Alex and Camille are now officially Mr. and Mrs. R. Alex Whitlock.

Congratulations.

I've been growing my facial hair back after shaving it all off a couple months ago. Part of my moustache is growing in a bit odd, with what appears to be a little bald patch on it. To move attention away from that I've been growing a full beard rather than my usual goatee.

Eel let me know last night that she prefers the goatee over the beard. I explained my rationale, though she still thinks that I should go ahead in that direction.

This reminded me of an interesting philosophical question: To what extent are we obligated to cater our look to our partner's preferences?

For instance, I believe that it is a husband or wife's duty not to completely let themselves go weight-wise. Weight gain with age is to be expected, though I also believe that a wife whose formerly athletic husband has become a 350-pound sloth has a legitimate beef. Basic health, basic grooming, and so on.

I also believe that we do not (or should not) marry someone with the expectation that they will remain a snapshot from the day we met. Weight gain is inevitable, wrinkles unavoidable, and so on. Besides that, we all grow up. The badass mohawk that seemed really cool at twenty loses its utility at thirty.

But it's the area in between that is more questionable. I should take Eel's view into account when growing facial hair or not. If something really matters to her and it doesn't to me, it's not productive to stand my ground just to demonstrate that she can't be the boss of me.

Similarly, as many of you know, I have a pretty serious aversion to nail polish. No one I've dated has ever had a real attachment to it, and the more serious ones made a point of not wearing it. I think that they did the right thing because it clearly mattered to me more than it did to her. Are my view on it irrational? Most people except myself would say so. But they're mine.

Of course, there are limits. I decided long ago that I will not have a bald patch in the back of my head or one of those little hair-patches in the front. Once it gets too uneven - if it does - I would prefer just shave it off. Or maybe I'll take Rogain. But this matters more to me than it could possibly matter to anyone else.

But the other half's point of view does really matter. When we get married or engaged or are trying to see if that's what we want, I believe that we are sacrificing some of our autonomy on even matters as central to us as our appearence.

There is an interesting - and in parts infuriating - debate going on at Hugo Schwyzer's blog about balancing responsibilities between work and the home.

The gyst of the discussion (primarily with feminist liberal participants) is that it's unfair that the decision to work or stay home falls on the part of the woman and the man.

The implicity assumption is that if a woman chooses not to stay home and they both work, she is held accountable and he is not. The other assumption is that staying at home with the kids is a decision that few men would ever make and therefore it's a huge sacrifice on her part.

I very much agree that the first assumption is true and only partially agree with the second.

The biggest problem is that it is expected that if one party or the other stays home, it's going to be the female. The problem isn't necessarily that it's disadvantageous to women, but that it puts women in a position of choice and responsibility that men do not share.

This cuts both ways.

To the extent that a responsibility is a burden (which it often is), this is quite advantageous to the mail. He is not largely considered responsible for taking care of the children. This remains true when both parties work because many of those assumptions still hold as study after study has demonstrated that in dual-income situations, the women carries more of the home workload including childrearing. This may or may not be met with a corresponding difference in hours worked (ie the man works more hours), but I doubt it completely compensates for the inequality.

But to the extent that it's a choice, it does in fact benefit women. It is percieved that in cases where it is economically possible, she can work or stay home. It can become a no-win situation where a quarter of the public is going to disapprove of the decision you make, but your chances of finding a partner and starting a family are not inherently hindered by whichever you are more interested in doing. (Note: I am discussing these options in a financial void, often a woman who would rather stay home will have to work to make ends meet. While I'll touch on economics a bit, I'm largely looking at attitudes here.)

This is less the case with men that are interested in staying at home. One commenter on Hugo's blog tries to make the point, but it's not heard and, to be frank, it's not particularly well stated. But the point that Thomas was trying to make was that the presumption that it would be the woman to stay home is (a) not just an assumption that men make for their own sake and (b) not just an assumption that men make at all.

