quo -Do Nothing. which I guess is doing something…kinda,,it is a choice…
other ways that I see it are Act or be Acted Upon (my words)
some related, (I believe), concepts fr. Cosmos & Psyche ( a Book) are the Primal World View vs. Modern World View, objectification of the world vs. subjectivity to the world, which would be different ways or modes TO Act or Interact..in the world …
& then also I feel an imprint into the discussion on archetypal dynamics, archetypes assoc. with spec. planetary alignments..and ” individuals with the same alignment could be on either the acting or the receiving end of the same archetypal gestalt, with altogether different experiential consequences.”-p.67
meaning: fate vs. free Will.
meaning: people, there is a Choice.
and so, I feel it is possible to not only Know yourSelf, but embrace yourself, and transform the victim (little v pre- Choice) into pure Will.
*and* in a bizarre, nonunderstood way, it is possible to be able to help others, help others heal, etc. by in a way, utilizing the victim/victimizer dialogue…
meaning, sometimes I Knowingly will engage into a Victim/Victimizer potentiality with another person, kind of “I’m going In!” because I feel a calling to do so…there is a Good and a Healing that is Divined. now I don’t recommend this for most people, really, it’s v. specific, and it requires a radicalism..but, thought I would mention it. ( I think this is a Prometheus-friendly forum..!) revolutionary. and I will mention I use ALOT of other Guides, Beings, Omens, and Synchronicities to keep me on the right track..but it can be done..under the right circumstances and depending upon the person I feel called to help…and sometimes there is a twist, meaning I engage in this V/v through which I help another individual I couldn’t otherwise be able to …(most recently a young girl who was 12 when I met her…. that was 6 yr. investment, totally worth it-another discussion). am I unscathed, NO, but there is such thing as a Greater Good for All, and learning is always paramount for me. not a choice for most, true. hard to explain, but in case there is someone out there in the PW ethers, you will read this and know what I am talking about, and this is for you…you aren’t alone. I know there are others out there like this. I see your Light. (Heart bump!)
(BTW that’s when you kinda make a fist and thump your heart area once, exuberantly. I did that once and someone said, That means you’re a lesbian! ha! well, that definition is a little narrow for me, for me it means Feel the LOVE!!)
***************
Carrie: HEART bump!! it’s all knowledge, and for me, I just want to know Truth, even if that is painful to my own person, it’s all good information and an important indication that I just need to be more creative!! I certainly don’t want to be living some Lie. ya know? hope ya feel the Love, we can’t stop, Active Caregivers are important, we weren’t given this path for nothing….remember the quote that we aren’t given anything we can’t handle? the author eludes me at the moment.
Gwind: after almost going to agree to disagree with you, I am reconsidering, and now I’m going with true, as women we can only speak to being rejected as women, and to take a step further, I can only speak to it as Me..the super specifics anyway…because in this Season of Gemini, I have a different mixture of man/woman inside of me than you do, or Carrie does, or anyone on here does..which fractals it out…….into a beautiful image.
I guess we can only know what it’s like as Ourselves… don’t really like the division between men/women…I don’t identify with (most) women…sorry! that’s not meant as a slight. just my experience..fr. my time with modern American women. -note, the American there, is imp.
–and,, no, it may not be about who is sexually aggressive, but I do think it has to do with Initiative…and Initiative has many many rules/regulations/perceptions/ no matter Who you are, fr. motivations to execution of an Act, Initiative is **deep**. ..topic.
mini-novella thanks! (bow).
~~~~~~~>Tapestry.
as always, I wish All peace.
ps. fellow centaurs out there: Power wound….(see ya in the GC next week-Heart Bump!)
Carrie, I think you are helping me make my point. I think everyone gets rejected. I am saying that as women, we cannot totally experience what a man experiences. We can empathize and project, but we can not directly know. I don’t like to speak in absolutes, but I think in this case, to open a door of possibilities, I am going to go in that direction.
What I am referring to here is that we “think” we know men, or our men, and we really don’t. The dialogue surrounding rejection is a rare gift to have. I hope some of the men on PW will speak to this. I think when I think I know what someone else is thinking, and in this situation – men, I am doing everyone a disservice by projecting.
Freedom, to me, is exercising the ability to be vulnerable and say the truth. Men in our culture are not necessarily taught that when they are growing up. Some of the powerful men in my life have told me that rejection is the hardest thing to speak about. What triggers their sense of rejection was a lesson for me. It is subject that I encourage discussing and I am never let down by what comes from it. [This could be a core issue in the masturbation conversation. Culture portrays masturbation as something you do because you are alone, implying you are a loser of some sort! Rather than masturbation being a practice of self love. Rejection! Rejection on so many levels!]
