 Bad Sex? Speak Up! Tell Your Sex Partner, Not Your Friends! Bad Sex? Speak Up! by Kristin Casey In response and review of a New Your Magazine Article As an intimacy coach, my time is spent immersed in topics of dating, relationships, and sexuality. Aside from working directly with clients, I keep up on relevant research, articles, books, opinion pieces, and the occasional, well-thought-out blog. A variety of evolving attitudes and perspectives informs my work and feeds my passion. Half of what I read is inspiring and encouraging. The other half…not so much. A recent piece in NYMag.com (a copy of said article is at the bottom of this post, for the purposes of fair use fair copying as a review of the article, and to provide a balanced perspective) relayed the experiences of female college students, a diverse population of smart, savvy, autonomous adults, who feel something between chagrined and victimized, by a widespread epidemic of bad sex. The premise of the article seems to be that this situation needs further interrogation. That this “vast expanse of bad sex — joyless, exploitative encounters that reflect a persistently sexist culture” needs to be acknowledged. The question is, by whom? If, like me, you’re thinking by the dissatisfied women’s partners, of course, you’ll want to read on. Here are a few key points from the article:
The above sampling of learned helplessness is not an anomaly. I hear this stuff from women all the time, daily, in person and online. I’ve been hearing it since my teens. (I’m currently 49.) I could write a book on this topic, and maybe someday I will. For now, my question is, Where is the accountability? Where is any attempt to take personal responsibility for one’s choices, behavior, and sex life? Where is any indication these women understand they have as much control as the man in bed—as much as they choose to wield, in fact—and with that control comes not just the power but the duty to be as “good” as they expect him to be? My next question is, what is this nebulous force “campus feminism” and why is it tasked with addressing these women’s problem? Why aren’t the sexually dissatisfied women—presumably feminists themselves—addressing it with their individual sex partners? (I hate to point out the obvious, but honestly, I feel like I just solved their entire problem.) This quote from the article is most illuminating. A 29-year-old editorial director of a well-known feminist website, has just described her longstanding unsatisfying sex life. She winds up feeling bad for not having done the work of telling her partners how to make her feel good. “What I want is not for me to have that burden. I want one of my male partners, who are wonderful men who care about me, to have just once been like, ‘No, this is unacceptable to me. I’m not going to continue to have sex with you when you’re not getting off!’ And I can’t imagine that happening.” To be clear, this thing she pines for yet can’t imagine happening, is a fairytale scenario, akin to waving a hanky for a prince to ride up to save her. Is this what we’re calling empowerment now? Is this how “campus feminism”—or any feminism—works? (No, it’s absolutely not.) The burden? The “burden” of learning what brings a woman sexual pleasure belongs to her alone. The burden of conveying that information to her partner(s) is also hers alone. It’s not only unreasonable to place the burden on men, it’s illogical. Even more absurd, is an outspoken, influential feminist stating on record, without a hint of irony, that she can’t be expected to experience sexual pleasure until it’s presented to her, by a man, on a silver platter. This isn’t how feminism works. More importantly, it’s not how good sex works. Yet this willful obtuseness is pervasive. A few examples off the top of my head:
The above anecdotes were shared amongst women only, done so after the fact. More recently, I witnessed an online verbal attack directed at a man. On a popular feminist blog, in the comment section, a thoughtful and sensitive young man expressed insecurity about his general datability and sexual performance. He then made a casual observation suggesting women have it easier in bed (since women, more than men, are given the option to be passive during sex). It didn’t go over well. He was verbally abused, rudely shut down, and blatantly denied the space to share his honest experiences, simply because they weren’t in-line with the going narrative, constructed by female commenters—a narrative, I might add, about the male experience. One reply in particular, struck me as exceptionally insensitive. An angry, accusatory young woman refused to believe this man (or any man) could be effected by expectations beyond that of his current partner. She said all he had to do was find an understanding girlfriend and “boom.” He’d cease to feel stress, pressure, or self-doubt about his manliness. She insisted societal expectations weren’t a “thing” for men. They’re only a thing for women. This, on a website known for long thought pieces on rape culture, internalized misogyny, fat shaming, cat calling, trigger warnings, safe spaces, and bullying in all forms. (Well, almost all forms, it would seem.) Compassion For Men It is stressful for a man to enter every sexual scenario believing his “man badge” is on the line. Why is that hard to believe? (Especially by women who find it overwhelmingly stressful to say anything along the lines of “please touch me differently.”) A man’s entire life is comprised of win/lose moments. They’re raised to be competitive, to earn their stripes by impressing the rest of The Pack. These rigid masculine roles are so ingrained as to be systemic. Men are bombarded from all directions, by parents, peers, society at large, and their own internalized image of what “real” men are. Of course, some women are ambitious too and prioritize career success, but in our society that’s considered their option. For men, it’s an expectation. It’s placed on them at birth. That burden is integral to the male experience. Men labor (literally) under the belief they’re 100% responsible for every success or failure in life, including every sexual encounter. That’s how sex becomes about scoring points and being a stud, versus sharing intimacy and pleasure with a partner. Complicit in this skewed vision of what constitutes “good sex” is every woman who wanted something different—more foreplay, a softer touch, less tongue, more tongue, or whatever special (or banal) thing happens to turn her on—and failed to convey those specific desires to her partner. It’s time for archaic gender roles to be put to bed (so to speak). But if men are to shift their perspective—if we expect them to drop the “stud role,” with its performance-oriented approach to sex—what then? As is made clear in the NYMag article, women can’t or won’t state their needs, much less take charge in bed. If they’re so unhappy with the way men are doing it, when will they ever speak up? When will they become participants in bed, instead of passive, silent, disgruntled audience members writing scathing reviews after the fact? The dissatisfied women in the article cited power imbalances as the cause of all their problems. In a way, I suppose that’s true. Yet women can reclaim their power at any time by 1) finding their voices and 2) using them. And not to freelance journalists or to each other, but to their male partners. Women who cannot ask for what they want in bed, shouldn’t even be having sex. They’re better off in a tower somewhere, waving a hanky out the window, awaiting a fairytale prince to save them. About The Author Kristin Casey is an intimacy coach in Austin, Texas. She works exclusively with male clients, specializing in overcoming performance anxiety, dissociation, various forms of dysfunction, and related intimacy issues. http://www.KCaseyConsulting.com www.Facebook.com/IntimacyCoachATX *Disclaimer: the views of the author do not necessarily represent the views of Franktalks.com. It is important to present different views/mindsets, and that includes material that may be deemed controversial in nature. **Disclaimer: The Articles produced in this post were written by the authors and all rights, titles and interests in these articles belong to the authors (or whoever they assigned those rights too). These articles are published here and are used herein under Fair Use and Fair Copying for the purposes of reviews, and remain the property of the author. SEX ON CAMPUS The Game Is Rigged Why sex that’s consensual can still be bad. And why we’re not talking about it. By Rebecca Traister Last winter, Reina Gattuso was a Harvard senior majoring in literature and gender studies and writing a biweekly column for the college newspaper, the Crimson. She covered a variety of subjects, among them her sexuality (she identifies as queer) and Harvard’s byzantine class hierarchies, and she wrote a regular feature called “Four Dollar Wine Critic.” In February, she dedicated her column to the subject of sexist sex. Gattuso is not against sex by any means. “I don’t say yes. I say oh, yes. I say yes, please,” she wrote. And she did say yes at a booze-soaked party hosted by a group of men she didn’t know. One of the men told her that because she was bisexual, he assumed she was “particularly down to fuck.” He said she could make out with his girlfriend if she would hook up with another of the men. “I have so much to drink my memory becomes dark water, brief flashes when I flicker up for air,” Gattuso wrote. “I’m being kissed. There’s a boy, then another boy. I keep asking if I’m pretty. I keep saying yes.” But in the morning, she wrote, “I feel weird about what went down” and was unsure how to express her feelings of dissatisfaction and confusion over “such a fucked-up experience.” Eventually, she realized that what she was grappling with was not just the night in question but also the failure of campus feminism to address those kinds of experiences. We tend to talk about consent “as an individual process,” she wrote, “not asking ‘What kinds of power are operating in this situation?’ but only ‘Did you or did you not say yes?’ ” Feminists, she continued, “sometimes talk about ‘yes’ and ‘no’ like they’re uncomplicated … But ethical sex is hard. And it won’t stop being hard until we … minimize, as much as possible, power imbalances related to sex.” It may feel as though contemporary feminists are always talking about the power imbalances related to sex, thanks to the recently robust and radical campus campaigns against rape and sexual assault. But contemporary feminism’s shortcomings may lie in not its overradicalization but rather its underradicalization. Because, outside of sexual assault, there is little critique of sex. Young feminists have adopted an exuberant, raunchy, confident, righteously unapologetic, slut-walking ideology that sees sex — as long as it’s consensual — as an expression of feminist liberation. The result is a neatly halved sexual universe, in which there is either assault or there is sex positivity. Which means a vast expanse of bad sex — joyless, exploitative encounters that reflect a persistently sexist culture and can be hard to acknowledge without sounding prudish — has gone largely uninterrogated, leaving some young women wondering why they feel so fucked by fucking. Feminism has a long, complicated relationship to sex, one that has cycled from embrace to critique and back again. By the time a generation of women woke feminism from its backlash slumber around the millennium, the sex wars of the 1980s were long over. Some second-wave feminists, including Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, had seen sex, pornography, and sexism as all of a piece, finding it impossible to pick the strands of pleasure from the suffocating fabric of oppression. So-called sex-positive feminists — Ellen Willis, Joan Nestle, Susie Bright — set themselves against what they saw as this puritanical slant. The sex-positive crusaders won the war for a million reasons, perhaps especially because their work offered optimism: that sexual agency and equality were available to women, that we were not destined to live our sexual lives as objects or victims, that we could take our pleasures and our power too. They won because sex can be fun and thrilling and because, for the most part, human beings want very badly to partake of it. So it was only natural that when feminism was resurrected by young women creating a new movement, it was self-consciously sex friendly, insouciant in its approach to the signs and symbols of objectification. No one would ever mistake these feminists for humorless harridans or frigid dick-rejectors. But the underpinning philosophy had shifted slightly. Sex positivity was originally a term used to describe a theory of women, sex, and power; it advocated for any kind of sexual behavior — from kink to celibacy to conscious power play — that women might enjoy on their own terms and not on terms dictated by a misogynistic culture. Now it has become shorthand for a brand of feminism that was a cheerleader for, not a censor of, sex — all sex. Feminism’s sexual focus narrowed in on one issue: coercion and violence. Sex that took place without clear consent wasn’t even sex; it was rape. In this line of thinking, sex after yes, sex without violence or coercion, is good. Sex is feminist. And empowered women are supposed to enjoy the hell out of it. In fact, Alexandra Brodsky, a Yale law student and founder of anti-rape organization Know Your IX, tells me that she has heard from women who feel that “not having a super-exciting, super-positive sex life is in some ways a political failure.” Except that young women don’t always enjoy sex — and not because of any innately feminine psychological or physical condition. The hetero (and non-hetero, but, let’s face it, mostly hetero) sex on offer to young women is not of very high quality, for reasons having to do with youthful ineptitude and tenderness of hearts, sure, but also the fact that the game remains rigged. It’s rigged in ways that go well beyond consent. Students I spoke to talked about “male sexual entitlement,” the expectation that male sexual needs take priority, with men presumed to take sex and women presumed to give it to them. They spoke of how men set the terms, host the parties, provide the alcohol, exert the influence. Male attention and approval remain the validating metric of female worth, and women are still (perhaps increasingly) expected to look and fuck like porn stars — plucked, smooth, their pleasure performed persuasively. Meanwhile, male climax remains the accepted finish of hetero encounters; a woman’s orgasm is still the elusive, optional bonus round. Then there are the double standards that continue to redound negatively to women: A woman in pursuit is loose or hard up; a man in pursuit is healthy and horny. A woman who says no is a prude or a cock tease; a man who says no is rejecting the woman in question. And now these sexual judgments cut in two directions: Young women feel that they are being judged either for having too much sex, or for not having enough, or enough good, sex. Finally, young people often have very drunk sex, which in theory means subpar sex for both parties, but which in practice is often worse (like, physically worse) for women. As Olive Bromberg, a 22-year-old genderqueer sophomore at Evergreen State, sees it, modern notions of sex positivity only reinforce this gendered power imbalance. “There seems to be an assumption that is ‘Oh, you’re sexual, that means you’ll be sexual with me,’” Bromberg says. “It feeds into this sense of male sexual entitlement via sexual liberation of oneself, and it’s really fucked.” And again, this is all part of consensual sex, the kind that is supposed to be women’s feminist reward. There’s a whole other level of confusion around the smudgy margins when it comes to experiences like the one I had at college 20 years ago. It was an encounter that today’s activists might call “rape”; which feminist hobgoblin Katie Roiphe, whose anti-rape-activist screed The Morning After was then all the rage, would have called “bad sex”; and which I understood at the time to be not atypical of much of the sex available to my undergraduate peers: drunk, brief, rough, debatably agreed upon, and not one bit pleasurable. It was an encounter to which I consented for complicated reasons, and in which my body participated but I felt wholly absent. “A lot of sex feels like this,” Gattuso wrote in May, after her popular Crimson columns drew the attention of Feministing, a website at which she has since become a contributor. “Sex where we don’t matter. Where we may as well not be there. Sex where we don’t say no, because we don’t want to say no, sex where we say yes even, when we’re even into it, but where we fear … that if we did say no, or if we don’t like the pressure on our necks or the way they touch us, it wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t count, because we don’t count.” This is not pearl-clutching over the moral or emotional hazards of “hookup culture.” This is not an objection to promiscuity or to the casual nature of some sexual encounters. First of all, studies have shown that today’s young people are actually having less sex than their parents did. Second, old-fashioned relationships, from courtship to marriage, presented their own risks for women. Having humiliating sex with a man who treats you terribly at a frat party is bad but not inherently worse than being publicly shunned for having had sex with him, or being unable to obtain an abortion after getting pregnant by him, or being doomed to have disappointing sex with him for the next 50 years. But it’s still bad in ways that are worth talking about. Maya Dusenbery, editorial director at Feministing, says that she increasingly hears questions from young women on college campuses that are “not just about violence but all the other bullshit they’re dealing with sexually — how they can get guys to get them off, for instance. I think they need feminists to put forth a positive alternative vision for what sex could be and isn’t. And it’s not just about rape. That’s not the only reason that sexual culture is shitty.” And it’s not as if that culture disappears upon graduation. Dusenbery, who is now 29, speaks of her “great feminist shame”: After a decade of sexual activity, she very often still doesn’t get off. “In one way that feels so superficial, but then, if I believe sexual pleasure is important, that’s terrible! Come on, Maya! Communicate!” She winds up feeling bad for not having done the work of telling her partners how to make her feel good. “What I want is not for me to have that burden. I want one of my male partners, who are wonderful men who care about me, to have just once been like, ‘No, this is unacceptable to me. I’m not going to continue to have sex with you when you’re not getting off!’ And I can’t imagine that happening.” Gattuso, who is now on a Fulbright fellowship in India, writes to me in an email: “I sometimes think that in our real, deep, important feminist desire to communicate that sexual violence is absolutely and utterly not okay … we can forget that we are often hurt in ways more subtle and persistent … And we can often totally forget that at the end of the day, sex is also about pleasure.” Pleasure! Women want pleasure, or at least an equal shot at it. That doesn’t mean some prim quid-pro-quo sexual chore-chart. No one’s saying that sex can’t be complicated and perverse, its pleasures reliant — for some — on riffing on old power imbalances. But its complications can and should be mutually borne, offering comparable degrees of self-determination and satisfaction to women and men. After all, sex is also, still, political. Contemporary feminism asks us to acknowledge that women “can have as many partners as men, initiate sex as freely as men, without being brutalized and stigmatized, and that’s great,” says Salamishah Tillet, a professor of English and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania and a co-founder of A Long Walk Home, an organization that works to end violence against women. The problem arises, she continues, with the feeling that “that alone will mean we’re equal. That alone is not an answer to a system of persistent sexual domination or exploitation. These women are still having these encounters within that larger structure, and men are not being asked to think of the women having sex as their equal partners.” The black feminist tradition has never completely bought into sex positivity as a means toward a political end. Stereotypes of hypersexualization have always made it harder for black women to be believed as victims of sexual assault and also made it harder for them to engage in a sex-positive culture. Just last year, bell hooks startled an audience during an interview by suggesting that “the face of … liberatory sexuality” for black women might be celibacy. I am not suggesting that contemporary feminism do away with its sex-positive framework or with its anti-rape activism. But it may need to add a new angle of critique. Describing the strain of popular sex positivity often simply understood as “You get it, girl,” Brodsky says, “I think of it sometimes as Lean In for good sex. In that there are these structural factors that are conspiring against terrific sex, but at work or in the bedroom, if you have the magic word, if you try hard enough, if you are good enough, you can transcend those.” Like Lean In, this kind of sex boosterism can be very valuable. But, continues Brodsky, we need to add to it, just as we do in the workplace. “We need both collective solutions and individual solutions.” Dusenbery imagines a world in which feminists stop using the language of combat — as in combating rape culture — and instead set out to promote a specific vision of what sexual equality could entail. “It would include so much more: from the orgasm gap to the truly criminal sexual miseducation of our youth to abortion rights to the sexual double standard. Broadening the scope would not only push us to provide the same kind of deep analysis that’s been developed around rape culture in recent years but also help us better see the connections between all the inequities in the sexual culture.” One thing that’s clear is that feminists need to raise the bar for women’s sex lives way, way higher. “Sure, teaching consent to college freshmen may be necessary in a culture in which kids are graduating from high school thinking it’s okay to have sex with someone who is unconscious,” says Dusenbery. “But I don’t want us to ever lose sight of the fact that consent is not the goal. Seriously, God help us if the best we can say about the sex we have is that it was consensual.” *This article appears in the October 19, 2015 issue of New York Magazine.