Cultural biases run pretty deep. Ideas that were concieved when they made sense continue long after their utility expires. Once upon a time it was the man that needed to work because most long-term work was physical in nature. And as such, the childrearing was left to women (who couldn't work during the later months of pregnancy anyhow). Since most work these days is not physical in nature, the primary rationales (pregnancy, breastfeeding) for upholding this model are diminished (particularly after the first couple of years).

But even so, we grow up believing that things are a certain way. These beliefs can be modified, but pretty hard to reverse. There are also legacy factors. Teachers are (arguably) paid less because in the past it was a secondary household income as teachers were generally women and their husbands worked. Teachers were never set up to be primary breadwinners and so women who go into teaching today are not likely to be able to support a family without additional income. The answer could be to get more men teaching, but when we run into the-way-things-have-always-been again (it's hard to attack these things on multiple fronts simultaneously) and, again arguably, biology - if one is inclined to believe that women are biologically more nurturing.

So we're left with both mental (we think of things in the way that things have been) and practical (institutions are set up according to how things used to be) roadblocks.

The general feeling in the comments section is that men do not want to stay home. This is in large part true. Or, it's true that most of them don't think that they do. A lot have never seriously entertained the possibility. Those that have will often dismiss it because of our cultural biases towards men and work.

A man's identity is in large part formed by his public occupation. Many of the most common last names were even derived from employment (Smith, Carpenter, Archer). This is a hard thing to get out of a guy's head. Some might say that this line of thinking was set up by men to benefit men, but men still hold on to it even when it's not in their best interest to do so: retired men are disproportionaly susceptable to depression after retirement.

Thomas turns this on its head in Hugo's comments by pointing out that even if a man didn't want to stay at home, it would seriously hinder his ability to find a partner because women (including those that have no longing to be June Cleaver) tend to be attracted to breadwinners. Because money is accomplishment. Men think this way and so do women. We're trained to from the get-go. This prospect is more-or-less dismissed out-of-hand. Why would women guard biases that are so obviously disadvantageous to them?

Because they do. We all do. People work themselves silly to get a promotion to another job where they will have a heavier workload. They use money they don't have to buy things that they don't need. People like to have a sense of what they "know" about the world and are reluctant to challenge what little they seem to. But mostly, they don't realize that they've been conditioned and don't even know to fight it.

Let's, for a moment, seperate people into two camps: ambitious and non-ambitious people - and let's apply "ambition" solely to career objectives. Let's assume that the division is 50/50 between men and women. That gives us four archetypes: The ambitious man, the ambitious woman, the unambitious man, and the unambitious woman.

Let's take the ambitious man. An ambitious man is likely to attach himself to the conventions of society. After all, he wants to accomplish and society wants him to accomplish (or at least rewards him for it). Because of the coinciding of values here, he is more likely to buy into the system than is someone with objectives that run against society's grain. This is also true of the unambitious woman who places a higher value on relationships (including, and perhaps especially, family). Both the ambitious man and unambitious woman (and remember I don't mean "unambitious" in a bad way at all) are vested to the same system and their goals are very complimentary and therefore are likely to follow society's traditions (male breadwinner, female homemaker).

So that leaves the odd people out as the ambitious woman and unambitious male. One would think that these two would find complimentary skills and partner up as well. And yet that doesn't happen. Neither of them are likely to be particularly keen to society's traditions because it runs against their own objectives. So without that, there isn't as much to rally around.

The woman will often look at all she's accomplished and expect a man to hold his own by the same set of criteria she thrives for: professional accomplishment. She is likely to see the unambitious male as a "slacker" or otherwise not worth her attention. She's worked hard to get where she is and she's earned someone similarly accomplished.

The woman can usually find herself an ambitious man and will generally elect to do so. If they have children, they're likely to be raised by daycare and nannies while the parents pursue their own career goals.

Then take a look at the unambitious male. He's not likely to be able to really relate to her accomplishments. They're all fine and good, but he's more interested other pursuits such as relationships or other personal endeavors. And unlike the unambitious female, he's not trained to look for a breadwinner and may not even really think to.