To sum it up, it isn’t about who is sexual aggressive. It is about how we, as a culture, fail miserably at being parents in building the next generation’s adults. All the publicity lately about men and their poor choices could be an excellent segue into understanding rather than blame, or a beginning to realize we really don’t know about the other sex.
Eric,
A big thank you. After “sleeping on it”, this blog stands out in several ways. One way most of all. It goes beyond being a teaching moment to a healing moment. That is a great service and a great accomplishment.
“Men, reveal what it does feel like to be rejected, because I tell you, we sure as hell don’t know what you are going through.”
Actually, some of us DO know what it feels like. I certainly do. Being a sexually assertive woman has garnered me a share in those rejections. They hurt like hell because they seem so personal. Society teaches that men are “ever ready” for sex so when one rejects a woman (and yes, it happens a LOT) the woman believes there is something wrong with HER. I have totally been there and done that. It really sucks.
Eric, I appreciate the enormous amount of info, food for thought, in this article. From the amount of responses, I would say you have touched a chord with many PW readers. [I also love the solar flare video on the email edition.]
Intrigued and being a novice, I had to look up Asbolus & Nessus in my natal chart and found that Nessus is conjunct my sun on the cusp of Taurus/Gemini in my 5th house. Another piece of my puzzle revealed! Asbolus is cradled in the arms of the crab in my 7th.
I have to say, like learning about Chiron, I want to know more! I love finding the splinters and finally getting them out; especially when they were trapped so long, I don’t recognize them as such.
As a sister Leo moon I would like to publicly [ha!ha!] give Larry Flint a big hug. I grew up in a household where his so called “girly” magazines were left on the back of the family’s toilet just like a copy of Time. Unlike most “normal” folks, I found it a great addition to my education. As I have written before, it was a different era. I guess. ?
After reading people’s comments I just wonder what would happen if we all got real tired of trying to fit in and we did exactly what we wanted and saw ourselves they way we want to be. Wouldn’t the world immediately change because, as Eric mentioned, the world is what we project outward.
The boundaries that are present are there only because we believe they are. Sexual revolution and evolution starts with loving one’s self first. That is how a culture changes.
My two cents and I say these things with love: [I wish someone had told me when I was younger, but I am figuring it out!] Bloom! Follow your bliss! Why wait any longer? Talk and tell people what you want. Be the lover, or the x-y-z, you have been dreaming about, because it is inside you, not the reverse. No one regulates my body unless I choose so. Ladies, a push, if you want something else, get off your backs. If playing the victim, manipulating, maneuvering, is your style, why would you be surprised when someone cheats on you?
Men, reveal what it does feel like to be rejected, because I tell you, we sure as hell don’t know what you are going through. Truly. And we are supposed to be the emotional ones. Don’t forget to ask again, soon. We women are moody people and change our minds, often.
The Course in Miracles has a great idea: “I will receive what I am giving now.”
yeah..(generally)
hahahhaahhhahahhahahaaaaaahhaha!!
(rolling on floor hysterically, hahah, you have no idea, no idea..how funny this is!)
Signed,
someone who has 1. rollerbladed off of a roof and
2. grabbed a longboard on the North Shore during a storm swell
–my techniques to ‘impress’ a guy and get a date!
(note: wrong board, I don’t know how to surf, and coral reefs can really f* w/your tanline!)
generally….hahahhaa. that’s good..
come to think of it, I also once decided I would go flirt with this Pro cyclist at this bike race, and somehow I got him to allow me to ‘take a spin’ on this v. fast, v. precision bike, that was way too big for me…..well, the tires are seriously skinny and when I tried to turn around to go back…I lost control, flying around this corner…and crashed. it was a ‘boys’ bike..and I ,well, to make a long story short, I bruised and crushed my private parts…in fact, I had to get a few stitches ‘down there’..owwwww..not to mention I bent the bike..er..which was sponsored..er.
*but* in case you’re wondering ( and I know you are! ha), Mike, the cyclist &soon to be boyfriend, was the one who took me to the hospital and held my hand…in the ER…our first date.! getting stitches in my Yoni!!
ha!! or maybe bAAAAAAAAA ..he was a Goat.
Green, I’ll have to check out those links later, they look Good, definitely.
now it’s time to settle down,,,, I’m just having too much fun in my little private Idaho tonight..memory lane….ha dating Back in the Day…..Sadge-style…
peace Y’all.
ha!!
Seems like the lid is really coming off and many of us are really interested in looking more deeply into these issues.