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 Your Sexuality Is Your Birthright - Galen Fous Towards Kink Positive Therapy by Galen Robert Fous Yesterday I was banned without notice from the Depth Psychology Alliance, a moderated Facebook group for Jungian oriented therapists. I had posted a link to an interview I had done recently titled, “The Personal Erotic Myth and the Rise of Fetishsexuality.” I included this quote with the link from my Psychology Today interview by Michael Aaron based on my presentation to the AltSex NYC Conference "When engaged consciously and allowed to express and embody with a consenting partner, these fierce explorations of our taboo, wild instinctual edges can offer a profound sense of empowerment and acceptance, as well as a full-body, soulful, exquisitely spent bliss from either side of the power exchange." The group’s moderator accepted the post. Several positive comments were made. The third was an agitated comment from a therapist who stated that Kink is only a pathological expression of “someone incapable of love and intimacy,” and made a reference to how harmful it was to women and relationships when men want that kind of sex. I replied that her view was outdated and an insult to the millions of men AND women engaging in consensual Kink. I said I felt her views were similar to and as inaccurate as those held by therapists in the 1950’s about homosexuality. She was rather livid that I would dare compare the “courageous struggle of gays and lesbians” to pathologically disturbed people engaging in Kink. Several more people joined the thread, all favorable to my POV (point of view), and some challenging the other therapist over how judgmental she was being. I was getting excited at what I thought would be a very informative discussion about Kink within a professional psychological model I was very much at home in. I was about to reply to someone’s comment, and got notice the post had been removed. I intended to contact the moderator to ask why and discovered that I no longer had access to the group. I had been banned from the group without explanation nor notification. In response, I started a new thread on my Facebook page titled “Kinkaphobia - Are you a sex-therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist suffering from Kink-phobia? Help is available. Get treatment now before you harm any more patients that you have shamed, judged or diagnosed as suffering from a psychological disorder or addiction based on your moralistic, outdated, unsubstantiated, harmful beliefs about Kink oriented clients. Shaming is not therapy.” One of the replies to this thread was from someone in the DPA group who disclosed that right after my post was taken down, a new rule about posting was created. "Any content determined to be inappropriate, in poor taste, or otherwise contrary to the purposes of the forum will be deleted and the poster risks being removed from the group.” She (the person who informed me of the groups actions) commented further, “The article you posted was totally relevant to Depth Psychology. If an equivalent article regarding working with gay clients were posted and a commentator said "Homosexuality is only a pathological expression of someone incapable of love and intimacy" - we would never accept that as a reason to delete a post. I am pretty (upset) about this.” I am too. And I hope this begins a wake-up call within the various academic, clinical and alternative therapeutic communities to become educated about Kink oriented sexuality and stop shaming and pathologizing client’s seeking to come to terms with their sexual truth. -Galen Robert Fous *Disclaimer: the views of the author do not necessarily represent the views of Franktalks.com. It is important to present different views/mindsets, and that includes material that may be deemed controversial in nature. About The Author Galen Robert Fous MTP, is a Fetish Sex Expert, Psychotherapist and Sex Researcher. He studied Fetish Sexuality and Authentic Sexual Expression at Institute of Trans-personal Psychology and studied Psychology at Portland State University. He is the author of the book: Decoding Your Kink: Guide to Explore Share and Enjoy Your Wildest Sexual Desires He can be reached at http://www.galenfous.com/ *Disclaimer: the views of the author do not necessarily represent the views of Franktalks.com. It is important to present different views/mindsets, and that includes material that may be deemed controversial in nature.  5 Assumptions to Stop Making About Porn Stars and Sex Workers Five General Assumptions About Porn Stars and Sex Workers by Adhimu Stewart aka Malcolm Lovejoy It's now the Springtime of 2017. Technology is at an all-time level of stupendous evolution. I was at OCAD - Ontario College of Art and Design two weeks ago, and I saw a man with a self-attached, metallic digital earpiece connected to the side his temple, and it extended into his ear like it was straight outta Star Trek: the Next Generation. Google Earth can allow you to visually experience damn near anywhere on this planet from the comfort of your cozy chair in front of your computer. And Ocular Rift is genuinely brain-rearranging in its ability to transport us to unforeseen dimensions of inventive imaginative eye-popping experiences in life... and love and sex, of course! As it is incalculable how important, nay, excruciatingly vital, the phenomenon of human sexuality has been in playing a primary, innovative, pioneering role in evolving virtually every aspect of human existence, from technology, family, finance, science, religion, justice to basic universal empathy; sexuality is literally the lifeblood of reality. You are here because two people had sex (unless you were born via in vitro fertilization,which also required two people's chemical interaction) and, sadly... the fact that two (or more) people simply chose to have some fun and have sex with each other STILL causes other people that ALSO are alive on earth because two other people had sex with each other, to get all messed-up in their morals and perspectives on others living a simple human life! Let us learn how to stop the proverbial madness, once and for all. The degree of decorum-destroying general disrespect that is unleashed ad nausea across the world by generations of less-than-enlightened individuals that completely forget some of the BASIC fundamental principals of a democratic society, and fail to maturely maintain that in a free and civilized nation, democracy and freedom applies to individual sexual philosophical selection as well. This dangerous daily disrespect cannot be quantified enough. And whether heard or unheard, unleashed violently or emotionally, EVERY SINGLE ACT of denial and dishonor to human sexual freedom is downright wrong, no matter how many likes some anti-woman sex-shaming meme gets liked or spread endlessly around the internet, nor how many people privately mutter some slanderous dirt about Belle Knox, Ciara & her new husband, Lindsay Lohan's list of lovers, Rihanna's badgyal image, Kirsten Stewart's infidelity to Robert Pattinson, the Brangelina/Jennifer Aniston thing, or Amber Rose's Slutwalk Initiative (or the original SlutWalk in Toronto, among other acts of resistance). Between completely conscious, collaborative, consenting individuals, whether they are both 21 years old, or 42 years old (if not 82, I'm no ageist and I plan to be having sex until my last day on earth), there has NEVER been an act of safe, sacred and satisfying sexual connection that is worth the apocalyptic religious judgement, negative public stigma, familial shame and/or other detrimental damage done to anyone that has been "caught" enjoying their right to be a human being intimate with other human beings that seek to temporarily bask in the eternal bliss found in a hug, a kiss or any other form of connection we can courageously reach out for in this semi-selfish, harsh, hypocritical, cold world. And thus far, I've mostly been focusing on people who DON'T have sex for money or on a professional basis of value-oriented economic exchange, just the illogical issues too many powerful and supposedly educated people still have about basic, simple sex! Because honestly: regardless of the countless advances in technology we have accomplished as human beings collectively, sex is generally STILL struggling a very barely-evolved phenomenon across the modern world. With men, women and people all being taught, manipulated, exploited, controlled, lied to, sold to, and screamed to by forces as big and influential as international organized religion, various educational institutions, the completely inconsistent and contradictory legal system, the partisan confusion preached by various levels of government, the increasingly unknown intentions of modern scientists... and you're supposed to somehow try and have a lifetime of fun with your genitalia and friends in an earthly environment THIS insane? Good luck!! I have no idea in the world about what acceptable areas and boundaries of intimacy we are supposed to have any unlimited fun within (much less make any money or exercise any constitutional liberty), facing as many internal and external obstacles as we collectively suffer with now. And, with all that frustrated foreplay having been gushed out: one way I have realized I can constantly keep expanding the fun I feel is: TO KNOW THE TRUTH, and keep it as close as possible to the foundation of your feelings, thoughts and actions during every day of your literal life. And from this vantage point of life understanding, I'd like to begin this article: FIVE ASSUMPTIONS TO STOP MAKING ABOUT PORN STARS AND SEX WORKERS IN 2017. Some of these are new, some of them are not, but they are all still relevant and matter to me, my friends, my co-workers, my heroes, my heroines, my idols and my entire future. Let's begin unlearning and relearning some things, shall we? Assumption 1 That a porn star is the same wild person off-camera that they are on-camera, or a sex worker is always horny, and thus should always be sexually available. There is very little difference between any actor, musician, porn star, or entertainer in Show Business. On a certain level, at the end of the day: THEY ARE SIMPLY NOT THE SAME PERSON AT HOME AS THEY ARE AT WORK! There may be some existential aspects or personality traits of their professional life that make an appearance in their private life, but for the most part, the reality is: what you are witnessing on screen and falling in love with IS A PERFORMER GIVING A PERFORMANCE, not necessarily the actual person you dream they are. Maybe one of the best, and original examples of such moonlighting is: Marilyn Monroe isn't actually named 'Marilyn Monroe'. Her birth name was Norma Jean Mortenson, and, unsurprisingly, she was also not nearly as dumb as she acted on screen, fighting with studio executives and going head-to-head with the President, before her rather suspicious death. I'm sure a lot of men and women get aroused by the idea that the actor/actress/acting person they're starstruck over is the witty writer and/or clever creator of the scintillating dialogue magically dripping off their lips and enchanting you eternally, or that they are the owner of all the clothes you love to see them dazzle you in, or that there's no embellishment, exaggeration or outside influence upon by the director or producer upon the final version of the image of the person you are dreaming to wake up beside. But in porn, it's the same as Hollywood: times five. Or more like times 69! I know so many porn stars that have sex like wildebeests on MDMA and tasmanian devils on bath salts, but the moment it's time to stop having sex and start breathing and speaking like a normal muggle again, they simply devote their daytime energy to things like animal rights activism, promoting fitness/exercise culture, fighting for civil rights & justice, whether for reproductive freedom or for LGBTQ+ empowerment, if not some other body autonomy issue worth protesting and shouting at the devil over... or they are just a regular person that is cool with showing themselves have sex for money! Sure, the world of porn can be a quite a life-consuming occupation for many participants, but it doesn't have to necessarily eclipse a porn star's entire reality when they are not getting sweaty and sexy for the camera. There are married porn stars that have families and husbands/wives outside the industry that they go home to when they are off the clock. There are porn stars that only do specific acts for money on camera, and may not EVER show their genitals, or other private parts of their body to the world. Some BDSM practitioners might be known to paddle and flog in a particular signature skin-tight latex/leather outfit, but is on some Mariah Carey/Catholic Nun-level chastity as far as NEVER ONCE having their nipples, genitals or even bare skin be exposed to the world for all ogling eyes to see. Not every day on the job requires actual penetrative sex, and thank goodness, because one's sex drive isn't a consistent faucet with the same expressive pressure every day. Bonnie Rotten might actually be as aggressive in her personal interactions in business as she is in her personal interactions in porn... but that doesn't mean she's spitting down throats and begging for prolapsed gapings in the middle of her lasagna dinner at Olive Garden. Yes, as a porn star, I might have had my work life bleed into my non-work life a bit, and I might occasionally be out at some historic nature monument, looking around like "I wonder if we can have sex/shoot porn here?" Yes, that does happen sometimes, ha. But I'm not always scouting women to have sex with, and I'm not always trying to have sex with the women I am attracted to, even if they know I do porn and want to have sex with them! Porn stars like non-porn movies too! Heck, Ron Jeremy is a classically-trained piano teacher, Lexington Steele is a university-educated, former Wall Street stock broker, and Nina Hartley is a registered nurse. Ron "The Hedgehog" Jeremy, as much as people want to downplay him as if his impressive genitals were all he had to offer this world, is a certified schoolteacher, and was teaching children on the autism spectrum before it was even diagnosed as such. And sure, not all porn stars might be bookish introverts before they remove their khakis and Oxford blazer, but that doesn't justify denying any porn star the possibility of being a multi-faceted individual capable of any and all the other attributes we ascribe to erotic actors. Finally, even if they are like Asa Akira, and absolutely LOVE being hypersexual as much as possible, what's wrong with that? Nobody shames LeBron James for being obsessed with playing basketball, and if they did, how foolish would they look? About as foolish as anyone shaming any other grown adult for doing exactly what they want with their freedom in life on any given day. Assumption 2 That porn stars and sex workers are unclean, physically or morally, and that it's smarter to stay away from touching them, if you find out you have met one. Optimism and evolution would have most socially-conscious individuals hoping this ignorantly-immature sexual criticism would not remain such a prevalent issue in modern society, what with things like the infinitely-overloaded resource of information known as Internet at virtually everyone on earth's disposal. But, nope! We're still living in times not far removed from the 70's, 80's and the AIDS epidemic, when people were saying stupid shit like "Don't share toilet seats with gay people!" or "You can catch HIV from mosquitoes, or drinking from the same cup." These were some of the ignorant ideas about sexuality that were perpetuated by the masses (not that the government and the education system didn't also do their share of mis-education and avoidance of addressing the facts), and honestly, it's unbelievable how little we have progressed collectively as a society, and as a world. What with Earvin 'Magic' Johnson still alive and well after diagnosing his HIV status in 1991 and having a famous gender-queer son, as well as new HIV-management treatments such as PrEP, I'm surprised that more people aren't opening their minds even a tiny bit, to the possibility of STI's, STD's and/or even manageable or terminal diseases not being the scarlet letter for pariahs awaiting eternal existential exodus. And whether it's HIV, chlamydia, warts, hepatitis, or herpes, the unassailable, unwavering, unbelievably true fact is: the regular civilian that is slut-shaming and slandering any porn stars for being "sexually unclean" has a MUCH HIGHER POSSIBILITY OF TRANSMITTING AN STI than any professional porn star operating at a consistent basis in the adult entertainment industry. The assumption people have about porn star is silly. For every story of a Cameron Bay contracting HIV or a Mr. Marcus spreading syphilis shutdown, there's literally ~millions~ of videos of porn stars exchanging nothing but healthy consensual human sexual energy, plus some saliva and semen and other funky fun fluids between each other, then getting their compensation and calling it a good day's work. The additional truth that the vast majority of porn stars get tested every 14-28 days for most, if not all, STI's to be legally and professionally