The man can usually find himself an unambitious woman and he'll be able to relate to her better than he would an ambitious one. Since neither is likely pulling in huge amounts of money, they'll likely both have to work just to pull in enough money to get by.

Even though women may be at a disadvantage under the biases that we hold, it doesn't mean that they don't hold the same biases. A lot of women may theoretically say they want a man that's supportive, but then don't respect a man that doesn't have as firm objectives as she does. Likewise a man may say that he wants a smart woman, but then look at said woman's career objectives and not believe that she will be as supportive as he needs in a wife.

I'm not arguing that these cultural biases do not favor men. I believe that they do. But they do not uniformly favor men in the way that a lot of people seem to believe. And they do not always favor men at the expense of women. A lot of the time (as with the lonely ambitious woman and unambitious man) they hurt everyone. Sometimes they help everyone.

Being on the losing side (an unambitious male), I'm inclined not to look at it all positively and seek change. Where I disagree with a lot of Hugo's commenters is that I don't feel like I'm a part of the male conspiracy to keep women in their place, and I don't feel that I am up against a conspiracy that is uniformly male.

The Energy Spatula has a heartfelt post on the difficulties and uncertainties that come with being an overweight female.

While I've fought my own battles with the waistline, the struggles a heavy guy endures simply don't match up with what a heavy girl does. As I've say every now-and-again, if you're shy it's better to be a girl, but if you're heavy it's better to be a guy. So I'll let her post speak for itself and won't try to say "I understand" what I will never entirely appreciate. I will, however, offer a guy's perspective on this matter. I'm an atypical guy, to be sure, but I'm present in conversations that occur only in the company of men and studying people has been my hobby for as long as I have been a wallflower can recall.

This is a meandering post with little utility other than trying to string together a bunch of thoughts on the subject. I'm not giving relationship advice so much as I am giving self-improvement advice (though not self-improvement in the diet form, at this juncture). So take it with a grain of salt and gleam from it whatever wisdom you might be able to find.

Any guy who says looks don't matter is almost certainly a liar. Any girl who says the same is almost certainly a liar as well, but (a) less certainly and (b) less lying. Be it cultural or innate, appearence matters more to guys than to girls from the get-go. But even if it is completely innate or evolutionary, the statistical outlying guys are oftenly caught in the swirl due to cultural concerns.

So why are guys hung up on weight? Largely, I think, it's because we're told to be. The greatest irony, I think, is that this message comes as much from women as from men. Look at Cosmo and look at Playboy and you'll see more waif in the former. In a vacuum, people will stratify. For guys, this often leads to physical intimidation starting at a very young age. I can't tell you how many little napoleon runts tried to lift themselves up in junior high by attacking the oafish, 5'10" fat kid that I was. For girls, a lot of the stratification games appears to be built around beauty, fashion trends, and so on. A lot of the time, girls dress cutely not just for guys, but for each other. Fashion trends are built not to look good, but to be exclusionary. While male infighting tends to be more direct, females find their ways.

Stratification occurs in a vacuum and school is the ultimate vacuum and the ultimate case of inmates running the asylum (socially, and at that age, that's all that really matters).

So why am I talking about high school? Because, as I touched on the other day, a lot of our attitudes are formed during that age of frivolity. Those that were successful in high school will continue to run the same patterns until it stops working. Those that were not successful in high school will sometimes try to play catch-up on a game that has long-since ceased to matter.

The bad news is that some people never get beyond this and others, for reasons both practical and not, continue to have priorities that emulate adolescent priorities. The good news is that a lot do grow out of it and, fortunately and unfortunately, people are pretty impressionable. Especially guys (girls may be moreso, but I'm witness to less testimony there).