Yet another article (if you did not catch it) on NPR today (June 10th) about Power and infidelity… according to some research which is cited in the piece, supposedly both men and women are equally predisposed to distorted perceptions based on how much power they feel they have in a situation. Here is the story:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/06/10/137114342/what-science-tells-about-power-and-infidelity
cheers
Another excellent, fascinating and timely bit of video:
http://www.ted.com/talks/alice_dreger_is_anatomy_destiny.html
::quoting the TED page:: Alice Dreger works with people at the edge of anatomy, such as conjoined twins and intersexed people. In her observation, it’s often a fuzzy line between male and female, among other anatomical distinctions. Which brings up a huge question: Why do we let our anatomy determine our fate?
BIO: Why you should listen to her:
Alice Dreger is a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University in Chicago. She describes her focus as “social justice work in medicine and science” through research, writing, speaking and advocacy.
She’s written several books that study subjects on the edge of norm-challenging bodies, including One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal and Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex and Intersex in the Age of Ethics.
She says: “The question that has motivated many of my projects is this: Why not change minds instead of bodies?”
JOIN OUR LIVE Q&A with Alice Dreger on June 28, noon Eastern, in TED Conversations.
::: end of TED quote:::
-dreamastrologer… yes, this makes perfect sense to me in terms of where we’ve come from… and now will we be able to re-write this programming? Perhaps that is part of the evolutionary edge that the Centaurs are bringing to us from the outer edges of our local bit of creation, but first we must excise the wounds?
– Carrie … 🙂
struggling to read and keep up – so much painful stuff and so much potential……I seem to be living a surreal combo of hopelessness and extrodinary faith —
natal Asbolus exact conjuct Ceres (twelfth house 16 Cancer) opposes natal Mars (now in a square with transiting Saturn)
Transiting Asbolus / Mars conjunct natal Nessus
Transiting Nessaus conjunct natal Mercury 24 AQ
and so it goes…..
Thanks Eric. My effort goes to just letting myself soak you up – maybe it will all flush out of the floodgates down the river a bit.
LOL, this is hilarious friday nite viewing and reading. that maddow episode was awesome, there is something very satisfying about calling out hypocrisy. and larry actually seems like a nice southern boy…
Some of these comments are really great, particularly Carrie and Green. thanks for your genuineness. it is refreshing
what both of these comments remind me of is the field of evolutionary psychology, which is nothing like evolutionary astrology (ie past lives etc) but rather says that our attitudes toward sex come from what it takes to successfully pass on our genes. For women, who can have only a dozen or so children at the most, the strategy which makes the most sense IS less risky. furthermore, *evolutionaryily speaking* (that is instinctively NOT rationally or actually) she needs to attract a mate who will be a good “provider” and help make sure the few tickets she holds for the evolutionary lottery, ie her children, make it to maturity and get to reproduce…
for men, it could not be more different. we have the potential to father thousands of children. so the strategy that seems to make the most sense is to plough our seed far and wide and let the law of averages work in our favor. logically, if you were to father 1,000 children, no matter how poor of a “provider” you are, the odds would be much better that a dozen of them will live to maturity and reproduce themselves than if you mother a dozen, no matter how protective and safe you are, or how good of a “provider” you manage to attract and keep
you might say this is all nonsense and doesn’t apply in this modern day and age, and perhaps it is for some or even most, but that is not the point. the point is that on an instinctual level that is simply the way we are wired. as kurt cobain said in his song “breed” -“it amazes me the will of instinct.”
but then you get statistics that seem to run counter to the above, like the fact that divorced men often stay single and die younger than divorced women…what’s that about? perhaps the need to be touched and cared for is in fact as strong or stronger than the need for sex, at least before and after a certain age…
“….women on the whole are just are better at managing risk than males are generally. Maybe it is genetically encoded because an offspring needs their mothers for their own survival more than they need their fathers. We know this instinctively, we are wired that way. It’s a biological urge, just as Eric mentions in this article… the desire to survive.
So males are in a sense freer to risk more, where a female (generally) calculates the odds and is less likely to nuke herself in something stupid where it could cost her SO much more… herself and her progeny…. genetically speaking. These patterns are deeply encoded in the biological frames we inhabit and while it may not be true for everyone, I think it is one of the fundamental differences between male impulses and female impulses, …” :::snip:::
Green,
Thank you so much for writing this! This is exactly the visceral protectiveness and lack of risk-taking that keeps me from actively seeking a polyamorous relationship. I cannot risk any harm to my progeny, and that includes mental and emotional harm. Yet when I act protectively in that way, my male friends say I am being too repressed. ::::laughing:::: Nope, just living my genetic and biological programming for survival of my progeny. Thanks so much for putting that very deep feeling into words.