invited to shoot, in contrast to the general understanding that the average man or woman found at your local bar/dance club/social gathering on a Friday or Saturday night is considered to get tested for STI's approximately once or twice a YEAR, as well as has NO discernible evidence, video or otherwise, that proves they have not had unprotected sex with others since the last (or first) time we chose to become intimate, puts the whole truth into perspective for me. It's a different level of interaction between men and men in porn and in the gay community, but this is not to reinforce the stereotype that porn stars spread diseases because of their work. But that doesn't mean I think I'm going to catch gonorrhea when I go to use the washroom at the Black Eagle Bar on Church St.!) Yet, I digress. The bottom line is: MANY people still think porn stars and sex workers are physically and morally unclean than the rest of the population, including a few doctors at the walk-in clinic I go to that offer little more than a judgmental cold shoulder and the lowest level of customer service possible the moment after I reveal my sex worker status, while seeking testing or other related information. It's probably one of the most knee-jerk, automatic cliches to say about human beings in general: the assumption that people that do sex or porn are dirty, just like assuming something ignorant like "fat people eat like pigs", not considering metabolism, genetics, health conditions, body diversity, or any other reason why it's foolish to assume bigger bodied people are different than any one else. Or deserve any less respect than you or I. So, yes. EVERY single porn star you look at online is NOT a dirty person, physically, morally, economically, or socially. I always say: Porn is messy, not dirty. Real Pornography is the professional creation of healthy, clean, safe, visible sexual delight between happily consenting individuals that are erotically empowered and engaged. Fact: every single Thursday, Friday and Saturday night of the year: there are two people who drunkenly connected with each other at some neighborhood bar, and let the rush of lust consume and compel them to find the first available room/bathroom stall, and get busy... and they didn't stop to ask for consent for barely anything, conducted rather high risk sex possibly without protection, maybe didn't even tell each other their real names, and didn't have any intention on ever seeing them again, yet lied about that desire for short term fun... ...and its people like THIS that want to slander porn stars and disrespect sex workers as morally and/or sexually unclean? The hypocrisy would be laughable, if it wasn't so widespread, malicious and baseless... on top of being foolish beyond comprehension. Assumption 3. Porn stars & sex workers don't value themselves and/or were abused, so that's why they are doing sex work, and their families must be ashamed of them. To deny the autonomous choice of hundreds of thousands of grown adults all over the age of 18 that all must sign 2257 legal documentation, plus show two pieces of government I.D., as well as doctor's-approved clean STI testing, is, as I said, downright ridiculous beyond articulation. The judgmental stigmatization around sexuality is slowly, painfully, creatively and controversially being eradicated on a variety of levels in North America and other forward-thinking societies, from the steamy plots of new age TV shows like 'The Sopranos', 'The L Word', 'Californication', 'Masters of Sex', 'True Blood', 'Game of Thrones', 'Queer as Folk' and back to 'Sex and the City', which all have done impressive work in helping normalize sex, nudity and sexuality to the masses on levels of awareness unknown and rarely explored in the 80's or 90's. Also through rare and various Hollywood movies like 'Boogie Nights', 'When Harry Met Sally', 'Secretary', 'Poetic Justice', 'Love Jones', 'The Notebook', 'How Stella Got Her Groove Back', 'Love and Basketball', '50 Shades of Grey' (ugh) and some imported gems like 'Blue is the Warmest Color', 'Nymphomaniac', 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' and 'Love', amongst many others, modern cinema has opened the average person's mind in general, to nontraditional types of love, new age relationships and sex itself not being the one-way ticket to some supposed burning lake of fire... ...which, strangely, is the fundamental reason WHY every single one of us has manifest a destiny on the planet earth: because. our. parents. were. having. sex! I say all this to say: do you think the actors and actresses parents feel like those actors and actresses don't value themselves? Does Scarlett Johannsen not value herself because she does a movie like 'Under the Skin'? Does Halle Berry not value herself because she did a sex scene like the one with Billy Bob Thornton in 'Monster's Ball'? How about Monica Belluci, and her shockingly realistic rape scene in 'Irreversible', does her doing that scene mean she hates herself and wants to abuse herself, like any other porn star or sex worker that gets paid to act out a hardcore scene? Where does the line start or stop? Well, there actually is no line between any genre, except for the one in anyone's mind. To think that actors aren't also whores or that whores aren't also actors, is to completely misunderstand showbiz, the entertainment industry, and sexuality itself. The adage "sluts give it away, whores get paid for it" is a gross exaggeration of the basic sexual contract in North American society, but...it's kinda true. And I don't judge either one for getting pleasure, or getting paid for pleasure! I humbly suggest you do the same. And honestly, whether or not their families and friends are ashamed of them: as long as they are being safe and consensual, who gives a darn what anyone else thinks? Unless girls are being coerced and manipulated into porn, which does happen sadly, I won't deny (but doesn't the National Army, the fashion industry & professional sports industry all recruit naive, young people under semi-suspicious circumstances as well?) then opinions are like sphincters without enough lube: something that should stay closed tight. I will confess personally, it's pretty helpful to have my mother actually supportive of my porn career as well as my nude modeling, but my biological father isn't supportive at all, yet: I couldn't care less about his opinion! I will sleep wonderful at night knowing that I have a marvelous scene planned tomorrow with a divinely sacred person, where the BDSM, aggressive kink and dominant scenes we have planned are well within our boundaries as responsible adults playing sexy games with each other. I wasn't abused as a child, I love myself beyond measure, my family knows all about my porn career, and supports me doing safe sex work for as long as I want to. Which is: for the rest of my natural born life, thank you very much, and you're welcome! Assumption 4. That you are not, and never have been, in any way connected to anyone in the sex industry, and that you "don't associate with people like that" Reality check: considering how many women and other people are silent about their (possibly temporary) careers in the sex industry, or simply have a second life they don't reveal, I would gamble on the unknown statistics being somewhere around maybe 2 or 3 out of 10 men going their whole sexual life NOT ever having any kind of sexual or intimate engagement with a person that had some sort of sex work/porn employment in their own life. The amount of girls that were strippers to get through college, or did some camgirl work on the side, or was a prostitute temporarily (and maybe still is occasionally), or did some nude modeling for a source of income while going to university, amongst countless other possibilities, cannot be quantified. Nor judged. Just happily assume that one of your best fantasies in your life might have occurred because they were a professional, and you just happened to get lucky somehow... Assumption 5. That sex work or pornography can be eradicated by government legislation, or that pornography can be controlled by religious doctrine and moral decree. As the timeless saying goes: "Prostitution is the world's oldest profession". In 2017, it's absolutely, probably, and truly finally about time people grow up and accept it's not going anywhere. At all! Accept this instead: some people want to expose themselves to the incomprehensibly vast diversity of activity in the world, while others just don't have the same level of ambition. Neither one is right or wrong for wanting what (and who) they want to do. Some people want to deep sea dive with underwater lifeforms off the shores of Madagascar, others don't. Some people want to jump out of airplanes and skydive then parachute, some don't. Some people want to fix cars, some don't. Some people want to cook gourmet meals in expensive restaurants with exotic ingredients, some don't. Some people want to research the newest advances in microbiology in a clinical laboratory, some don't. Some people want to kiss, lick, suck, and have sex with other people to their heart's content, some people don't. Life is better when you can balance yourself in the midst of such divergent possibilities of playful personal adventure on earth, and find what works for you without needing to impose your values and desires on anyone else's values and desires, whether it's your family, your friends, enemies or strangers... and probably most importantly, your lovers and sex partners in life! Negotiation and balance becomes different. Conversation, compromise and communication becomes different. Controlling others choices is never cool, unless you're protecting your own child, and even at a certain point, that becomes corrupting. Caring about someone being safe while they go make their wildest dreams come true is way more cool. And the President, the Prime Minister and the Pope have sexual standards that you need NOT emulate, unless you want to be one of them, or work in those career paths. Follow your own codes, beliefs & laws, as you follow your own heart towards your purpose and pleasure in life and love. Taking a journey like that, while not making any of these assumptions about any of the sex workers and porn stars you enjoy seeing publicly or even indulging in these days, will usher you to a wonderful level of empathy, compassion and understanding of both business and pleasure on the professional level, as well as just respecting humanity properly. Begin removing these archaic ignorant notions amongst & about others, and THEN you can safely make the assumption that you're part of the solutions in sex, not part of the problems stopping the potential of you producing as many wonderful memories as possible in your own spectacular love and sex life. A beautiful love & sex life is truly paradise. Sincerely yours, Adhimu Stewart aka Malcolm Lovejoy, Professional Love Maker About the Author
Malcolm Lovejoy (musician/journalist/activist/porn star/sex educator/human being) is the porn star of the future. A renaissance man like no other in adult entertainment, he is a romantic enthusiast on levels that would make Casanova proud. His feminist-focused approach to all things pornographic pushes his work into a category unlike most men in porn, as Malcolm's passion for providing multi-orgasmic satisfaction for his partners before spending time trying to give a money shot, his unparalleled oral skills, tender touch and ultra-athletic action-packed sex style makes Malcolm's porn a beautiful vision to behold for everyone lucky enough to see it! And in his first 2 years of filming, he has explored a wide variety of adult content, from heterosexual pleasure, to bondage & submissive play, female ejaculation scenes, solo masturbation, transgender scenes, sci-fi sex, pornographic music videos, and so much more. With over 50 scenes filmed thus far, and more on the way, his plans for 2017 and beyond are nothing but bring more of Malcolm Lovejoy's boundless beauty and sacred sexuality to the world for all people to be endlessly educated and entertained by... If you want to know more, just ask me! Email: [email protected] Twitter: mindbendermind Facebook: Dr. Malcolm Jackson Lovejoy Past Articles From Malcolm: http://www.franktalks.com/blog/5-tips-for-women-for-dating-a-male-porn-star  4 Dating Tips of What Women Want Dating: What do women really want? by Pillow Talk Gal Dating can be a veritable mine field, from how to dress, what to say and how to act. There is no exact science to dating, no how to manuals we can read. We are often left to follow our instinct and sometimes those instincts can be either bang on or dead wrong. As a woman I can only speak to men who are looking to find out what not to do if you plan on seeing a woman past the first date. Below are just a few personal tips that I hope will help to make the mine field a little less daunting.  Understanding Women using the emotional needs analysis system of Frank Kermit Tip #1 : Dress to impress. Most women will take note of a man’s appearance right away. While you are busy checking her out, she is actively doing the same but in a very different way. While you may be checking out her body, she is doing that as well, but in so much more detail. She is taking note of every little detail right down to the amount of facial hair you have and whether it’s been properly groomed. She is looking at your hands to see if your finger nails are dirty, she’s taking note on how much cologne you decided to put on (tip: less is more) and yes she is even checking to see if there is a tan line where a wedding ring might be. Some would say appearances don’t matter, not true. The old saying ‘’first impressions are important’’ is key! In life they say you have to dress for the job you want, well dating is really not that different. Women love it when a man makes an effort to look good, it shows they care, not only about their date but themselves as well. (this should be a given but it’s worth mentioning) A man who doesn’t have a good sense of style can be a complete turn off for some, where others can see it as a challenge (a fixer upper kind of guy). Either way, it’s best to play it safe and go with a nice collared shirt (no tie) and a dressy pair of jeans. You can never go wrong with business/casual style.  What To Day (and not say) on a First Date Tip #2: Leave the past behind. Nothing is more off putting than a man that seems to not have moved on from his last relationship. We all have our relationship baggage to deal with, but dealing with it while you’re on a date with another woman is not that time (this lesson applies to women too). If you’re out with a woman who just happens to enjoy the same kind of music as your ex, or she happens to like the same kinds of food as your ex, whatever you do, don’t bring it up! Mentioning any kinds of similarities between a date and an ex can lead not only to insecurities on her part, but also make you look like you’re still hung up on your ex! Of course, if you were in a serious relationship and are back on the dating scene you might notice you have a specific ‘’type’’ you are attracted to, which is fine. There are bound to be some similarities, just don’t go out of your way to mention them, especially on the first date. She will lose interest in you faster than you can say ‘’when can I see you again?’’  Get Confident Now Tip #3: Confidence versus arrogance. Women love a man who is confident, but not to the point of arrogance. It is a big turn on when we see that a man has confidence in himself but at the same time he is humble about that confidence. For example, there is nothing worse than being with a guy who is good looking and acts like he knows it. The turn on for us is, he’s good looking but thinks he isn’t (I know it’s weird but it’s true).  Learn The Easy Steps To Charisma Tip #4: Keep some thoughts to yourself. If you’re on a date with a woman whom you find very attractive, refrain from making awkward remarks about specific things you find sexy about her (especially on a first date). You might find she has a great body or sexy lips and that’s fine, but making a point about how you happen to find those traits sexy is just creepy. For example, your date happens to have very full sexy lips, don’t blurt out ‘’you have the most beautiful, sexy lips I have ever seen!’’. It comes off as if all you’re looking at are her lips, which leads a woman to think all you’re interested in are her looks and not getting to know her as a person. If the relationship progresses past a couple of weeks, then those kinds of comments most probably could be a turn on, as opposed to making her want to run screaming in the opposite direction. Keep your cool and instead of fixating on her looks, listen to her when she speaks. Really take an interest in what she has to say. A man who can have a real conversation with a woman is so sexy and believe me, she will notice if you’re not actively listening, so really put some effort into it. If the chemistry is good, you will find there won’t be much effort required. I wish you all happy dating and I hope my tips will have proven useful to at least a few people. It can be tough out there and sometimes a few tips can go a long way. -Pillow Talk Gal About Pillow Talk Gal Born and raised in British Columbia, she is a professional woman managing a career, marriage, and a teenager. Life can be challenging at times but she's a firm believer that everything in life happens for a reason, and more often than not, she tries to understand those reasons. "Join me in my journey throughout life’s issues and I guarantee you’ll be left pondering an issue or two." - Pillow Talk Gal Past Pillow Gal Posts: http://www.franktalks.com/blog/sex-and-the-city-girl-talk-for-the-ages  Sign Up For Frank Coaching Now  23 Reasons Why: Suicide: The Signs, What To Do, and Where To Go For Help Suicide: What are the signs, what to do, and where to go? By Jenn and Sam, Mental Health Caseworkers If you’ve been on the internet lately, you’ve probably seen posts about the new controversial Netflix show “13 Reasons Why”. If you have not seen it, let us break it down for you. The show depicts a teenage girl, Hannah Baker, trying to navigate her way through a new school. Here, she encounters bullying from her peers and struggles with mental health issues that eventually contribute to her committing suicide. Prior to her suicide, she created audio tapes that detail the reasons why she chose to end her life. The popular show has been criticized for glamorizing suicide and portraying suicide as a justifiable act of revenge. On a more positive note, many mental health practitioners and teachers are using the show to open up a line of communication about suicide with youth and adults, to educate people on how to identify the signs and how to seek help or support someone who may be suicidal. There have additionally been initiatives by local high schools where students created and shared “13 Reasons Why NOT”, which are lists of reasons why suicide is not an option. Although the show opens up this doorway of communication regarding suicide, it demonstrates little knowledge or understanding of Hannah’s mental health problems. It does not address her hopelessness, desperation or helplessness. The show appears to focus more on morality and highlights that the consequences of bullying can be deathly. There is no denying the truth behind that last statement or the detrimental effects, both short term and long term, that bullying has on its victims. That said, there is still a much broader topic that is being left out. Suicide itself. Bullying is not the only reason people chose to take their own lives. The show additionally does not address many other questions surrounding suicide including;