I have seen guys line up and compete for girls that are more than a couple of pounds overweight. I myself have transitioned from liking the stereotypical waif to appreciating a little softness. Ever since a turnabout at some point in 2001, I've not had any desire to see the people I've been with lose weight. And unlike Spatula's husband, I meant it. It's not that I'm this super-evolved being, but I've grown up and evaluated who I am and what I want and have determined that a pretty (and frequent!) smile does more for me appearence-wise than anything else. Outside the realm of looks, values and priorites have become more important.

I see similar transformations among the great guys I include as my friends. I've experienced the frustration of having to line up in "competition" for girls carrying enough excess baggage to keep themselves out of the game in high school. If you're heavy it may require a little more selling, but the same is true if you're a guy in to geeky things (or, for that matter, a guy who is overweight). By "selling" I don't mean whoring yourself (far from it!) or being extra-aggressive, but rather cultivating other aspects of your personality. Not re-inventing yourself, but bolstering what you've already got going for you and perhaps making them a bit more apparent (if applicable). The next thing I would advise is to put yourself in a place where you are comfortable, where you are at your best, and where you're likely to meet people that share your interests.

Unfortunately, some interests are more convenient than others. For instance, ladies that are in to anime are a hot commodity due in part to scarcity. Ladies that are in to romantic comedies, on the other hand, may not get much mileage from that. But cultivating those interest you already have that are more likely to appeal to the opposite sex can't hurt. Well, not just the opposite sex, but the kind of man that you want to end up with (if you fake liking anime to get a guy, you're going to wonder who this alien boy is that wiggled his way into being your boyfriend.) The other effect is that it will attract guys that will find something unique to you. One of Miss Spatula's external problems was being in the military, where such things matter a greater deal.

One of the tragedies I see as I get older is how often we hide aspects of ourselves in order not to offend or off-put. For my part, I spent a year or so trying to be as generic as possible so as not to cut off any opportunities. It happens. But the more interchangeable we make ourselves, the more replaceable we become. The more the commodifiable traits (attractiveness, income, etc.) matter. Ring or no ring, as long as kids aren't involved people will always try to trade up as long as they're not losing something uniquely special with the person that they're with. Forging that kind of bond requires quite a bit of self-knowledge, cultivated qualities, and...

Confidence.

That was the part that struck me most about Miss Spatula's post:

Finally, the girl went to dinner with a friend of hers from school and they talked about why the girl felt like she didn't deserve a man who would treat her well, with respect and kindness. And why she felt that she didn't deserve sexual attention and desire from a man that was sincere and long-term and, frankly, not confined to sneaking in and out in the dead of the night after a couple of beers and a furtive phone call. The girl realized that, voluptuous or not, she has internalized so many poisonous things about herself, about her looks and her talents and abilities, that she doesn't even know where to begin to start getting better. She thought she was being self-deprecating and funny and in an epiphany, a sudden flash, she realized that somewhere along the way she started to believe all these things that she had said and heard, that she was less-than, undeserving, not good enough. She cut herself down to make women like her, and let men cut her down so they wouldn't be threatened by her.

This is what a lot of people don't realize: Self-depricating humor only works for the confident! It's one of life's cruel tricks, but it's true. In the same way that it takes a certain amount of masculinity to get away with wearing a dress to a costume party, it takes a degree of confidence about something for self-depricating humor to come across well.

A heavy girl that jokes about her weight a lot (and I am thinking of a couple of people here, though not Miss Spatula) shoots up all kinds of red flags. This is particularly true when I don't know her well. If I've known her a long time and have a clear idea of how she views her own body, I'm going to draw a troublingly distorted or distressingly accurate opinion of how she sees herself. The heavier girls that I know who have met with the most success in the dating world don't even mention their size. There are, of course, times when guys will say stupid things like she quotes repeatedly, and I don't know what to say about when that happens.

But, sadly, there are limits to any advice that I can give. I remember a casual conversation I had with someone that I was once very close to. The subject of weight came up and she said that while she knows that theoretically any guy that would dismiss her solely for her size (big, but not huge) theoretically wasn't worth her time, but she had a hard time imagining that every guy she seems to meet isn't worth her time.