Perhaps some of the reasons we don’t see female politicians in the same preDICKaments as their male colleagues are these:
(and I know these are generalizations)
-many of the women we are now seeing in high positions of power politically came up through the ranks in times when so much was in transition for women. They had to be so ultra careful to not piss off the patriarchal establishment that they had to work twice as hard to get half as far as the same men in the room. Black women had to work 3 and 4 times as hard at being non-threatening to the power-wielders… so women have developed a fine sense of self-preservation in politics because they needed it more than males because the system is highly biased towards men
– perhaps what inspires women to go into politics is more about the desire to serve or make a difference or champion their community, rather than to accrue power (something many men seem to not believe of their female colleagues). These are seen as extensions of the care-giver roles that are “acceptable” avenues (non threatening) for women to pursue out in public. However, as was so beautifully articulated by Giselle, it is possible that hidden within these motivations for the female politician could be a very sexually-charged world of desires and fulfillment, but since it is hidden, we never know about it. Whereas for men the call to serve could be more about seeking higher and higher status for themselves.
– Goddess knows I’m no fan of Sarah Palin, however, her campaign for VP did endure quite a lot of “negative” press because of her daughter’s unwed yet pregnant status. This may not look like a sexuality issue to men, but I’d be willing to be that many women, regardless of your feelings for the candidate felt that this press frenzy (which still continues) is also very much over the top and a huge invasion of what ought to be personal and private matters. So Eric, there is one for your list. 🙂 And while we are on Ms. P (I cannot believe I am defending her!!) look how much attention was paid to her appearance and how much she spent on clothes… again, while that is not exactly a “sex scandal” is is still an inflamed press ranting about inconsequential matters related to sexuality to divert attention from the issues. Often remarks are made about a woman politicians appearance that really have no place in the debate, but they can become big, unwanted distractions… for sure, not congress-stopping events, but diversions from what matters for sure.
– another possible reason we don’t hear so much about female politicians getting into hot water regarding sexual misconduct is that they are having to work so hard both in their political lives and then if they are still mothers and/or wives, there will usually be some sort of expectation that they be there for their families and still do as much nurturing as they can… whereas most of the males have wives at home taking care of families and homes. I realize that most female politicians must have a certain degree of wealth to even arrive at the hallowed halls, and thus have nannies and the like assisting them with home affairs, but if they themselves are wives and mothers, their work is not done when they leave “the office”…but for most males, they have more support systems in place so they have literally more time to “get into trouble”.
– perhaps male politicians need sex more than their female counterparts because women know how to internalize power. We do it all the time, even if we don’t think we do it very much. Whereas, in this patriarchal world, it’s all about showing your power, demonstrating your power and taking risks with your power externally. Women channel power very differently from males, for the most part, and since sex and power so frequently go together in this culture, naturally we will “see” it more in the males because that is where they play with it… literally, externally… where women HOLD power internally and so we just won’t “see” it in the public arena that much
– and finally.. perhaps we don’t see women in politics getting into so much “trouble” because women on the whole are just are better at managing risk than males are generally. Maybe it is genetically encoded because an offspring needs their mothers for their own survival more than they need their fathers. We know this instinctively, we are wired that way. It’s a biological urge, just as Eric mentions in this article… the desire to survive. So males are in a sense freer to risk more, where a female (generally) calculates the odds and is less likely to nuke herself in something stupid where it could cost her SO much more… herself and her progeny…. genetically speaking. These patterns are deeply encoded in the biological frames we inhabit and while it may not be true for everyone, I think it is one of the fundamental differences between male impulses and female impulses, and given that I SO look forward to the day when it will be women who will be deciding whether we go to war or not.. and why, if ever.
It’ll probably take a few thousand more life-times before then, but I’m a patient soul! 😉
SiS,
“feistier and brighter mood”
Thanks! I think it is more that my thinking side is back and my emotional vulnerable side is sleeping again. ::::grin::::
take it fr. someone who Lives in the Wild-civilization is overrated….
& complaining, rolling their eyes? I think I would focus mine..inappropriately, maybe…depends..will I have to attend a press conference? too shy for that..
Women don’t have to adopt that “other” persona…I dunno, I keep reading about Eris and integrating all those pieces…..lovingly referred to as ‘frags’…
mm. Carrie, I have to say, you are in a much feistier and brighter mood today! cheers! but I will have to agree to disagree on your last sentence…but that’s what makes us all unique- we all like different things! but the underlying, core desires are the same, or pretty much the same…
peace.
“Women just roll their eyes. If we don’t have men in our lives who share Weiner’s impulse, then we certainly have been hit on men with this impulse.”
Oh god yes.
“And if you complain, and say this guy is really aggressively hitting on me and I did not ask for it and do not like it, the culturally accepted response is, boys will be boys, you just have to live with it.