As mental health workers, we see individuals with suicidal thoughts, ideations, and tendencies on a daily basis. It is something we are consistently screening for, because it occurs frequently as a result of other mental health disorders. This does not mean that a person has to have a mental illness to become suicidal, but it does increase the risk of suicide. According to a study completed in 2011, approximately 3,500 people commit suicide annually in Canada. This is a staggering number. Unless you are directly affected or working in a social service/mental health setting, you are most likely unaware of what the signs of suicide are. Furthermore, you are probably unaware of what to do if you encounter those feelings yourself or discover someone you love is suffering from them. What to look for: signs and symptoms What signs do we look for? First and foremost these are general guidelines and are in no way absolutes. Some signs are more obvious, while others are more subtle. An obvious sign is someone having or verbalizing that they have suicidal thoughts and/or ideations. Simply put, the individual is thinking about dying, how to do it, and what will happen if they go through with it. These are more obvious signs as the individual will often express these thoughts to multiple people and rarely will go through with it. Subtle signs include those that are less noticeable or associated with suicide. These are often not expressed by the individual, but can be noticed in their changed behavior. These can be significant changes in mood such as anger, volatility, recklessness and/or an increase in risk-taking behavior. The individual may start to withdraw from family and friends, become more reclusive where they were once social. The individual may turn to substance use that was not present before to numb the feelings or change their state of mind. They may feel anxious, hopeless or helpless in their situation and are unable to cope with it. They may also express thoughts of having no purpose to live and that no one would be affected or care if they were gone. They may express feeling that there is no other way out of a situation. On the flip side of the coin, their mood could drastically change in an appearingly positive way where they could present much happier than they have been, as they feel a sense of purpose through their plan to take their own life and are determined to see it through. What do you do if you see these signs in someone you know or love? The first step, although maybe the hardest, is to talk to them about what you see and your concerns. Do this with an open heart and from a place of empathy. Let them express how they feel and validate their struggle, while letting them know you are there to help and support them. It is important in these situations that the person feels someone cares about them and wants to help. At some point you need to be brave enough to ask them directly if they are contemplating suicide. Ask them if they have a plan, how they would do it and if they have a time frame. If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, then there is an urgency that needs to be addressed. This can be seen clearly in “13 Reasons Why”. Hannah creates a clear and precise plan. She chooses to create 13 tapes, clearly collects all the items she needs (tapes, razor blades, recorder etc), maps out what to record on them and then ends with her taking her own life. Often, the person will reach out in some way or another, by trying to tell someone what they are feeling or by giving away something that holds a lot of importance for them. Hannah demonstrates this by making a final attempt to get the attention she needs from her school counsellor. Suicide is a serious issue, and if you recognize these signs in someone else, it is important that that person is not left alone.
It is a scary thing to do, but you could be preventing an unnecessary death. If the situation is less urgent, but warrants help, you can visit your local CLSC. The CLSC can refer you to the appropriate services. What do you do if YOU are having these thoughts or recognize these signs in yourself? If you see the signs in yourself, it is important that you speak to someone you trust and create a plan to help yourself. We encourage clients to create a SAFETY PLAN which includes a list of reasons you shouldn’t harm yourself. This can be lists of things you love to do, places to visit, things that make you passionate and important relationships in your life such as loved ones, family, friends and pets. Add a list of resources to call in a time of need
Add people you trust and can speak to on the list including family and friends. Make sure that these are people you can get in touch with if you feel unsafe being alone. Being aware of these signs and how to provide help might make it easier to catch someone who is contemplating suicide before they act. So please, do not be another face in the crowd. Reach out if you recognize the suffering in yourself or another. You could be the difference between life or death. -Jenn and Sam For more information on suicide prevention please use the following services: Suicide Prevention Canada http://suicideprevention.ca/ Canadian Mental Health Association They have a page dedicated to services for those facing suicidal thoughts and struggles or friends/family support. https://www.cmha.ca/mental-health/understanding-mental-illness/suicide/ West Island Crisis Centre Phone: 514-684-6160 Services: 24 hour emergency hotline, psychological assessment, intervention, temporary shelter and equipped with mobile unit for evaluations. Suicide Action Hotline: 1 866-277-3553 or 514-723-4000 This hotline is open 24/7 and can provide support and assistance. Author Bios Let us introduce ourselves. We are mental health case workers, and although that sounds like a big scary title, it is actually just clinical terms for saying that we help people help themselves. Our job is to empower people with the knowledge and tools to help manage any mental health issues they may be facing. This can range from small bouts of depression and anxiety, to suicidal ideation and chronic illnesses such as Schizophrenia and Bipolar disorder. Whatever the concern, we are here to provide support, guidance and direction in riding the wave to recovery. On a daily basis you can find us meeting with clients and creating Action Plans to accomplish short and long terms goals. We help locate and direct clients and families to community services and organizations. We create and facilitate sport therapy groups, workshops, educational seminars and group activities, all with goal of normalizing mental health issues and empowering clients with the tools and skills to move forward not only in their recovery, but with their life goals. If you are lucky enough, you can even spend time with our onsite therapy pup named Norbert, who is always available and more than willing to give some love and cuddles. Norbert plays his own role as a worker, going out into the community to spread awareness and help with prevention. Our approach is far from traditional and we strive to work outside the clinical “box”. We focus on the individual’s strengths, using their passions and goals to facilitate stability and recovery. Jenn and Sam Mental Health Caseworkers  Donate to Support Mental Health Care  Suicide and Depression: Happiness is Sourced From Within Suicide and Depression by Frank Mondeose Wow. Chris Cornell, say it ain't so bro! Another one leaving us to suicide. What makes a beautiful, powerful, impactful soul, take their own life? Earlier this year, a very popular Tantra teacher in California, Psalm Isadora, also took her life. She was bringing magic into people's lives in such big ways and dedicating her life to sexual health and awakening. So why?
What makes these suicides more notable then all the rest of them? To me, it shows that, no matter what it looks like, no matter how shiny the exterior, people are battling their demons every day. So these 2 are great examples, that happiness is not "out there", in perceived "success", but more sourced from within. How could these 2 individuals with all this light around them take their own life? And why do we sometimes try to glide over that the cause of death is suicide? Shame? Shame of what seems to be an insurmountable sadness that forces someone into the furthest edges of the rational world? RAW TESTIMONIAL: I want to share because I think if we speak, others won't feel as alone, because everyone is going through something worthy of escaping from. Many of you will probably be surprised, but... I have also battled with suicidal tendencies since high school, being brought to the brink at least a couple times. I have prayed for death. The result: cancer. My get out of jail free card, as I saw it. So why? I can only speak for myself. I feel. I feel everything. Some things regarding to myself, other things regarding to others, some from people I don't even f-ing know. It is a gift and a curse. It is so attuned, that sometimes I even feel what is coming up before it even happens, and feel, before I can even understand what I am feeling. This has often time put me in bouts with depression. I don't understand. I don't know anything. Why am I here? What does it all mean? Even when I am doing my best, the world seems to be falling around me. So what is the f-ing point of being here anyway? Why don't I just go back to source, where I can be at ONE again and not have to feel? Ouffff, what a topic. I need to keep it short to keep your attention. Bear with me. :) So why am I still here? I picked up a few things along the way. #1 I am here, I have no choice. I was put here for a reason. So what to do? Do the only thing that means anything: Show up in the best version of myself, that I can, as much as possible, and where i under-deliver, stay aware, attentive, and open to improving. This is all I can f-ing do. From there, the rest will play out, but at least I am in right relationship with my soul, while in manifest form. #2 The first time I did ISTA In ISTA Level 2 with Bruce Lyon, I had a shift in consciousness. I had a huge realization that suicide just could no longer be a part of my reality, as it will affect my vibrational footprint and effect my life in consequence. But it was Komala Lyra, who in my second ISTA Level 2 just recently in Guatemala, that anchored this concept of why stay here? Komala succinctly described the idea of escaping from manifest reality (duality), by yearning to return to "Oneness" through suicide as an impossible realization. This intense need to escape and leave here and now, is pulled by the soul's call to wanting to be in ecstatic Oneness with all, the interconnection of energy and source force. As Komala explained, buying a ticket to Oneness, by getting on a train of Duality and Separation is impossible. "You will never get there." Everything about suicide is in the realm of duality: me, my soul, my emotions, life, death, killing, who is doing the killing, for what purpose...the mind is engaged. Duality. The ceremonial intention to return to Oneness is littered with duality. "So, live your life. If you have a death wish, live it bigger than ever, and see where that takes you. But live it, and live it fully, from the core of your heart!" I don't know how all this is landing with you, but to me it unlocked the concept of my divine, gifted time, I have here, and that every feeling and emotion, is a gift. Every heart break, every longing, every broken expectation, every laugh, every cuddle, every orgasm, is all a gift. A gift that brings us back to the realm of experience. Oneness sounds blissful, but i don't think it will feel like anything more than *everything all at once*. So while we are here, engage the singular experience of feelings, and emotions, and allow them to put you on a path of self-discovery, and soul alignment. This is why I can live so boldly. This is why I can speak my mind so clearly. This is my time. This is the blessing I was gifted with, and there is no person, no culture, no authority, that will tone me down, because my soul speaks to me and tells me that I was put here to SHINE, and it is my divine responsibility to use this time, while I am here and gifted with it, to open my HEART, to FIND MY BLISS and SHINE. And there is no way to make that happen if I am more focused on what others will think of me if I live out my bold truth. With love, respect, and gratitude for all and those souls who felt the need to go, instead of living it out here with the rest of us. You are great teachers. xo -Frank Mondeose About The Author Frank Mondeose is the owner of Monde Osé is which is a lifestyle brand focused on promoting the understanding and enjoyment of life, love and sensuality. Their mission is to offer distinguished sexy entertainment and seduce our audience while maintaining a classy high end product. Read Frank Mondeose's past posts here: http://www.franktalks.com/blog/burlesque-101 http://www.franktalks.com/blog/intro-to-sexual-shamanism-workshop-montreal  The Jackson 5 Five Were My Brothers The Jackson 5 Were My Brothers by Nat King Pole So the Jackson 5 are my brothers and we just sing and dance all day. Well at least in my mind they were from age 6 to well... now at 55 lol. I was raised an only child in a small town of 200 on the border of Ontario. Everybody was very white and spoke English or French.
I was 6 years old and I was hooked. From that day on it was all about the Jacksons followed by Motown and Martin Luther king and African American history. I'm getting ahead of myself.
Now the Jacksons became my héros just because I loved the music and the dancing but as I got older I learned that they were also part of a group of people that were not loved and accepted just like me.
When I learned he was shot I was devastated as I figured we were doomed to be hated forever. But black people understood oppression and therefore would understand who I was and accept me. I had found my people! Ok I'm about 8 yrs old at this point. I didn't quite get all the subtilités of prejudice.
I wanted an Afro I wanted everything they wore, I never missed them on TV and just bought everything I could get my hands on that I could with my 50 cent a week allowance.
Then I'd spend hours trying to copy what I'd seen. I knew every lyric and move by heart. Man, I was the 6th brother. Now all this put me in the loner weird nerd kid category until secondary five (Grade 11) when it happened. A talent contest. That weird nerdy kid is actually trying out. This should be hilarious they thought. Well no one knew what I'd been up to all these years.
Everyone was standing and going crazy! My parents and grandparents were crying and I won and my whole life changed dramatically that day. Since then I've seen the Jacksons a total of 3 times live and am going for four this June.