And she started to cry.

She was actively doing most of what I describe above. I didn't have the answer for her then and I don't have it now.

Several months ago, I had a conversation with Yale about Gia and girls in general. Yale was frustrated that girls (and Gia in particular) had the proclivity to date worthless men (criminals and sloths). Yale, an upward bound college student, found it perplexing that they would prefer someone with no discernable future over someone with better long term prospects. The irony that he was complaining about this and yet focused his complaints on such a vapid, spoiled rich girl like Gia was lost on him, but that's a story for another time.

The conversation came up again with some acquaintances this week. One of them was in a science class dominated by girls that spent one three-hour lab complaining about their worthless boyfriends. They asked why women were attracted to jerks and I commented that you could get to know a lot about a girl (including but certainly not limited to whether or not they're worth your time) by the men they choose to date. I made a reference to The Ladder Theory, which they read and spurred more conversation on the matter.

But the question is why. Having been a repeatedly spurned nice guy in a former life, and having discussed the matter with scores of females since then, I have come up with what I believe is the most probable reason in large part because it explains guys' romantic failures as well as girls'. They make different mistakes, but I believe they come from the same general failure to be proactive about determining what they're truly looking for in a relationship and the unconscious motivations that guide them until they start being more decisive about what they're looking for.

Generally speaking, adolescence is a time of frivolity. Our romantic actions rarely have concrete consequences. You get together, you break up. Somewhere along the line you may lose your virginity. A few get pregnant or acquire STDs, but they are the exception. As dramatic and important as it all seems at the time, it's mostly a construct of our imaginations and neuroses. The problem is that this age of frivolity often sets our course well past the time when our actions don't have consequences. Some people don't wake up until they're thirty - or even later.

So our actions are guided by our experiences and scars acquired during a time of general irrelevence. So if we aren't motivated by the consequences of our actions during that period, what does motivate us? Instant gratification.

Men and women, in my experience, are generally gratified differently. Whether this is genetic or a product of social conditioning I'm not sure of and in either case, until the contributing factors change we will continue to achieve gratification with different goals in mind. Yes, there are exceptions (and at times I am one of them, as is my significant other). Yes, I'm painting with broad strokes. Duly noted and now moving on.

On the subject of Yale's lament, girls are more generally motivated by validation. Many of the most successful relationship books ever written acknowledge this and one of the reasons that they sell so well is that they work. A girl wants to feel appreciated and to feel special. The more special she feels, the more gratification she experiences. So lets take Joe Nice. Joe is a darn good guy who treats everyone with kindness and respect. If Joe dates a girl, he's almost sure to treat her kindly. He's likely to give her flowers and hugs and kisses. To a girl, this ought to sound absolutely great. The problem is that if Joe is nice to everyone, and is nice to his girlfriend, then while she is experiencing a degree of appreciation, she's not experiencing much in the way of feeling special. What's so special about being treated nicely about someone who treats everyone such? So her validation is somewhat limited in that regard.

Then she meets John Cool or Michael Jerk.

John communicates an air of superiority. Maybe he's a good athlete or his parents are wealthy and he can afford better clothes. Perhaps he's just really good looking. Maybe he's a decent guy and just a loner by nature or not particularly good at presenting himself (though these factors generally require some sort of benefit to keep him from being John Dork). Regardless, John keeps everyone at a distance with either wry cut downs or simple silence.

Michael Jerk also has an air of superiority, but it's generally more aggressive. He may relentless in cutting down those that are below him or he's someone that confuses individuality with assholery and being a rebel with being an individual. Or he's just extremely self-centered and solely concerned with his own gratification. Regardless, he doesn't universally treat people with any respect.

So if the problem with Joe Nice is that his affection towards her doesn't give her a feeling of being special since he is so nice to everyone, then imagine what a thrill she might get when John Cool or Michael Jerk show her positive attention. Considering that they are cool or cruel towards everyone they know, it makes her de facto special that he treats her differently. She is not only appreciated, but also special. That gives her a level of validation that Joe Nice is incapable of.