And honey, don’t be so shrill. It’s not attractive.”
Been there, done that.
“All the while, I think these same guys are titillated by the idea of taking a picture of their dick and showing it to the world. I think they all wonder what it would feel like to do that, and could they get away with it. And if they did try it, when and how would they do it?”
I remember Nancy Friday’s book about men in love. In that book she talked about how men, when differentiating from their disapproving mothers, begin to want someone to love them in all their (according to their mothers) disgusting glory. Love me, love my dick they seem to be saying. This is why (she theorized) men expose themselves. Unlike women, they accomplish that separation from their mothers by becoming that other, that uncivilized other with all the dark, passionate, sexual desires their mothers disapproved of. Women don’t have to adopt that “other” persona to differentiate from their mothers so they don’t have that “love me, love my pussy” mentality (at least that was Nancy Friday’s assertion).
I see this need for dick worship in my husband’s complete happiness whenever I suck his dick or his balls. It is as though I am reaffirming his self-hood when I do it. :::amazed look:::: Yet I don’t feel the same when he licks or sucks me; I feel fine without that and don’t get the same worshipful look on my face that he gets when I do that for him.
“Women will not admit to their sexual desire until other women stop condemning them for doing so.”
AND not until men stop assuming that if a woman admits to liking and wanting sex it always means she wants it with HIM. I have learned to be very careful what I say around men because I noticed that every time I started talking about sex, even just sex in general, the men around me think I am coming on to them. That feels a bit threatening to me who was molested just for being female. It makes it very difficult to have a general conversation about sex between males and females.
If a man starts talking about sex, I don’t automatically assume he wants sex with me or that he wants sex at that time. That’s the difference. Between men doing that and women castigating me for liking sex (and me admitting to liking it) I have learned to keep my feelings to myself in my life (PW and my anonymous blog being the exceptions).
Here is the subscriber edition from two weeks ago — What Is A Sex Scandal?
http://planetwaves.net/astrologynews/1946608093.html
Also here are the results of a sex survey of Planet Waves readers that we did several years ago. This is not a scientific survey but the results are still interesting.
When I was about 16 and working as a busboy at a restaurant in Sheepshead Bay, an old guy sitting at the bar called me over and said, “Kid, you want to know a secret? Women are hornier than men.”
Now, the way women acted, in my perception as a guy who was floored by and reverent of women, there was really no evidence of that in my environment — at that time.
Now 31 years later, having counseled thousands of women as an astrologer and card reader, having conducted dozens of sexuality workshops and finally creating a photo studio where I have heard from hundreds of women of a diversity of ages, I can say that old guy — whoever he was — was right. What happens to that energy is another story; because it’s less appropriate for women to express their sexuality in certain ways, and more appropriate and indeed expected and in fact demanded that men express their sexuality in certain ways, we get an illusion, not an accurate picture of anything. Women will not admit to their sexual desire until other women stop condemning them for doing so.
In these discussions what we don’t account for — as Larry said — is that we don’t understand sexual impulses, desires and drives. We know so little, we think we know so much, and most of what we get is woundology. We get prejudice, blame, our mothers’ and our fathers’ crap — not anything vaguely resembling reality.
When we remove the pretense of male-female relationships, commitment, pregnancy, affluence, and get people in a room masturbating together, a lot comes out in the wash. Try it and tell me.
sorry, I had accidentally hit “send” before I finished my rant! 😉
sorry, to go on…
IN MY OWN EXPERIENCE, the women all think it’s silly, while the men are all outraged. I live in the city, so it’s probably different in less urban areas, but that’s the input I’m getting.
The women are like, yeah, I am not surprised that a guy who has a good body and also an — ahem! — strong sense of self-worth, is going to take a photo of his weiner and send it to a bunch of girls in the mostly misguided belief that this is going to get them all hot.
Women just roll their eyes. If we don’t have men in our lives who share Weiner’s impulse, then we certainly have been hit on men with this impulse.
And if you complain, and say this guy is really aggressively hitting on me and I did not ask for it and do not like it, the culturally accepted response is, boys will be boys, you just have to live with it.
And honey, don’t be so shrill. It’s not attractive.
But the men who discuss Weiner’s weiner — oh lord they are just beside themselves!
It’s sick! It’s disgusting! The guy should go to a shrink, they should put saltpeter in his coffee, he’s borderline insane.
All the while, I think these same guys are titillated by the idea of taking a picture of their dick and showing it to the world. I think they all wonder what it would feel like to do that, and could they get away with it. And if they did try it, when and how would they do it?
But then the fear sets in — isn’t it gay to think so much about dick? Would it make me look gay if I did it?