Today I'm still performing and it's what gives me the most joy in life. That's when I can be who I really am and it's just as magical as it was when I was in my parent's place just me and my imaginary brothers -Nat King Pole About the Author Nat king Pole is Montreal's busiest drag King and has been for 15 years. As well as performing regularly In his hometown he's been making ladies swoon in Toronto, Quebec city, Ottawa and in Philadelphia, Boston, Provincetown Etc. He sings Live, writes his own parodies, dances and is just plain sexy. They call him the panty whisperer. His website is: http://natkingpole.com/ To read Nat's past post: http://www.franktalks.com/blog/profile-of-a-drag-king  Help Monique Find Her Birth Family Updated on March 1, 2018. Please note that Monique has in fact located her birth family and met them. This post caught the eye of someone on a Facebook group (Search Squad), and we put Monique in touch with the Facebook group that helped her with her search. In less than 1 year, Monique met her birth siblings and birth mother. Help Monique Find Her Birth Family If you recognize anyone from the photos, or from the information, Please directly contact Monique at (705) 471-6684 or you have more information to offer anonymously Please contact the site admin: [email protected] Birth Name: Marie Isabelle Judith Name Adoption: Marie Carole Therese Monique Gaudreau Place of Birth: Hull, Quebec Date of Birth: October 16, 1965 Orphanage: Ville-Joie Ste-Therese de Hull. Date of Adoption: (cir 16 Months old) January 31, 1967 Other Registered Information: Place of Baptism: Notre-Dame de Graces, Hull, Quebec Date of Baptism: November 9, 1965
Information of Biological Family on File: Bio-Mom: (born cir. 1932) was 33 at the time of birth of Monique. Caucasian French-Canadian, spoke French, Catholic, unmarried, living in the Outaouais region of Quebec. She was about 5’3”, weighed about 108 lbs, with brown hair, brown eyes, and listed as having a fair complexion. Her education level was 7th grade and her occupation was a Waitress. Bio-Dad: (born cir. 1929) was 36 at the time of birth of Monique. Caucasian French-Canadian, spoke French, Catholic living in the Outaouais region of Quebec. He was about 5’9”, weighed about 180 lbs, with black hair, black eyes and listed as having a fair complexion. His education level was 5th grade, and his occupation was a Truck Driver. Maternal Grandparents: M-GrandFather died at the age of 50 from a heart attack M-GrandMother (born cir. 1910) was age 55 and her health was listed as good at the time birth of Monique. M-Grandmother was a homemaker. M-Grandmother had 4 sisters (all listed as married and homemakers) and one brother (M-Uncle). M-Uncle (born cir. 1951) was age 14 at the time of birth of Monique and was a student at the time. The family was listed as living in a poor social and economic situation. Paternal Grandparents: In 1965, both paternal grandparents were listed as living and in good health. **** Disclaimer: Much of the information above is from the C.P.E.J. Outaouais Letters To Her Biological Parents From Monique A Letter From Monique To Her Biological Mother Dear Mom, Being Adopted is emotional life sentence, not knowing your identity. most Adoptees have so much love and sensitivity. We have been through depression, anxiety, Just because two people have never met, does not mean that love between the two don't exist. What ever was the circumstance , many of us Adoptees have forgiven, but not forgotten our loss. I personally want to say these words to a women that gave birth to me.. You are awesome... I forgive you... You had tremendous strength for giving me away.... I am so sorry that you had suffered in silence... You deserve to be recognized as my mother, even though you did not raise me, you brought me into this world, and gave me to a total stranger , in hope that I could receive what you felt you would be unable to provide for me. No one has ever thanked you, for your unselfish love. No one was there to guide you through after your hardest decision. I want to thank you personally for making me strong , and by doing what you did. The love I have for you, YES YOU! It is so strong. I Pray that in your heart you will feel at peace with yourself, and remember no one has the right to judge you...Not even me. If you have passed on, please give me the opportunity to place a rose at you resting place, and await till we meet again someday. From your biological daughter to my biological mother...I never knew. I love you!! -Monique A Letter From Monique To Her Biological Father Dear Dad, To my Biological father I never knew. I am not here to judge you! I only want to say. I understand... I have no hate.... You played a very important part in my existence... I feel the need to tell you, I always had love for you in my heart . Whatever the circumstances that lead me to be given away, I have no hate, for I myself have learned so many things in my lifetime, and failed. I know that my place is not to judge, and I promise I won't !!!! I am willing to receive you with open arms, please do not let your mind and heart feel troubled, but know I am here for you. If you should have passed on, please I pray that you might of shared your deepest secrets to someone that could reconnect with me. My promise to you if you were taken to be among the Angels, is to place a rose at at your resting place, in remembrance and respect for you, for accepting the many challenges that this may have caused you in your lifetime. Being human is one of the hardest things at times, and this I truly believe. With Love from your biological daughter you never knew, to a biological father I pray to meet one day. -Monique ***** About Monique About Monique: Monique is married and currently resides in the city of North Bay, Ontario. ************************************* If you recognize anyone from the photos, or from the information, Please directly contact Monique at (705) 471-6684 or you have more information to offer anonymously Please contact the site admin: [email protected]  Such a Thing as Happily Single? Is there such a thing as Happily Single? By Frank Kermit Is being single really that bad? After all, when a person considers the amount of pain that a relationship or casual dating can cause, it may seem that just skipping the whole dating-thing altogether might make for a more peaceful life. Could it be that intimate relations are simply not for everyone, and maybe you happen to be one of those people? How do you know if being alone is the right choice for you and is it even possible to be content, o r even fulfilled in a life without romantic love? As always, that answer is completely up to you.
Without having experienced what a health loving relationship can be, or not having experienced the positive attributes of being with someone that cares for you, it is challenging for someone to see the value is pursuing a goal they have no concept of.
In these cases, people tend to be encouraged to work on themselves before entering into romantic relationships so that the challenges inherent with romantic relationships do not distract the people from the healing process, nor allow the romantic relationships to exasperate a persons energy causing them not to have the personal resources to slay the demon. This is most commonly understood when someone enters a drug and alcohol treatment center where patients are forbidden to have relations with each other and contact with loved ones must be limited.
Dismissed as laziness by some, the lack of willingness to put in the work required to change behavior patterns is nothing to scoff at. Changing anything in your life forces you out of your comfort zone. It takes work. The motivation to make such changes may very well require that someone hit an absolute rock bottom before having enough gumption to finally make that change. The same principle applies to changing the status of a persons love life. It is unfortunate that people require that kind of rock bottom to reach a point where the pain of staying where they are is finally greater than the pain of making a change. When I am asked if it is better to be in a relationship that is bad, or being alone, I often quote one of my inspirations. To paraphrase: "Are you better off with that person, or better off without that person?" There is no set answer. It completely depends on the context of your situation. There are a number of other factors to consider in the answer to this question.
If you complain about being in a relationship, again do something about it.
If you are trying to figure out if you want to give up on love or not, one of the ways to decide this for yourself is to sit down and work through the differences between your feelings towards single life and your desires for the kind of lifestyle you want for yourself. Start with your ideal lifestyle and work your way backwards to your current present date. Once you have that ideal (and REALISTIC) lifestyle mapped out, see if you are the type of person that can actually attain it, and if you would be able to attract the kind of partner that you yourself would need to be. Frank Kermit P.S. Do you Agree With This Article? Disagree? Have something to Add? Write your thoughts in the comments below and share this article to see how many of your friends think like you.  Get Frank Coaching Right Now  Coping With Loss: Remembering and Honoring The Dead At a Wedding Remembering the Dead at a Wedding by Frank Kermit Sometimes, couples who marry want to do something at the wedding in memory of the people who passed away. This happens, especially when the death was recent. At my wedding, my wife and I did a little ceremony at the reception where we lit a candle and read an inscription, announcing it was in memory of various relatives that had died, who would have wanted to attend. It was very short, but it did bring us come comfort, and it was also comforting to some of the attendees who were still in mourning. We all cope with loss differently. It is important for the wedding couple to also remember, that not everyone will appreciate your efforts to pay tribute to your lost loved ones. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make, is they try to tell someone else that how they grieve is wrong. For example, this story is of a wedding I attended: A father dies a few months before his son is set to be married. At the wedding, a special tribute is made in honor of the late father. The groom and his mom dance to a song that was in memory of his dad. All the guests were invited on the dance floor to circle them. Then it happened... at one point, the groom and his mom started to cry a little. It was not a hysterical cry at all, but the tears were evident. Everyone around them formed into a circle continued to move to the music. ...except one man. He started to raise his voice to tell the DJ to stop the music. He was an uncle in the family, and felt that the song and tribute was making them cry and that it was wrong. So he made a fool of himself trying to stop the tribute. Luckily, the DJ and the rest of the guests ignored him. The uncle was not comfortable with seeing, or dealing with, grief. He tried to "protect" everyone else from grief as well. That was the worst thing he could have done, and lucky for everyone at the wedding, the DJ was smart enough not to listen to him. Make sure that you let the DJ, or other wedding professionals involved know about any potential trouble-makers, and let the wedding professionals also know exactly what your wishes are in case a wedding guest decides to act out. If you can predict who might be the kind of person to act out, at your wedding, it might be a good idea to let that person know ahead of time what you are planning. This is not about getting that person's permission. It is more about letting that person know, so the shock of surprise in combination of the grief and mourning does not motivate that person into doing something that will turn your wedding from spectacular to a spectacle. -Frank Kermit P.S. Do you Agree With This Article? Disagree? Have something to Add? Write your thoughts in the comments below and share this article to see how many of your friends think like you.  Sign Up for Frank Coaching Now  Recipe Filet Mignon Served With A Chimichurri Sauce Filet Mignon is a very special cut of beef that is a symbol of luxury. The name mignon means dainty or small. It is frequently served as the main course in restaurants on Valentine’s Day. In 1904 a man by the name of William Sidney Porter under the pen name of O. Henry wrote a 25 story novel called "The Four Million" where he highlighted the luxury of Filet Mignon. He wrote about it multiple times as a representation of romance and as a decadent treat.  Filet Mignon Argentine in its origins, Chimichurri is typically made of finely-chopped parsley, minced garlic, oregano and white vinegar – though there are regional variations, with Uruguay adding red pepper flakes for an added kick.
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Your Worst Wedding Regrets
The Worst Wedding Regrets
By Frank Kermit
Weddings can be overwhelming.
So much to do, so many details to take care of, and so many choices. It is very easy to end up making choices that seem like a good idea in the moment, but that end up being your worst wedding regrets.
I asked some wedding professionals to share some of the biggest regrets their clients experienced to help give you all some cues.
Allison Plachcinski, a wedding planner with A Belle Affair Weddings says that brides tell her that one of their biggest wedding regrets was putting too much emphasis on the look and feel of the bridesmaid dresses. As a result, the brides and the bridesmaids get into heated arguments to the point where some have fallen out of touch because of all the drama. This included one maid of honor who dropped out of the wedding party because she did not have any choice in the bridesmaid dress.
Angela Skinner of Mobile Bartending by Linen and Lace, says that one of the biggest wedding regrets she hears from brides were from the ones that purchased a wedding dress that did not fit as a means to have the motivation to lose weight before the big day. She also states that couples who choose a very small, intimate venue too early on in the planning tend to be in for a shock when they finally tally up the full number of guests being invited to the wedding.
 Wedding Planner | Natalka Gach Lee a wedding planner, says that some end up with regrets when it comes to hiring a DJ. Lee says that couples should insist on a meeting with the DJ (especially if the venue is supplying the DJ) to make sure that the DJ has the music the couple requires, will come dressed appropriately for the occasion and who will respect all music requests |
Wanda Malfara, photographer and head of SIAM Productions says the mistakes people make when it comes to wedding photography is when the bride and groom think they can have friends and relatives take the best photographs. "When it is all said and done, the dress has yellowed, flowers wilted and the only thing left are the memories - the photographs are forever and are so much more important than people realize in the excitement of an amazing wedding day" says Malfara.
James P. Correia, also a wedding photographer, states that it is becoming more common to have an "unplugged-wedding". This means that neither digital cameras nor phones are permitted. This "allow all guests to enjoy themselves more, take in the meaning of the day, and truly observe a magical moment." Correia believes that, "our generation too often buries our heads in our gadgets...and we are starting to miss out on a lot."
In addition to what these photographers said, when I was doing the research for this article, there are actually some couples that want to be the first to distribute photos from the wedding on social media after the event, and not have it done for them by the wedding guests, throughout the event.
Caryn Lim, Designer and Wedding Planner at A Timeless Celebration warn brides and bridesmaid against attempting to make their own invitations. "The costs come out to roughly the same, however the do-it-yourself method comes with a whole lot more headaches." Says Lim.
Florist Helen Mandrozos, creative director of Studio Floral Ermis offered some very insightful advice. "Bigger is not always better!" Brides have told her that they regretted ordering a big bouquet that was too heavy to carry throughout the day and how it overpowered their wedding dress, even though it was the bouquet the bride had set her heart on. Also, she has often received phone calls from frantic wedding participants the night before the wedding asking to hire her services to help with their flowers at the very last minute after failed do-it-yourself projects.
 Remembering Dagmar Daghofer | Finally, no wedding preparation is complete without planning to honeymoon. |
Travel agent (the late) Dagmar Daghofer of the Vision 2000 Travel Group who helps couples book honeymoons strongly suggests not waiting too long to book anything because the resort they want may have either gone up in price or is no longer available. Waiting until last minute might force the couple to end up in a family oriented hotel as opposed to something more romantic. Simply put, you cannot take back a low class honeymoon.
Good or bad, your wedding will be one of the most memorable days of your life, and thus it is important to be mindful to take whatever precautions are necessary to ensure the memory of your wedding is a pleasant one.
Frank Kermit
P.S. Do you Agree With This Article? Disagree?
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For Some Women, Mother's Day can be the Most Painful and Dreadful Day of the Year
It's Your Time Mother's Day Can Be Difficult For Some Women
by Anonymous Mom aka Anonymom
I do get how Mother´s Day can be difficult!
I was abandoned by my mother upon birth
like you would abandon an animal
(without a care of what will happen).
After a little time in an orphanage,
I was adopted by another mom, the only one that I think of.
She, in turn was mortally wounded by motherhood:
her own child had died,
and they did not allow her to mourn,
they told her "that never happened" and "make another one".
That marked my story, and my relationship with
her,
her ambivalence, and lack of healing..
Later, I became a mom, to heal myself,
wanting to give the love I myself needed,
which of course, never works
because you cannot give what you do not have!
I thought "because what I went through I will be amazing",
and instead I was depressed, and inflicted that upon them!
But I have been healing ever since.
Unlike my adoptive mom,
I got LOTS of support, and help through the years,
and I conquered the scary dragons she never did
...I am happy today, but I DO get it.
I am enjoying my kids, and the relationship I have with them now,
but that does not mean I forgot the hardship, the pain, the complications
... Also my heart goes out
for the ones that cannot be moms,
those that like my own adoptive mom,
lost a child,
or their own mom,
those misunderstood because they
make the choice not to become mothers:
Wherever you are emotionally today,
it is OK, and I send you LOTS of love,
and the best, most tender healing feelings,
and hope you go gentle, and love yourself today!
-Anonymous Mom aka Anonymom
About The Author
Anonymom is the term that FrankTalks.com uses for any mother
who wants to tell her story anonymously.