Of course John Cool and Michael Jerk will rarely actually change for a girl's hand in a relationship, but they'll show the flicker of a chance of treating her differently (and when no one is looking, might well truly treat her differently). But ultimately they will generally revert to form. She, meanwhile, sees the promised land. The chance at ultimate validation. The chance to be treated like a princess by someone guaranteed not to treat many people that way. So she'll put up with a whole lot in order to demonstrate her worthiness for his affections (whereas with Joe Nice, she'll wonder why he's such a jerk to her when he's so nice to everyone else).

So now let's take a look at guys. Guys have a word for women who treat everyone coolly or cruelly and it's not even remotely a nice one. They don't seek validation from girls in the same way that girls do from guys. All of the things being equal, guys would prefer a girl that is nice to people than one that is unnice. In fact, if a girl is supernice she's a flirt, and being with someone flirty can give a guy a height all its own on his own criterion: accomplishment. Why? Because she could get any guy she wanted and she chose him. Woohoo!

This is its own sense of validation, of course, but it's not so much based on intimacy than it is based on having a trophy. It doesn't really matter who she is or what she likes to do or even, to a degree (see paragraph below), how she treats him in private. It matters that she looks good and her stock is high (other guys want her).

This feeling of accomplishment is bolstered when he feels that she looks up to him. This is why young men are not, generally speaking, remarkably concerned about a notable lack of intelligence on her part. In fact, a lack of intelligence can be an attractive trait because if she's dumb as a bag of bricks, she'll just see him as being that much smarter. This is also a motivation behind guys being attracted to ladies that are younger than themselves. If he's 16 and she's 13, he's almost guaranteed to have more relationship and sexual experience than she is (and if not, because he lacks experience, it's an even bigger motivation because he's going to feel much smaller compared to girls his age). As such, he's more likely to be in the superior place in the relationship and she's less likely to challenge him, which gives him a greater sense of accomplishment.

The problem with these desires is that while they may be gratifying in the shorter term, they're bound to lead to long term failure. A jerk will still be a jerk if he's being rewarded for that behavior. A dumb girl will remain dumb because she, too, has no incentive to change. Eventually the girl will get so frustrated with her jerk and the guy so bored with his ditz that they will let the relationship go. Oftenly, they'll then pursue the same relationship over and over again.

Why? Why not. They're seeking gratification and, for a little while at least, they see the promise of achieving it. It didn't work that time, but who's to say that it won't work out the next time?

This attitude is particularly prevalent in younger men and women, though you run in to a wall enough times eventually you'll figure out that there isn't a door there. Some sooner and some later.

At some point during their 20's and 30's, their actions start having consequences. Even if the only consequence is wasted time, that time becomes more valuable with the biological clock ticking away and more and more of their friends settling down. So when people start really looking at what they want not for immediate gratification but for a partner, people become more particular. Joe Nice starts looking like a much better candidate for the father of her children than he did when it came to a high school boyfriend. Jane Ditz doesn't look to be a particularly good mother of his children and somewhat embarassing at dinner parties. So whereas the guy and girl were previously looking for something that made them feel good, they start looking for someone to build a life with.

Some boys and girls grow out of this early while it takes others a little longer. Some, of course, never do and others never really fell into it in the first place (or set their gratification with a different set of criteria).

Amanda has an interesting post up on some fantasy theorizing on what would happen in men became an oddity or ceased to exist. What I found most interesting was the penultimate paragraph:

I fully support scientists doing everything they can to make lay people understand that sex is a matter of accident, not a decree from god. And that men and women are not opposites, but merely slight degrees of difference, less that a chromosome different from each other, and that while most people can be classified easily as one or the other, gender isn't set in stone.

Similarities almost always accent differences. To a degree as long as there are "only two" of anything, it will always seem as through they are opposite because the common ground is overlooked. If you look at the two dominant political ideologies, contemporary liberalism and contemporary conservatism, they are "completely opposite" of one another in the sense that they are opposing forces, but a wider lense sees that their are not only fringes on the right and left, but even other dimensions that don't even fit on a two-dimensional polar map.