And this fear is so huge, they just shut down in response: This Weiner business must be abnormal, it must be shunned, nobody should think that normal men think so much about dick, even their own.
And so you get this ridiculous hypocrisy, of people who are attracted by the idea of a little exhibitionism, but then are so afraid of going there that they completely shut down.
So I agree with Eric that the end result of this sex scandal is big-time repression, and that’s why it’s frightening in a cultural sense. And I also agree that we the news-consuming public are getting more and more addicted to these scandals.
But I really don’t think this one was driven by prurient women.
GG,
Men are more often in positions of power but it’s not exclusive in our era. But sex scandals for politicians exclusively concern men. Can you think of one, ever, that has involved a woman in elected office?
<< Press thinks that if it concerns a public official and it’s independently verifiable, they have a duty to report it. You may disagree, but that’s how they work. >>
It’s not exclusively how they work — it’s part of how they work. There are many factors in agenda setting, and many differences in how these situations are handled on either side of the party line.
ef
And now for another woman’s take on the Weiner outing….ha!
I have followed Eric’s postings with interest, and the comments here too.
Ssome responses, in no particular order:
* men are more often the subject of scandal reporting because men are more often in positions of power. Statehouses, Senate and House are way more male than female.
These news stories are driven by sources who have a political agenda. Source calls reporter to provide twitter account, links and other material.
Press thinks that if it concerns a public official and it’s independently verifiable, they have a duty to report it. You may disagree, but that’s how they work.
* in MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
Tracy,
That’s true, though she didn’t say so. She mentioned the feeling of being held back by social pressures and that has been my experience. The rest of the placements are probably why.
Carrie,
Just had to mention – Mars is exalted in Capricorn. You have an excellent Mars 🙂
Tracy xxx
“This basic belief that somehow men are more sexual creatures than we women. And that a woman seems to be able to do one of two things but not both: she can either fulfill a man’s desires or she can be a mother and wife. That somehow, once she becomes a wife and/or mother, she buries her sexuality under a sea of repression. It is a whole lot of rubbish.”
Giselle,
You can speak for me anytime because you took the words right out of my mind. THANK YOU for typing this.
The studies on sexuality lately have shown that women get turned on by just about everything, even Bonobos having sex. Men on the other hand, were NOT turned on by almost everything. So who is really the sexual one? Who has the capacity to be sexual all the time in most all situations? Women. This is part of why in pretty much every society, as soon as a girl starts puberty, her physical body and her sexuality are regulated socially until she is finished with menopause. It seems that every society (pretty much) fears female sexuality because freedom of that female sexuality means men cannot ever be totally sure of their genetic offspring; every woman KNOWS her own baby is genetically HERS. So women are socially pressured to regulate their sexuality within male-determined confines; marriage, monogamy, prostitution, porn, etc. Yet these same men bemoan the lack of availability of female sexual partners. They are hoist on their own petard (controlled by the very device they used to control others). What a mess.
“Whereas I see my entire world as an expression of my sexuality, from showering to dressing to pouring my husband a glass of wine and cooking dinner, to tending to my garden, to flying my plane, to driving my car, to designing jewelry, to directing a play, to competitive ballroom dancing, to writing an essay, to painting my nails, yes, to sex itself – my entire life, from the time I wake up in the morning throughout my sleep is a connectedness to my own sexuality – my experience is that men’s expression of it is so completely closeted, so completely buried under competitive sports (Don’t have sex, boys, you’ll ruin your performance on the field tomorrow!) and the titles they hold as men (lawyer, surgeon, athlete), under the drive to win, (He’s a loser, he doesn’t have the killer instinct!), that they walk through the world in a state of constantly assessing their own manhood as compared to everyone else’s, instead of being their manhood. Instead of living their manhood. There is a huge difference between having sex and being a sexual person. There is a huge difference between having sexual desire and being sexual desire itself.”
Yes, and yes, and YES! That describes me exactly! My whole life is one big sexual being. My husband finds this difficult to understand because his sexuality has been suppressed as you describe. Hence, he fears my more open sexuality because he fears loss of my love and attention. Boys and men have been found to be the emotionally needier gender; this vulnerability must be squelched or hidden at all costs and social pressures are brought to bear on males in order to do that. How would life be if women could be as sexual as they wanted and men could be as vulnerable as they wanted? I can barely imagine.
Thanks for another fantastic edition.
I found it interesting that Flynt has Mars conjunct Venus in his fifth; I have that as well. Mine are Mars in Cap (29 deg) and Venus in Aqu. (2 deg). I have Capricorn on that house cusp, with the moon just next to it (at 13 deg) and Saturn right after the house cusp (cusp is 14 deg, Moon is 13, Saturn is 15). I have Pholus at 12 deg Aqu in that fifth house but Asbolus is opposite my Moon and Saturn; it sits in the 11th house in Cancer.