Contact [email protected] to tell your story
Happy Mothers Day
Honoring Your Mothers
By Frank Kermit
Someone once told me that we enter this world on our mother's pain, and that we leave the world on our own pain.
Looking after my wife during the last intense months of a complicated pregnancy and me insisting that I be in the delivery room when my own child was born, I must agree.
Will I ever be able to fully appreciate my wife enough for everything she sacrificed and went through for our amazing child?
In that sense, will I ever fully appreciate what my own mother sacrificed and went through to give me a chance at life?
I doubt I am even qualified to answer that.
So, how can someone honor his or her mother?
I sometimes face this particular question in my practice during bereavement counseling when a family is struggling with the passing of a mother.
At times, the mourning process may require someone to honor his or her mother's memory with some kind of memorial.
These may include writing about her, naming a structure after her (such as a road, or building wing), starting up a charity fund or scholarship in her memory, and even planting a tree.
However, by far the most powerful way I have found to honor a mother is to take every good value and great experience she gave you, and to pass that love along to your own children as well as to any children who may be in your care at any point in time.
Whatever your own mother's greatest value that she passed on to you, pass on that same trait to others.
Compassion, devotion, life lessons, a love of life, art, teaching…whatever it was that made her special to you; the best way to honor her is to keep her spirit alive each and every time you pass along those traits of hers to your own children, and the children of the world.
When I think of my own mother, I struggle with seeing the now elderly lady who has trouble walking, remembering details and needs to rest frequently.
It is hard to fathom that this is the same superwoman who I remember as being strong of body and spirit, a vibrant Jill-of-all-trades, who never stopped from early morning before anyone else woke up, going on to late night after everyone else went to bed.
She was by no means perfect. No parent is.
The most any mother can be expected to do is the very best she can, with what she has, and that is exactly the legacy my mother has left behind, that I will honor her with, as I pass that love on to my own child.
So, to the mother of my child, to our mothers who gave us life, to the mothers of all my future descendants, to the mothers of my nieces and nephew, to the mothers of mothers, to the mothers of everyone I have ever cared about, to the mothers themselves that I have come to know, and to those special women who came to mother children that weren't originally their own…Thank you and I love you.
Frank Kermit
The Return of the Seducers in Montreal Quebec
Le retour des séducteurs
par François Guérard
Dans l’art de la séduction, l’homme québécois ne serait pas de taille à rivaliser avec le Français, l’Italien, l’Espagnol, ou le Belge. Qu’à cela ne tienne, des gourous de la drague viennent à son secours. Notre journaliste a fait enquête.
Ce soir, le petit bar du Plateau-Mont-Royal est interdit aux femmes. L’écriteau sur la porte indique «Fermé». Sous une lumière orange, une société secrète de séducteurs tient réunion. Une trentaine de gars, ayant entre 20 et 45 ans, discutent en anglais, assis en rond. Ils sont francophones et anglophones, de toutes origines ethniques. À tour de rôle, ils exposent un problème ou décrivent une rencontre dans un café, un flirt sur la piste de danse. Les autres analysent et dissèquent. Le grand timide assis à ma droite note frénétiquement tous les trucs de drague dans son calepin. Les gars cachent leur identité derrière des pseudonymes: Buddha, Jetset, Vic 20, Cowboy. Moi aussi, je dissimule la mienne. Personne ne sait que je suis journaliste. Et c’est mon tour de parler.
 The Story of Loser To Seducer | Je me présente, faussement, comme un nouveau célibataire qui vient de rompre après des années de vie conjugale. Mon problème: je ne sais plus comment accoster les femmes. Certains hochent la tête. Ils sont passés par là. On me propose une méthode: je dois aborder cinq belles inconnues par jour. Un gars, fin vingtaine, m’explique: «Engage la conversation avec les serveuses et les vendeuses. Dans la rue, demande ton chemin. Profites-en pour échanger quelques phrases.» À ce rythme, dans trois mois, j’aurai brisé la glace avec 450 demoiselles. Plusieurs gars du groupe l’ont fait. Et ils abordent maintenant les jolies femmes dans les cinq à sept avec un naturel désarmant. |
| Ces gars cherchent tous la même chose. Darwin dirait: «Assurer la survie de l’espèce.» Eux disent plutôt: «Amener une femme dans mon lit.» Pour cela, ils sont prêts à explorer un territoire sauvage cartographié depuis longtemps par le sexe opposé: celui des relations humaines. Pour de nombreux hommes, la séduction reste un mystère. Entre eux, ils parlent peu de leurs faiblesses et de leurs inquiétudes à l’égard des femmes. Ils glorifient leurs conquêtes, mais l’hésitation à téléphoner à une telle pour l’inviter au cinéma ou le manque de courage pour embrasser une autre restent enfouis dans leur jardin secret. |  Ethical Seduction |
Les membres du Montreal Seduction Lair (le repaire des séducteurs de Montréal) ont brisé le tabou. Ils interprètent les détails d’un flirt avec une minutie toute féminine. Comme le feraient de bonnes amies autour d’un thé vert. «Combien de temps devrais-je attendre avant de répondre à son courriel?» «Que devrais-je lui écrire?» «J’ai ramené une fille chez moi la nuit dernière, mais nous n’avons pas fait l’amour. Qu’ai-je fait de mal?» C’est le genre de questions qu’ils posent.
| On se croirait dans une réunion des «invincibles» Carlos, Rémi, Steve et Pierre-Antoine. Comme dans la populaire série télé, les membres du Montreal Lair signent un pacte qui prévoit toutes sortes de situations. Par exemple, un membre a le droit de choisir deux femmes de son entourage — une sœur ou une collègue, par exemple — qui ne pourront être draguées par les autres membres. «Ne parlez pas en détail de ce que nous sommes à vos amis, à votre famille ou à vos associés», indique le document de 14 pages qui m’a été envoyé par courriel après la réunion. Les femmes n’aimeraient pas apprendre que leur nouvelle flamme élabore des stratégies de séduction en groupe… |  No More Just Friends |
 Lose Your Virginity | Dans les cinq dernières années, la demande de conseils en séduction par des hommes a explosé. Marc Boilard, agent artistique devenu animateur de radio, chroniqueur à la télé et gourou de la séduction, remplit des salles de spectacle partout au Québec grâce à sa «clinique» de drague. Le concept: il fait monter des gars sur scène et, sur le ton de l’humour, relève leurs maladresses avec les filles. Sa chronique de séduction à la station de radio Énergie de Québec est le quart d’heure le plus écouté dans la capitale, avec une moyenne de 32 500 auditeurs. |
La consultante en séduction Marie-France Archibald fait de bonnes affaires en offrant des cours privés de drague aux hommes de la région de Montréal. Pour un tarif moyen de 95 dollars l’heure, la jeune femme prépare ses clients à affronter différentes situations: aborder une femme dans un bar, un flirt au bureau, une sortie au théâtre. Les clients peuvent aussi profiter des services d’une styliste pour refaire leur garde-robe et d’un photographe professionnel, histoire de mieux paraître dans les sites Web de rencontre.
| Dans Internet, des dizaines de forums de discussion réservés aux hommes et consacrés à l’art de la drague sont apparus. Des gars de partout dans le monde y racontent en détail leurs tentatives de séduction. D’autres y vont de trucs et de conseils. Le Montreal Lair, qui compte 130 membres, est la vitrine locale d’une communauté mondiale de séducteurs. Il y a des «repaires» à Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Londres, Milan, Budapest, Tokyo. La communauté a ses gourous. Une cinquantaine de maîtres autoproclamés de la séduction vendent, dans leur site Web, leur méthode en format livre ou DVD. Le plus grand d’entre eux est Neil Strauss, alias Style. Son livre autobiographique, The Game (HarperCollins), est devenu la bible des apprentis séducteurs. |  Start a Lair |
 Learn Charisma | Depuis deux ans, Montréal devient pendant trois jours, en juillet, le cœur de cette communauté. Une trentaine de gourous transforment l’hôtel Château Champlain, au centre-ville, en université de la drague. Les hommes paient 800 dollars pour assister à leurs ateliers. Quelques-uns de ces experts organisent aussi des séminaires «sur le terrain» dans les grandes villes de la planète. Le programme s’adresse à des groupes de 5 à 10 hommes. L’après-midi, il y a classe. Le soir, les élèves font la tournée des discothèques et testent leurs nouvelles connaissances, sous l’œil attentif du maître. En janvier dernier, un tenancier de bar torontois est venu donner un séminaire du genre à Montréal. Prix demandé pour une fin de semaine: 2 150 dollars! |
| On a créé un espace d’apprentissage pour les hommes. C’est une chose nouvelle pour un jeune trentenaire comme moi. À l’école secondaire, on m’a appris le nom d’une dizaine de maladies transmissibles sexuellement et montré comment enfiler un condom. Mais on ne m’a pas enseigné quoi faire pour me rendre à l’étape de l’utilisation. Mon père ne m’a jamais emmené à la pêche pour m’initier aux secrets de la gent féminine. Et mes «vieux chums» préfèrent discuter de hockey et de jeux d’ordinateur plutôt que des femmes. |  Good Sex Starts Here |
L’homme qui s’assoit seul au bar et attend qu’on le courtise pourrait être déçu. Car à peine 7% des Québécoises croient que c’est à elles de faire les premiers pas, révèle un sondage CROP commandé par L’actualité. Elles sont 34% à penser que l’homme doit faire les avances, et 54% estiment que cela n’a aucune importance. Fait étonnant, les jeunes de 18 à 34 ans (hommes et femmes) sont les plus conservateurs. Près de la moitié — 43% — confient la tâche de draguer à l’homme.
 Be Honest | «Séduire, c’est d’abord exprimer son désir pour quelqu’un, par un regard, un sourire, une remarque bien placée», dit le sociologue de la sexualité Michel Dorais, qui enseigne à l’Université Laval. Le Québécois est-il un bon séducteur? Les avis sont partagés. Un peu plus de la moitié des femmes (56%) affirment qu’il sait très bien ou plutôt bien séduire, indique le sondage CROP. Mais 31% d’entre elles disent qu’il est plutôt mauvais ou très mauvais (les autres ont refusé de répondre). |
Michel Dorais, lui, va dans le sens du «plutôt mauvais». Le Québécois n’est pas de taille devant le Français, l’Italien, l’Espagnol et le Belge, dit-il. Car le flirt est un jeu qui se pratique beaucoup en Europe et très peu de ce côté-ci de l’Atlantique. Le sociologue se promenait récemment dans les rues de Namur, en Belgique, aux côtés d’une séduisante collègue. «Cinq ou six passants se sont arrêtés pour la complimenter sur sa beauté. Chaque fois, elle répondait: “Merci.” On ne voit jamais ça au Québec!»
| On ne connaît pas grand-chose de cette timidité du Québécois envers les femmes. On ne l’a pas mesurée, comparée ou analysée. En fait, l’homme est un sujet de recherche nouveau au Québec. «On a étudié ses réalisations en long et en large, mais pas son identité, sa façon de se percevoir et de percevoir l’autre sexe», dit Martine Saulnier, étudiante en doctorat de sciences humaines appliquées à l’Université de Montréal. Son enquête lui permettra de débroussailler le terrain. Elle fait de longues entrevues avec des hommes de 30 à 40 ans. Mais ses résultats ne seront pas connus avant 2008. |  Pimping Your Pad |
On peut trouver des éléments de réponse dans la culture, dit Michel Dorais. «Au Québec, la notion de charme appartient à l’espace féminin, alors qu’en Europe l’image du séducteur masculin est très présente.» Giacomo Casanova, l’aventurier qui sévissait dans les cours européennes au 18e siècle, et les personnages fictifs de Don Juan et de Cyrano de Bergerac envoûtent les femmes par la parole. L’aspect physique importe peu. Ce sont le raffinement et la poésie des mots qui font fondre les cœurs. Ce modèle n’existe pas dans la psyché collective des Québécois, dit le sociologue. Le grand séducteur s’incarne dans deux personnages de la littérature du terroir: le Survenant, héros du roman éponyme, et Ovila Pronovost, le mari d’Émilie dans Les filles de Caleb. Ce sont des hommes mystérieux, grands, musclés, la plupart du temps absents. «La seule présence de leur corps suffit à séduire», dit Michel Dorais.
Les choses étaient plus faciles pour l’homme il y a 50 ans, lorsque les rôles sexuels étaient clairement définis. Le samedi soir, l’homme ne sortait jamais sans son veston, sa cravate et son chapeau. C’était lui le chef. Il invitait la femme à la salle de danse, il payait pour elle. Henri, un petit barbu énergique de 80 ans, se souvient des jeux de séduction dans le Montréal de l’après-guerre. Il travaillait alors comme machiniste dans la métropole. «Nous faisions la cour aux femmes. Il fallait leur ouvrir la portière de la voiture. Les complimenter sur leur habillement et leur coiffure. Leur faire sentir que c’étaient elles les reines de la soirée.» L’effort en valait la peine, puisque Henri, qui ne s’est jamais marié, a eu une soixantaine de maîtresses! «Pourtant, je n’étais pas le genre d’homme à faire tourner les têtes dans la rue», dit-il.
On pourrait croire qu’en 2007 la danse reste une activité propice au flirt. Danser la salsa, par exemple, c’est jouer à la séduction. Les corps se touchent, les regards plongent l’un dans l’autre. C’est l’homme qui guide. Au Salon Daomé, au pied du mont Royal, la proportion est de quatre hommes pour six femmes. Une vingtaine de jeunes filles sont assises sur des canapés le long des murs et attendent une invitation à danser. Corinne Morin, elle, ne manque pas de partenaires. Cette grande brune de 26 ans est sexy dans son chandail rouge moulant et elle se déhanche bien. Elle est venue seule. Pourtant, un homme serait mal avisé de lui demander son numéro de téléphone. Pas plus à elle qu’aux autres filles. «Je ne viens pas ici pour me faire draguer. Je viens pour danser», dit-elle, soufflant entre deux pièces musicales. «La plupart des filles, ici, n’aiment pas les hommes qui tentent de les séduire. Elles veulent pratiquer un sport, de façon amicale.»
Après un demi-siècle de féminisme, la femme est devenue un peu comme l’hiver québécois: lumineuse et froide. Elle brille, est sûre d’elle, intelligente, ouverte et fonceuse. Mais son assurance est une arme à double tranchant. Elle peut interpréter les avances d’un homme comme un manque de respect, une atteinte à son intimité. Elle réagit alors avec la froideur d’un iceberg.