That's the way it works with gender. We've both got two arms, two legs, two eyes, hair and so on. That's taken for granted, so we look at the size of the arms and legs, the shape of the eyes, and where exactly the hair grows. Not to mention the differences in bodily function.

Often, the more similar two people are the more pressing the desire to make distinctions. Amanda mentions some cases of this regarding hair placement. It applies to all kinds of things particularly when stereotypes are involved. It applies outside of gender as well. Siblings will very often work very hard to demonstrate their individuality from one another. I've noticed that this is particularly (though certainly not always) true with twins.

For my part, some of the people in my life that I have the most in common with I struggle with the most because of those similarities accenting and exacerbating differences. Sometimes, when we're not careful, we can spend a great deal of our life working to define what we are not that we can completely miss out what we are.

MSN has an interesting article on the lengths that some people will go to in order to get a date:

The process at First Impressions is simple, but has an almost cloak-and-dagger feel to it.

Clients are told they will meet their “date” at a stylish cafe in New York’s Soho area. The date will be sitting alone, reading a copy of The New York Times. If you are a boy, you are told your date's name is Susan Green. You are told she is single and lives in the area. She likes film, travel and painting. You are to assume that she's roughly your age and that you find her attractive. As the client, the onus is on you to approach her, introduce yourself and pick up the tab at the cafe.

Afterward, your date — actually a First Impressions consultant with an advanced degree in psychology — reveals her real name, describes what kind of impression was made and makes suggestions for improvements.

I was lucky to have pretty much stumbled upon Eel (with some help from Kevin and Callie, of course). The same was true for Anna. To walk up to someone I don't know and try to pick them up is something that I've never really had the gumption to do. I've tried on a couple of occasions, but most encounters have been by pure chance.

To walk up to someone knowing that I'm going to get a critique instead of a date is downright impossible for me to fathom.

Man, I'm glad not to be single.

A couple nights ago, I noticed Eel's peculiar way of asking for a backrub. It occured to me that with female friends and/or love interests in years past, most of them had a peculiar way of asking for backrubs and similar things.

-2004-
Eel: [innocent look] Hey, you know, if you were to give me a backrub, I would be completely okay with that. Just so you know...
RAW: Alrighty...

-2003-
Lisa: [sorrowful look] The world is nothing but an expanse of bleak, sorrowful nothingness, but I'll change the subject if you give me a backrub.
RAW: Sure...

-2002-
Scarlet: [commanding look] Hey, give me a backrub.
RAW: Okay...

-2001-
Audrey: [confused look] Hey, I'm sorry for everything wrong I've ever done and I hate to ask it of you since I've treated you so shabbily, but could I have a backrub? Being this perpetually confused about my love life is very stressful.
RAW: Sure...

-2000-
Anna: [suddenly dead silent]
RAW: [asks question to see if she's in a bad mood]
Anna: [gives terse, one-word answer]
RAW: [tries to think of what he could have possibly done to make her upset. Comes up with nothing]
Anna: [starts smoking out the ears]
RAW: What's wrong?
Anna: Why haven't you given me a backrub?
RAW: Huh?
Anna: I've been sitting on the floor in front of you for half an hour and you still haven't given me a backrub.
RAW: Oh, I didn't realize that's why you were sitting there. I didn't hear you ask for one.
Anna: I shouldn't have to ask.
RAW: Huh? Then how am I supposed to know that you want a backrub?
Anna: Why wouldn't I want a backrub?
RAW: I don't know?
Anna: EXACTLY!