Verrrry interesting. Beth Underwood, my astrology teacher told me the Mars conjunct Venus makes me a horn dog but the Capricorn placement for Mars makes me feel like I have to suppress that energy. She also said the Saturn in my house of fun (fifth) and also the ruler of that house (Cap is on the cusp) also means I was suppressed sexually as a kid. Yessirree, I was. She also said that despite that repression, I am a very open person when it comes to sex (Venus in Aquarius) and assertive (Aries on the 8th house) for getting sex. But the ruler of my 8th house is that Mars in status-quo Capricorn in the fifth.
So now I have to figure out what Asbolus means. Per todays edition: “these people have had uncommonly nasty family of origin situations. Then after a while I realized when I was on the phone with them that they were alert, caring people who could take care of themselves — they made it. Their early situations had not broken them. While this does have a Chiron feeling of ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’, Asbolus brings a particularly concentrated version of that message. These clients seemed not to notice how close to the edge they had been, but rather went through this stuff relatively calmly.”
People tell me all the time they don’t know how I lived through some of the stuff I did; yet I don’t see it as all that bad. Asbolus is in the 11th house of groups, trining my Mercury (I want to talk about it) and it is opposite my Saturn and Moon (past, feelings, restrictions, repression, stability and foundations). Lastly, it sextiles my north node in the first house. Maybe my desire to talk to young people about sex and relationships with both male and female sides represented, is not so far off after all. It is getting over the feeling of restriction I have that is the issue here.
It is sure nice to have the time to look at these things now that school is out.
Hello, Eric,
This morning I’m compelled to respond to The Heart of the Matter, about women pundits impaling themselves, about Larry Flint, about Anthony Weiner, about sex, lying about it, telling the truth about it, denying it, disowning the entire conversation, all of it.
I can only give you my own response, reactions, observations and feelings, because that’s all I’ve got, but now after the string of Tiger, Jessee, Arnold and Anthony (too many to name), mostly I can tell you that it isn’t about sex, it isn’t about desire, it isn’t about shame or the drive for survival. We women live in a culture where there never was even a smidgen of a female sexual revolution. Not a smidgen. Women dress, perform, and work endlessly to please men. Not the other way around. The entire pornography industry is built on the pleasure of men, not on the pleasure and sexual fulfillment of women. It is directly connected to how much money women make (actually…how much money they don’t make) and what they think they have to do, say and be in order to survive in the world that has been created for them. This is George Bernard Shaw, perhaps the first modern playwright to point out what a disaster marriage is for women. Sexual, emotional and creative slavery. While a married woman with a child and any sense of responsibility about that will/must quell her sexual desire to go home to her child, a man will take a side trip on the way home. The assumption is that women don’t want the side trip. Of course they do. Their side trip my take another road, it might look and feel different, but I will tell you that women’s desire for a kind of wildly intense and fulfilling sex is virtually an impossibility in the world we live in and men want it that way. The fact is that the world would completely fall apart if it were all about Mrs. Woods, Mrs. Bullock, Mrs. Schwarzenegger, Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Weiner. These are not men who can have anything be about the woman. It is all about them. The applause, the notoriety, the fame, the adulation…the….”fix.”
The world as we know it would cease to exist if the fully expressed sexual desire of women had a place to bloom. There has long been an assumption, and I have listened to it all of my life, among men that women simply do not have the same level of intense sexual desire that men do, and that the reason men seek multiple partners, are basically not monogamous, “cheat,” sex-text, watch porn, etc. is that they live in a continual state of sexual arousal and that women, quite simply, don’t. The goddess culture was killed off long, long ago and, sadly, I don’t see it coming back any time soon. Television shows, commercials, movies…most are expressions of a man’s definition of sexuality, not a woman’s. Even our action heroines have been turned into female versions of the male action hero. And the mixed messages that are sent to women, in business, as actors (I was one), as wives (I am one), girlfriends, mothers (I’m a stepmother) are astounding: be sexy, but for no one else but me; be successful, but don’t overshadow me; be powerful, but not more powerful than me. It takes a rare, conscious, fully present, fully alive, fully authentically sexual man to champion, support, indulge, nurture and celebrate his woman’s sexuality. Men are very skilled at turning their girlfriends and wives into their mothers…a sexless imagery if ever there were one in our culture.
I am here as one woman to tell you that this is where the denial and shame and hiding comes from. It is this wholly absurd belief. This basic belief that somehow men are more sexual creatures than we women. And that a woman seems to be able to do one of two things but not both: she can either fulfill a man’s desires or she can be a mother and wife. That somehow, once she becomes a wife and/or mother, she buries her sexuality under a sea of repression. It is a whole lot of rubbish.