Sylvain d’Auteuil, 39 ans, en a fait la dure expérience. Pour écrire Brad Pitt ou mourir (Les Intouchables) — roman dans lequel il raconte les difficultés d’un jeune père célibataire à trouver une nouvelle copine —, il s’est lancé, en 2005, dans un véritable rallye de la drague. Il a d’abord recruté trois hommes trentenaires en mettant une petite annonce dans un journal culturel de Saint-Sauveur. Pendant un mois, les quatre mousquetaires ont abordé des filles dans les bars, dans les boutiques, dans la rue, au supermarché. «On utilisait des techniques trouvées dans Internet», dit l’auteur. Dans la grande majorité des cas, ils se sont fait répondre par un soupir ou un regard glacial. Avec les femmes d’origine étrangère, cependant, c’était différent. «Elles répondaient à nos avances par un sourire. On pouvait même quelquefois entamer la conversation et obtenir leur numéro de téléphone.» Cette expérience lui a permis de trouver un excellent endroit pour draguer: la buanderie. Les femmes y sont souvent seules et s’ennuient en attendant la fin des cycles de séchage.
Marc Boilard, lui, croit avoir trouvé la solution pour désamorcer le mécanisme de défense des femmes. Je rencontre le gourou de 40 ans dans sa tanière, le Shed Café, resto-bar branché du boulevard Saint-Laurent. «Je viens souvent manger ici», dit-il en recevant un bol de soupe thaïe des mains d’une jolie serveuse à la robe moulante. Il a le crâne rasé, porte un large bracelet de cuir clouté et de petites lunettes rondes. Ses biceps roulent sous son chandail ajusté. Marc Boilard affirme qu’il fonde ses enseignements sur son expérience personnelle avec les femmes. Qu’il en a connu beaucoup. Mais il refuse de dire combien. «Pense à un chiffre et c’est plus que ça», lance-t-il.
Il pratique une technique de drague en trois étapes qui rappelle celle de la guérilla. Il attaque, il bat en retraite, puis il relance l’attaque. Marc Boilard m’explique. L’autre jour, dans ce même établissement, une jolie demoiselle qui mange avec des amies lui tombe dans l’œil. Elle se lève et se rend aux toilettes. Profitant du moment, il l’intercepte. «Je lui ai dit: “Excuse-moi. J’aimerais te faire un compliment. Tu es vraiment mon genre de fille.”» Puis, sans en dire plus, il retourne à sa table. «Après cette manœuvre, la fille est déstabilisée, ajoute Marc Boilard. Elle repasse dans sa tête ce qui vient de se produire. De retour à sa table, elle va raconter l’histoire à ses amies. Tu deviens son centre d’intérêt. Lorsque tu l’accostes de nouveau, elle n’a pas peur. Elle veut entendre ce que tu as à dire.» C’est ce qu’il a fait lorsqu’elle s’est levée pour quitter le café. «Il faut qu’on se revoit, lui a-t-il déclaré. J’aimerais beaucoup t’inviter à un spectacle.» Elle a dit oui et il a obtenu son numéro de téléphone.
Un homme qui maîtrise ce genre d’approche (il faut rester naturel!) marquera des points, assure la consultante en séduction Marie-France Archibald. «L’audace et la confiance en soi sont des qualités qui séduisent les femmes.»
| De l’audace, c’est peut-être ce qui manque dans l’attirail du séducteur québécois. Car pour le reste, il se débrouille bien, dit Jean-Marc Larouche, président de l’agence de rencontre Intermezzo, fondée il y a 10 ans. L’homme de 44 ans me reçoit dans ses bureaux d’Outremont, aux murs crème et aux rideaux blancs. La majorité de ses 3 200 clients sont des gens instruits, dans la trentaine et la quarantaine. «Le Québécois n’est pas compétent pour aborder une femme à la table d’à côté. Mais dans une situation où il se retrouve en tête à tête, il est bon. Il est attentif, drôle et intéressant.» Tout ce dont il a besoin, c’est qu’on provoque un peu les choses pour lui. |  Un Homme, C'est Ton Job |
L’agence Intermezzo le fait… pour 1 530 dollars par année. Chaque client a une relationniste attitrée qui joue le rôle de l’amie organisant un rendez-vous galant. Le lendemain, il peut l’appeler pour obtenir un son de cloche sur l’intérêt que l’éventuelle soupirante a manifesté à son endroit. «Habituellement, lorsque la relationniste lui répond “feu vert”, ça lui donne un élan incroyable!» dit Jean-Marc Larouche.
Au cours des rendez-vous suivants, il se transforme en véritable séducteur avec sa belle.
Et il dégrafe son soutien-gorge.
Et il dégrafe son soutien-gorge.
*Disclaimer: This article is copyright Francois Guerard and was originally published on February 15, 2007 for L'actualite. All rights, titles and interests in any images or clips, used herein under Fair Use and Fair Copying, remain the property of the author.
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I'll Tell You Where All The Good Men Have Gone by Arun Eden-Lewis
I'll Tell You Where All The Good Men Have Gone
by Arun Eden-Lewis
Search the words, “Where have all the good men gone?” and dozens of anecdotes, articles, blogs, and books will appear on your screen.
Overwhelmingly, this question is posed by women, discussed by women, and answered by women.
This, ironically, is an essential reason for these so called man-deserts—men are simply not being asked to contribute their opinions and perspectives. And the good men themselves are increasingly less likely to offer their point of view, for many reasons.
I do not seek to apportion blame here, on either side, but simply to address this question from the seldom-heard voice that is the object of the question itself: good men.
The last 100 years of suffragettes, feminists, and political correctness have challenged and continue to challenge thousands of years of patriarchy—and rightly so. Consequently, the roles of both men and women have been transformed and redefined.
While we struggle to adjust to the new and still evolving status quo, the war of the sexes has taken millions of casualties. In Western culture, divorce rates for first marriages range from 42 percent in the U.K. to 53 percent in the U.S. to a staggering 71 percent in Belgium. Subsequent marriages fare even worse.
The spectre of divorce is another contributing factor in the conspicuously expanding man-deserts. Many men, having seen their fathers broken by divorce, fear the loss of their assets, their homes, and their children and are simply stacking their chips, choosing not to gamble, and checking out of the marriage casino.
Family courts invariably award primary custody to the mother, while the father is restricted to weekend access, supervised visits, or left to literally climb the walls of Buckingham Palace in a superhero costume to protest rights for dads. Men—will they ever grow up?
The ridicule and debasement of men in the media and mainstream culture is now pervasive. Watch a commercial, sitcom, or movie, and invariably an immature man-child or dumb dad is the butt of the joke—the hapless buffoon. Fortunately, these silly men are always saved from themselves by a smart, witty woman or a conscripted, eye-rolling child.
The emasculation of men has become normalized.
The emasculation of men has become normalized.
https://tinyurl.com/lkpcewj
Sensibly, rather than have their balls cut off (sometimes literally, and that often gets a good laugh), men are running for cover in their droves, leaving women mystified and asking, “Where have all the good men gone?”
When I was in secondary school, perhaps 14 years old, there was a girl who patrolled the playground, egged on by her gang of girlfriends, kicking the boys between the legs. Clearly, she had been informed by someone this was the quickest, easiest, and funniest way to bring those stupid boys down to earth.
One day it was my turn. Caught by surprise, I crumpled to the ground after a swift kick to the balls, in too much agony even to cry out. Oh, how the girls laughed! Even then, I abhorred a bully.
The following day, I found my attacker in the playground and, contrary to my upbringing, without warning I kicked her swiftly between the legs. To everyone’s surprise she also crumpled to the ground, in too much agony to cry out. A crowd of cheering boys slapped me on the back—their new avenger.
The girls stared at me wide-eyed in shock—a boy who fought back? No one had told them that was allowed, surely it was against the rules! Equality: it’s a son of a gun.
I remember feeling no satisfaction or honour in defeating a weaker adversary but sometimes, especially in the case of a bully, personal satisfaction and honour is not the point—standing up to their aggression is. As I grew into a man—a good man—I learned to walk away from provocation, as most good men do.
When I was in secondary school, perhaps 14 years old, there was a girl who patrolled the playground, egged on by her gang of girlfriends, kicking the boys between the legs. Clearly, she had been informed by someone this was the quickest, easiest, and funniest way to bring those stupid boys down to earth.
One day it was my turn. Caught by surprise, I crumpled to the ground after a swift kick to the balls, in too much agony even to cry out. Oh, how the girls laughed! Even then, I abhorred a bully.
The following day, I found my attacker in the playground and, contrary to my upbringing, without warning I kicked her swiftly between the legs. To everyone’s surprise she also crumpled to the ground, in too much agony to cry out. A crowd of cheering boys slapped me on the back—their new avenger.
The girls stared at me wide-eyed in shock—a boy who fought back? No one had told them that was allowed, surely it was against the rules! Equality: it’s a son of a gun.
I remember feeling no satisfaction or honour in defeating a weaker adversary but sometimes, especially in the case of a bully, personal satisfaction and honour is not the point—standing up to their aggression is. As I grew into a man—a good man—I learned to walk away from provocation, as most good men do.
Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them!” Remember the T-shirts launched in 2003? Followed by coffee mugs, posters, even a book.“Boys tell lies, poke them in the eyes!” Another favourite for young girls at the time. It took a fathers’ rights activist to have this merchandise removed from thousands of retail stores. Inevitably, he was ridiculed by a myopic majority.
https://tinyurl.com/mgm5jqh
Presently, in some areas of the U.K., 80 percent of primary schools have three male teachers or less, one quarter of primary schools have no male teachers at all, and some towns have 65 percent single mother families.
Man-deserts indeed.
A young boy can go to school and have no adult male role model, and then return home and have no adult male role models.
Young girls are achieving significantly higher academic standards than young boys. This feminisation of schools spills over into university, then the workplace, and eventually the home, completing the insipid cycle and the marginalization of both boys and men.
I was born in 1968. I grew up with a strong mother, four stronger sisters, and no father. I was taught, not only by my family but also by wider society, to regard women as my equal, and I always have. Yet, unknown to me, a generation of women were being indoctrinated and trained with a sharp-edged tool kit designed to emasculate men.
Men have been subjugating women for centuries; now, they’re getting payback. It seems only fair. The fox has turned on the hounds and she’s packing a punch, or a kick to the balls. But the nature of men when faced with a fight is to fight back, either psychologically or physically.
Clearly there are no winners in this scenario.
The relentless competitive struggle to determine who wears the trousers is simply a turnoff for many men. Many are just opting out of the kind of psychological warfare that is common in relationships today, unwilling to engage in the minefield of mind games, which are usually executed in three ways.
The first is the habitual belittling and denigration of men, in private or in front of friends, family or colleagues, for what is supposed to pass as humour. The second is letting a man know, casually of course, that other men are sexy, have better looks, more money, talent, or fame. The third, and perhaps the most destructive is being told over and over, “We don’t need no man. Men are obsolete.”
I’ve lost count of how often I’ve heard this since adolescence.
If you tell a man often enough that he is surplus to requirements, eventually he will stop expending his energy to convince you and himself otherwise.
Men are rapidly waking up to this phenomenon of man-bashing, so much so that a disillusioned social movement has arisen with its own freshly-minted acronym: MGTOW, Men Going Their Own Way.
Supported by websites and online forums, men are regrouping with a common cause, a sense of brotherhood, and finding their voices again.
The essential precepts of MGTOW are financial independence, rejection of chivalry, social preconceptions of what a man should be, and consumer culture which defines masculinity by a man’s house, car, clothes, watch, or cologne. It is the refusal to be shamed into conventional compliance by being told to “man up.”
Many aggrieved MGTOW refuse to marry or even date Western women, the more ardent among them consciously choosing non-committal relationships, strippers, pornography, or celibacy. Above all, goes the MGTOW mantra, maintain sovereignty of self.
I have been dating for more than 35 years, and back in the 1980s, a man was expected to pay for the movie tickets, dinner, flowers, chocolate, the diamond ring, the house. In each subsequent decade these social conventions have slowly eroded, yet to a greater or lesser extent still remain. Long-held social biases, like the wage gap for example, take time to bring to full equality.
It is important to recognize, however, that equality is a two-way street. It is abundantly clear that many men and women are struggling to walk along that street in close proximity, let alone hand in hand. Why? Because for a century we have been digging up and bulldozing said street. Now, it’s full of potholes, power struggles, and barely fit to travel. Yet travel it we must.
The original message of equality has been somewhat skewed. Women often recycle the poorly thought-out doctrine that they are the same as men. Equality is not always sameness, and sameness is not always equality.
For example, women have equal opportunity to go to war and fight side by side with men, but the physical standards to allow them to do so are not the same. And this can be seen across a whole spectrum of professions, from firefighters to ballet dancers.
Man-deserts indeed.
A young boy can go to school and have no adult male role model, and then return home and have no adult male role models.
Young girls are achieving significantly higher academic standards than young boys. This feminisation of schools spills over into university, then the workplace, and eventually the home, completing the insipid cycle and the marginalization of both boys and men.
I was born in 1968. I grew up with a strong mother, four stronger sisters, and no father. I was taught, not only by my family but also by wider society, to regard women as my equal, and I always have. Yet, unknown to me, a generation of women were being indoctrinated and trained with a sharp-edged tool kit designed to emasculate men.
Men have been subjugating women for centuries; now, they’re getting payback. It seems only fair. The fox has turned on the hounds and she’s packing a punch, or a kick to the balls. But the nature of men when faced with a fight is to fight back, either psychologically or physically.
Clearly there are no winners in this scenario.
The relentless competitive struggle to determine who wears the trousers is simply a turnoff for many men. Many are just opting out of the kind of psychological warfare that is common in relationships today, unwilling to engage in the minefield of mind games, which are usually executed in three ways.
The first is the habitual belittling and denigration of men, in private or in front of friends, family or colleagues, for what is supposed to pass as humour. The second is letting a man know, casually of course, that other men are sexy, have better looks, more money, talent, or fame. The third, and perhaps the most destructive is being told over and over, “We don’t need no man. Men are obsolete.”
I’ve lost count of how often I’ve heard this since adolescence.
If you tell a man often enough that he is surplus to requirements, eventually he will stop expending his energy to convince you and himself otherwise.
Men are rapidly waking up to this phenomenon of man-bashing, so much so that a disillusioned social movement has arisen with its own freshly-minted acronym: MGTOW, Men Going Their Own Way.
Supported by websites and online forums, men are regrouping with a common cause, a sense of brotherhood, and finding their voices again.
The essential precepts of MGTOW are financial independence, rejection of chivalry, social preconceptions of what a man should be, and consumer culture which defines masculinity by a man’s house, car, clothes, watch, or cologne. It is the refusal to be shamed into conventional compliance by being told to “man up.”
Many aggrieved MGTOW refuse to marry or even date Western women, the more ardent among them consciously choosing non-committal relationships, strippers, pornography, or celibacy. Above all, goes the MGTOW mantra, maintain sovereignty of self.
I have been dating for more than 35 years, and back in the 1980s, a man was expected to pay for the movie tickets, dinner, flowers, chocolate, the diamond ring, the house. In each subsequent decade these social conventions have slowly eroded, yet to a greater or lesser extent still remain. Long-held social biases, like the wage gap for example, take time to bring to full equality.