Jennifer Larson uses her blog as a casting call for a boyfriend:

PERSONALITY--moderately gregarious, good sense of humor (as in, "gets my jokes"), honest, faithful, affectionate, intelligent (which can be interpreted as street-smart or book-smart, and if I had to choose, I'd pick street-smart), should have a decent relationship with all family members who are not clinically insane, mature, moderately impetuous, not afraid to ask me what "impetuous" means if he's not sure, ability to take care of creepy-crawly things that I can't deal with, knows how to cook--or willing to learn, passable in other domestic arts (dishes, laundry, vacuuming), has enough going on in his own life that he won't fixate on mine, lack of snobbishness, confident, trusting, patient, and wants children.

PHYSICAL--I've dated all types. The bodybuilder and football player were nice, but so were the guys who were extra cuddly. I'm not picky, but health is a concern long-term. I prefer brown hair and brown eyes, but that's not a requirement. I love Troy Aikman and he's blond and blue. My height or taller is preferred: 5' 6". If you have a nice smile and use it a lot, you're in. Bonus points for nice eyes. I used to like the guys with long hair, but that is in the past. Short hair, please. Shower daily. And shave. Facial hair is negotiable, but I prefer none.

I never particularly thought it wise to use the blog to try to wrangle myself a date, though having used various online dating services I'm not sure exactly why I have that double-standard. It mostly comes down to an unwillingness to talk about my current romantic life on the blog. With the exception of a single post about Lisa, the only current that I've talked about has been Eel and even that was only after things settled down a bit and it became obvious that she was going to be a part of my life that I couldn't not mention.

But the part I found most interesting about Jennifer's post was her addendum:

***Addendum: Can't mind being blogged about under a nickname of sorts.

This is probably another reason that I never felt inclined to talk about this date or that (though not a reason to not use the blog to snare a femalien). If you're going to date and blog it seems that at some point you're going to have to tell your significant other that you've been talking about them with strangers. Sugarmama went through that a while back. Since I knew my relationship with Lisa was going to be temporary I had little to fear from telling her about the blog (which I did as soon as I posted about her). I was lucky with Eel because she knew of the blog before she knew of me.

Blogger's knowledge base confronts the issue.

Jack Cluth links to a really interesting article on prostitution and art:

NEW YORK — What do you call it when a woman approaches a wealthy man through an intermediary and offers to have sex with him on camera and then sell him the videotape?

Art, of course.

The body-for-a-price in this case belongs to the New York-based conceptual artist Andrea Fraser. She approached the man, an unidentified art collector, through the Friedrich Petzel Gallery in Chelsea. The result is an hourlong, unedited videotape shot with a single fixed camera and showing the artist and her patron engaged in sex. (It will be on view until July 9 at the Petzel Gallery.)

So what distinguishes this piece of work from pornography or prostitution? Simple: According to the gallery's Web site, www.petzel.com, Fraser's work "raises issues regarding the ethical and consensual terms of interpersonal relationships as well as the contractual terms of economic exchange."

Oh, it's raising issues! Well, OK, then.

Back in college I tried to come up with niches in the market that existed because of petty things such as morality. I figured that people willing to exploit those niches could make a killing. I had two ideas, one very similar to this. Now they've both been done.

One of the ideas was remarkably similar to this. I won't go into the details of how exactly I came up with the idea, but it it was a fantasy camp for porn. The basic sales pitch is "How much would someone pay to be in a raw porn flick?"

The term "raw" being included because I wouldn't have wanted petty things like cinematography to ruin the mood. The point was, basically, that they would be paying for wild orgy sex with well-paid and attractive actresses (or actors, I guess). They would pay the "movie studio" and the movie studio would then pay the actresses. They'd be paying for the chance to be in a movie and not the sex and voila, legal prostitution.

The other idea involved a hookup site for unhappily married folks for no-strings-attached sex with people similarly unhappy in their marriage. The motto was "Discrete Encounters: Making unhappy marriages a little bit happier"

Anna was less than impressed with my entreprenuership. For my part, I'm not as impressed with the idea now as I was back then. The Discrete Encounters idea has been done a hundred times over and has not been as successful as I'd imagined it would be. Porn Fantasy Camp, thankfully, would probably be just as unsuccessful.