Whereas I see my entire world as an expression of my sexuality, from showering to dressing to pouring my husband a glass of wine and cooking dinner, to tending to my garden, to flying my plane, to driving my car, to designing jewelry, to directing a play, to competitive ballroom dancing, to writing an essay, to painting my nails, yes, to sex itself – my entire life, from the time I wake up in the morning throughout my sleep is a connectedness to my own sexuality – my experience is that men’s expression of it is so completely closeted, so completely buried under competitive sports (Don’t have sex, boys, you’ll ruin your performance on the field tomorrow!) and the titles they hold as men (lawyer, surgeon, athlete), under the drive to win, (He’s a loser, he doesn’t have the killer instinct!), that they walk through the world in a state of constantly assessing their own manhood as compared to everyone else’s, instead of being their manhood. Instead of living their manhood. There is a huge difference between having sex and being a sexual person. There is a huge difference between having sexual desire and being sexual desire itself. There is a huge difference between doing and being. What I do, is not who I am.
I would wager that the men who have recently been in the news have a craving for sexual contact that comes out in these culturally vehemently judged spurts because they are not living sexual lives at home. Because they are not sexual creatures. Sorry, but from a woman’s point of view Arnold and Tiger are two completely sexless men. There is just no sensuality there whatsoever. It is as though they have excised that part of themselves completely out of the picture, put it in a little box and it comes pouring out in parking lots behind church alleyways. These same men have female children and they do one of two things when these girls are teenagers…they hyper-sexualize them or they repress them. These same macho men either buy their wives boob jobs and Botox injections or they beat them and bury them for attracting the gaze of another man. They brag when their sons are dogging a lot of girls when they are growing up – as all sexually expressed boys are supposed to do – but call their daughters and their wives whores when they put on perfume and lipstick to go grocery shopping.
Around the water cooler it is always this – He wouldn’t stray if she were putting out!. I would bet, and yes, you can laugh, because I don’t have any personal experience to prove this claim, but I would bet that Tiger, Jessee, Arnold and Anthony are unskilled lovers. The conversation that I would love to hear, and, unfortunately, we will never hear it, would be among Mrs. Woods, Sandra, Maria and Mrs. Weiner. I would like to hear a frank, honest, truthful conversation about what these men were like in bed. And I would bet you that that conversation wouldn’t be anything that any man would want to hear. What have we heard? Mrs. Woods was a cold fish. Hillary has legs like tree trunks. Sandra couldn’t give him the intensity he needed. And on and on and on. Ah, yes, it’s the women’s fault.
Perhaps if prostitution were legalized. Perhaps if pornography were seen as a legitimate profession and as a way to make money. If young women who couldn’t raise the funds for college could unashamedly be call girls to make a buck. If women earned equal pay for equal work. If, as Virginia Wolfe once wrote, women had A Room of Their Own and 500 pounds a year…we would see this tide totally shift and we would, for once, be reading, not about cheating, philandering politicians, athletes, whomever, but about the fully celebrated sexual expression of women. In literature, in poetry, in the theatre, in movies, in music, in art. At the moment, there seems to be only one Lady who is Gaga enough to venture in that direction.
Shaming these men is a horribly damaging solution. It will not get anyone anywhere. Their own expression of whatever it is they need and want should be open and honest. But I will bet you that none of them, not one of them, ever said to their partners: This is what I need. This is what I want. This is what I want to explore, to investigate sexually. Will you go there with me? I will bet not one of them ever said that to their partners. Because…they don’t want to be vulnerable.
What an incredible thing that would be. And the world it would open up to the women? Incredible. And to their daughters and sons? Freedom. Smells like freedom to me.
I write this, off the cuff, stream of consciousness, with complete respect for what you give every day.
Thank you.
Giselle
Eric:
Truly one of the best reads that’s you’ve published thus far. I really came away with such an even greater feeling of admiration for Larry Flynt, whose voice is needed out there in big way.
Been checking the political blogs daily like one tests toxicity in the drinking water. The reaction at first revelation from Weiner press conference was disgust, fury for being betrayed, and calls for Weiner’s resignation—these were Democrats talking. Later this week, saner voices appeared — reminding folks of the double standard applied to Democrats by Republicans. They can let their scandals slide and keep their people in office, while Democrats, like Clinton — have to go.
I think everyone by now sees the speciousness of those arguments trying to force Weiner out. Humanity and compassion are starting to appear in the puppetry of politics — at least so far in the court of political opinion. Let’s see how we evolve through this.