My 15-yr-old son gets it...even if Rush doesn't.

[kag]

This morning, recovering from a nasty cold, he sat on the couch and chatted with me for over an hour. At one point he kind of launched into something that I could tell he had been thinking about for a while, probably since he started hearing his father and me discuss what an asshole Rush is. It went something like this:

"Here's what I don't understand. Women--even in America--if they have a lot of sex they're considered a slut or something equally bad. But there's no equivalent 'bad' reputation for a guy. In fact guys are pretty much EXPECTED to go out and have a bunch of sex with women, and if you don't you're some kind of wimp or you're gay or something. But even I can see that the math doesn't work. If girls are told not to have sex or they're a slut, then how does that help guys (read "me&quot get laid? Why aren't we telling women that they should go out and have just as much sex as men...or at least that it's okay?"

Now, I'm paraphrasing, but only a little. And he barely looked at me through a lot of this because he knows that I know that he's a virgin--albeit a virgin with raging male hormones who sneaks peaks of naked women on the internet .

Still, I could see his frustration about the whole Rush Limbaugh mess from a purely--ahem--logical perspective.

[Odin2005]

1. Smart kid!

[lunatica]

2. Your son is a cool kid

[kag]

3. Thanks.

I think so.

[elleng]

4. Nice to hear he's thinking about it. Good kid!

Not to get too academic, there is a reason for it, its NATURE, survival of the fittest. As we're still creatures of nature, there are MANY things we do which derive from our origins.
Males of many/most species spread their sperm around to enhance their chances of being part of future generations. As females bear the fruit, we're charged with selecting the 'donors,' and caring for the children.

[HockeyMom]

5. Do they really want shotgun weddings?

Of course, boys will be boys, but "good" girls don't use BC. That makes them sluts or hookers. So what happened in the past? Shotgun weddings among teenagers, or homes for unwed mothers, and orphanages for all these unwanted children. They really want to go back to that? During the Great Depression these unwanted children begged in the streets. I am old enough to have had parents who lived then and told me stories. Oh, wait. They WERE BORN!!!!! How many of them lived to become adults? How many of them turned to a life of crime?

[calimary]

6. These young people. Sometimes they just leave your jaw on the floor.

My moment came in the car while I was driving my then-ten-year-old son to an appointment. As usual during our various commutes, we'd talk about everything and all things. No subject was off-limits. We talked about all the taboos - sex, drugs, politics, religion. I found that when we talked politics, this feeling of seriousness would come over me and I'd feel as though I had to present several conflicting perspectives as honestly and as un-biased as I could, so that he'd be able to understand the different arguments pro and con and make informed judgments as far as he was able.

We were talking politics this time (while in heavy traffic on the Ventura Freeway, for whatever that's worth), a discussion that usually boiled down to the different viewpoints of liberals versus conservatives. Do you know what he said to me?

I'm paraphrasing here:

"So Mom, it sounds like the conservative side is kinda like the dad - that is strict and stern and punishing, and the liberal side is kinda like the mom - that's more loving and supporting and not punishing."

Ten years old and he got that, and I had never drawn that metaphor for him before - the paternalistic authoritarian versus the so-called "nanny state" effect. And we hadn't explored that whole conflicting governing philosophy together before. He put two and two together on his own and came up with that at the age of ten. I was so stunned I started to cry. I couldn't believe it! My son is astoundingly insightful. No wonder he writes the kinds of songs he does. (facebook.com/acidicband)

[kag]

9. They do have a way of hitting you in the face...

with their insightfulness, don't they? Sounds like you've got a winner there, too. And musical, to boot!

[lunatica]

10. Great story

My son made my jaw drop when he was 6 years old. He gave me a correct and detailed history of Rosa Parks and MLK Jr. He was very serious while he told me the story. I've never forgotten the intensity of his seriousness and my own total surprise that he not only knew who these two people are but he also knew so much of their history. He learned it at school.

[Duer 157099]

7. Tell him that's what we call

a "double standard" - good for me but not for thee.

[surrealAmerican]

8. This is one of those things ...

... that makes being the parent of a teenager so much fun. They see right through the hypocrisy of adult society.

[Dokkie]

11. I have wondered why society see it differently

But I now understand why. I use the analogy of a gate keeper guarding his treasure and smart guy doing his best without(without violence am guessing) to convince the gate keeper to share her treasure with him. Like it or not but theres something praise worthy of a person who can convince as many gate keepers to share their treasure and little admirable in a gate keeper who freely shares his treasure with any tom, dick or harry that comes around.

Its not fair but so is life. Your son is yound but in due time he will understand.

[Withywindle]

14. And what about the "gatekeeper's" own desires?

What if the "smart guy" has a "treasure" that SHE wants too, and she thinks that his for hers is a perfectly fair trade? What's wrong with that?


Your analogy would only make sense if (a) women had no desires of our own, and (b) we only had a limited lifetime supply of sex to "give" away. Neither of which is even close to being true.

[pokerfan]

12. it's a common male psychological complex

Fortunately, one I've never had.

First identified by Sigmund Freud, this psychological complex is said to develop in men who see women as either saintly Madonnas or debased prostitutes. Men with this complex desire a sexual partner who has been degraded (the whore) while they cannot desire the respected partner (the Madonna). Freud wrote: "Where such men love they have no desire and where they desire they cannot love."

Clinical psychologist Uwe Hartmann, writing in 2009, stated that the complex "is still highly prevalent in today's patients".

The view of women as either Madonnas or whores limits women's sexual expression, offering two mutually exclusive ways to construct a sexual identity. The duality implies that women must assume subservient roles, either as madonnas to be protected or as whores to be punished by men.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna%E2%80%93whore_complex

[MarianJack]

13. My son will be 12 at the end of this month.

He has befriended another boy who felt safe to come out to him at the end of 5th grade and in 2010, he busted his rump campaigning for Libby Mitchell for Governor here in Maine and will be working to help get President Obama re-elected, Chellie Pingree into the Senate and whomever is nominated to take her place elected into the House. He is starting to get those pre-teen hormones, too.

I pulled a dirty trick on him a few days ago. He asked when he'd be able to see a movie "with boobs in it". I told him I'd show him a movie with LOTS OF BOOBS. I then put on "Farenheit 911" and pointed out boobs like bush, cheney, wolfowitz, rumsfeld. etc.

He wasn't pleased.

PEACE!

[treestar]

15. Some kind of a wimp?

That's horrible. That kind of pressure is wrong, just as bad as calling women sluts. To each his own. Why are people so judgmental? And I'm talking both sides of the liberal/conservative divide? This is a very personal thing. No one should be judged for not doing it either.

[white_wolf]

16. It really is messed up.

Guys are pressured by society/culture to have sex and think it makes them cool so in turn they pressure their girlfriends into having sex and then if they break up with their girlfriends, the girl is labeled a slut while the guy is considered cool. I hate double standards.