It is important to recognize, however, that equality is a two-way street. It is abundantly clear that many men and women are struggling to walk along that street in close proximity, let alone hand in hand. Why? Because for a century we have been digging up and bulldozing said street. Now, it’s full of potholes, power struggles, and barely fit to travel. Yet travel it we must.
The original message of equality has been somewhat skewed. Women often recycle the poorly thought-out doctrine that they are the same as men. Equality is not always sameness, and sameness is not always equality.
For example, women have equal opportunity to go to war and fight side by side with men, but the physical standards to allow them to do so are not the same. And this can be seen across a whole spectrum of professions, from firefighters to ballet dancers.
Equality is not always sameness. Difference is diversity, and should be a cause for celebration, not dogmatic elimination.
Men are often told (but, again, not asked) they are afraid of strong independent women. Many men, tired of such futile debates and wary of being branded a misogynist if they dare to disagree, are simply shutting down and becoming emotionally unavailable to women, taking permanent residence in their man-caves.
The truth is, men love strong and independent women—it turns them on, in every way. What men don’t love are the predominantly masculine traits that often go along with the package. The relentless competitiveness (necessary in the workplace no doubt, but hardly necessary at home in a loving relationship), the verbal aggression, the emotional manipulation, and the psychological controlling are huge turn-offs.
Increasingly, men are just not interested in competing at work and then having to come home and compete with their partners. In the sphere of heterosexual relationships, most women are not attracted to emasculated feminine men, which is fair enough. By the same token, most men are not attracted to masculine, domineering women.
So, these are some of the general and specific issues creating man-deserts, from the perspective of good men.
But what solutions are there? Waking up to our social conditioning is a good place to start.
Many women are beginning to reject the modern brand of feminism, the so called third-wave that is tantamount to thinly veiled misandry. Equally many men, for two or three generations now, are rejecting the attitude that a woman is some kind of second class citizen.
We clearly have work to do on both sides.
Letting go of these destructive modes of thought, communication, and behaviour is an essential process for healthier and happier relationships between men and women.
However, denying these issues will in no way change the interpersonal landscape for the better, and women will continue to ask, “Where have all the good men gone?” while wandering an ever-expanding and barren man-desert.
So, where have all the good men gone?
For now they have gone their own way. But they are out there, in the same desert, contentedly swimming in the oases they have found for themselves, no doubt waiting for the fourth-wave of feminism to wash over them so we can all truly embrace equality, just like the first-wave promised.
The truth is, men love strong and independent women—it turns them on, in every way. What men don’t love are the predominantly masculine traits that often go along with the package. The relentless competitiveness (necessary in the workplace no doubt, but hardly necessary at home in a loving relationship), the verbal aggression, the emotional manipulation, and the psychological controlling are huge turn-offs.
Increasingly, men are just not interested in competing at work and then having to come home and compete with their partners. In the sphere of heterosexual relationships, most women are not attracted to emasculated feminine men, which is fair enough. By the same token, most men are not attracted to masculine, domineering women.
So, these are some of the general and specific issues creating man-deserts, from the perspective of good men.
But what solutions are there? Waking up to our social conditioning is a good place to start.
Many women are beginning to reject the modern brand of feminism, the so called third-wave that is tantamount to thinly veiled misandry. Equally many men, for two or three generations now, are rejecting the attitude that a woman is some kind of second class citizen.
We clearly have work to do on both sides.
Letting go of these destructive modes of thought, communication, and behaviour is an essential process for healthier and happier relationships between men and women.
However, denying these issues will in no way change the interpersonal landscape for the better, and women will continue to ask, “Where have all the good men gone?” while wandering an ever-expanding and barren man-desert.
So, where have all the good men gone?
For now they have gone their own way. But they are out there, in the same desert, contentedly swimming in the oases they have found for themselves, no doubt waiting for the fourth-wave of feminism to wash over them so we can all truly embrace equality, just like the first-wave promised.
 Arun Eden-Lewis | AuthorArun Eden-Lewis completed his first yoga teacher training in 2001 in the Sivananda style before going on to complete two more advanced teacher training courses with Godfrey Devereux in DynamicYoga. Arun has journeyed to India, Sri Lanka and Bali seeking the most valuable yoga knowledge from the most inspiring teachers in the world. He has practiced extensively in Ashtnga Vinysa and Iyengar Yoga. Drawing on all these strands, and many years of self-practice and teaching, Arun has developed the unique PrajYoga method, of which the ever inspiring 8 Indians sequence is an integral part. |
Learning To Make The Choices You Can Live With
Your Choices Today Become The Past
You Have To Share Tomorrow
By Frank Kermit
Young adults tend to discount how the choices they make today will impact their futures tomorrow. At least, when it comes to relationships.
The best example of this is the young adults who are swayed to enter into the world of the sex trade.
These 18-23 year olds are convinced that what they do today just to make enough money to get by will not be something that affects their futures.
Sometimes it is people within the industries that try to convince potential porn stars and exotic dancers how no one will ever recognize their faces in the future.
Sometimes it is the young adults themselves who rationalize that since they do not have any aspirations to form a public career that the chances of this being used against them are nil.
However, that is simply not the case.
Stories of former porn stars losing their jobs as high school teachers are real.
When their past catches up with them in the hands of underage students who have passed around sex videos of the teacher through their phones, there is very little a teacher can do.
Even when the former porn stars in question are ready to handle the ordeal of having every one of those students knowing such intimate images of the teacher, it may not matter.
The school administration and sometimes the parents of the students as well, may demand that the teacher be fired anyway.
Stories of former exotic dancers or escort service providers, running into past clients at boardroom meetings are real.
Does it matter that a university student put themselves through school with sex trade work and independently earned that entry-level executive position?
To some it may not matter at all.
To others, it could matter a great deal,
and enough so that it could be an obstacle on a personal career path.
The best advice anyone can give to a young adult is to remind him or her that even if they have no interest in a career that could be affect by their choices today, or even if they do not plan to be parents, over the course of a lifetime, things can change very dramatically.
No one can predict exactly how things are going to change and turn out.
As a young adult, you may not really care about the consequences of your actions…but the older adult you become may feel differently about it.
With all that said, I want to be fair
...and state that there actually are a number of sex trade workers that are more than happy doing what they are doing, do so proudly and are willing to admit it and accept the fact that this part of their lives will follow them forever.
Those who have the best grasp of this are those that fully accept the consequences of their past (and possible present) career choices.
That means that they acknowledge the good elements (the hours, the pay) and are forthright about the bad elements (bad clients, discrimination, possible unsafe working conditions).
An insider on the porno industry once told me that many of the flight-by-night starlets that disappear after a handful of appearances end up living very normal quiet lives as married soccer moms.
They also live with the fear that someone who knows them may find their obscure videos, recognize them, and threaten their new life with it.
If you have a past that might threaten your future, the best things you can do about it is be honest with your future long-term partner and check out if they also can accept it, and handle the potential consequences.
If you are getting into a serious relationship with someone, to the point where you are thinking about getting married, then you must consider putting your fiancé through the ultimate test before he or she becomes your spouse.
Think of your deepest, darkest, most horrible thing that you did in your past that you make it a point not to tell anyone.
If you think that sharing that experience would cause your fiancé not to marry you then you have a choice.
Take the chance and tell them anyway knowing you might lose your relationship, or do not get married and end the relationship altogether.
The truth about all our pasts has a funny way of surfacing, and at the worst possible times.
At some point it is very likely that your future spouse is going to be made aware of elements from your past.
The best thing you can do is prepare your spouse-to-be with whatever it is that someone might try to use against you and your family.
It is better your future spouse hears it from you before it becomes an issue that could threaten your future children.
Whether it is bullies in the schoolyard that taunt your kids with proof of your past, or extortionists who would seek to blackmail you by threatening to reveal your scary secret,
being honest with your soon-to-be spouse is the best way to build a foundation for a relationship that will withstand any outside force that attempts to destroy you.
Frank Kermit
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Have something to Add?
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Coaching To Learn To Make The Choices You Can Live With
*Disclaimer: the views of the author do not necessarily represent the views of Franktalks.com. It is important to present different views/mindsets, and that includes material that may be deemed controversial in nature.
5 Tips to Get Her Sexting Nude Pics
5 Tips To Get Her To Send You Nude Pics
by Olivier
I never set out to write this article. Originally, this started as a reply to a guy asking for help to get nude pictures from a woman while texting her. He posted for help on an online forum.
I answered it.
My advice was so well received that I figured I was going somewhere with it. I hope you enjoy!
If you want a woman you are texting to text you nude images of her, here are 5 tips that I have used successfully.
1. CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS
The pics themselves aren't that important.
Do not get caught up in the exciting of getting them.
Stay calm.
It is the “frame” that this is important.
You are looking for her compliance in general, and the pics are just part of the overall process.
The pics themselves aren't that important.
Do not get caught up in the exciting of getting them.
Stay calm.
It is the “frame” that this is important.
You are looking for her compliance in general, and the pics are just part of the overall process.
2. TIMING YOUR REQUEST
The BEST TIME to get nude pics from her
is when you text late at night.
If it is late at night, chances are she is already in bed, or close to it.
Start asking her where she is.
When she tells you (likely she will be in her bed). Then, get her to tell you what she is wearing.
The BEST TIME to get nude pics from her
is when you text late at night.
If it is late at night, chances are she is already in bed, or close to it.
Start asking her where she is.
When she tells you (likely she will be in her bed). Then, get her to tell you what she is wearing.
3. GET HER COMPLIANT
Use commitment and consistency.
Make her comply to small request first, and then build up.
First get her to send a selfie with her clothes on.
When she complies, then you can challenge with a more daring suggestion such as:
"hmmm. I wonder if you would be able to be a little bit more sexy...wink".
Just Like Fifty Shades of Grey 4. Don't "Ask". Tell Her.
Don't ask for nudes.
Tell her to send them.
If you ask her in a nice friendly way,
you are more likely to turn her off
by making her feel she is doing you a favor,
instead of a flirty exchange
that is turning you both on.
By being direct in your communication,
it keeps things more enticing.
Instead of ASKING: “Will you please send me a nude?”
TELL HER: “Show me, I want to see.”
(This of course is after you have progressed from having her tell you where she is, what she is wearing, and getting her to send you some selfies that progressively get more sexy.
| 5. Reverse-Psychology Finally, on some women you can use negation. This is where you discourage her from sending you sexy pictures, because some women are more likely to do it, if you tell them not too. It is a form of reverse psychology that works with women that do not like men telling her what she can or cannot do. For example, |  What is Your Favorite Sexy Lingerie? |
“Don't show me naughty pictures of you. That would make me think of you in inappropriate ways the whole night and that isn't something that you would want since I know that you are such a good girl.”
If she is interested in you, but does not like being told what to do, she will follow through as you just told her how to “seduce” you, giving her the “control” in the situation.
You do not have to “convince” any woman to take nude selfies.
Chances are she has done it in the past (for herself or her past lovers), and might send you a couple of shots of a past collection if she doesn’t want to take a current shot tonight.
In my experience, once you receive nudes from a woman, if you proceed correctly, this is a very good sign that the next time you meet, you could end up having sex.
If she is willing to send you naked selfies to you,
she is likely more open to being naked with you
Hope this helps!
-Olivier
You do not have to “convince” any woman to take nude selfies.
Chances are she has done it in the past (for herself or her past lovers), and might send you a couple of shots of a past collection if she doesn’t want to take a current shot tonight.
In my experience, once you receive nudes from a woman, if you proceed correctly, this is a very good sign that the next time you meet, you could end up having sex.
If she is willing to send you naked selfies to you,
she is likely more open to being naked with you
Hope this helps!
-Olivier
About Olivier
For 4 years Olivier has been on a quest, the quest to find what was stolen from men everywhere. Modern-day men are flabby, weak, have no energy and can’t get their manhood to stand at attention like it used to. None of this is their fault, our modern diet and environment strips them of their manhood. Desperate Men resort to pills to deal with the symptoms but cannot get relief from the problem itself. Olivier has spent the last few years creating and refining the recipes that he developed to help men just like you improve their erections, energy levels, and sex drive at any age.
http://olivierhealthtips.com/
For 4 years Olivier has been on a quest, the quest to find what was stolen from men everywhere. Modern-day men are flabby, weak, have no energy and can’t get their manhood to stand at attention like it used to. None of this is their fault, our modern diet and environment strips them of their manhood. Desperate Men resort to pills to deal with the symptoms but cannot get relief from the problem itself. Olivier has spent the last few years creating and refining the recipes that he developed to help men just like you improve their erections, energy levels, and sex drive at any age.
http://olivierhealthtips.com/
Recipe for Banana Pancakes
The Gros Michel Banana https://tinyurl.com/koratf2 The Gros Michel Banana | Did you know that the bananas found in most grocery stores in North America are not very disease resistant because they are all clones! They are sterile, and asexually reproduced (new plants grow from part of the parent plant.) That’s right. Every single one is an exact copy of the other. It makes for great uniformity, but lousy disease resistance. The bananas we eat today are a variety called Cavendish, but our grandparents ate a variety called Gros Michel. In the 1950s a fungus took out so much of the Gros Michel crops, that the plantations that grew bananas for the North American market started growing the Cavendish banana instead.* |
The Cavendish Banana
The Cavendish Banana
Eternal Life is the symbolism of the banana plant, so in a Hindu wedding ceremony in India, (especially in Southern India) it is used as a decoration to symbolize fertility, a symbol of the birth of future generations.
Banana Plants Are Used To Create A Decorated Entrance
https://tinyurl.com/lnhyz87 Banana Plants Are Used To Create a Decorated Entrance
Banana Pancakes
Recipe makes 12 pancakes
Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 ripe bananas, mashed
Directions
1. Combine flour, white sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together egg, milk, vegetable oil and bananas.
2. Stir flour mixture into banana mixture; batter will be slightly lumpy.
3. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Cook until pancakes are golden brown on both sides; serve hot.
Recipe Courtesy Of: Cristina Mucciardi
CookandDate events aren’t set up to be cheesy, intimidating or plain awkward. Every event is attended by successful singles wanting to experience something new and exciting. Bars, restaurants, clubs can be fun but variety is the spice of life and our events were conceived to be fun, stress-free environment where laughs, cocktails, networking, and a little cooking take center stage.
In short, all you need to do is show up and enjoy the best of what this city is known to offer: great people, great food, great wine, and a true joie de vivre. This is the recipe that has made CookandDate a true success story for the past 8 years, week after week.
| For more information visit |  cook and date logo |
**Additional Information was added by Franktalks.com**
*Scientific info Source: https://tinyurl.com/mumbtlo
Dating Mating and Relating Podcast
Frank Kermit makes is 1st appearance
(May 2nd 2017) on the Karly Stein show
Dating, Mating and Relating
to talk about Adult Male Virgins,
how he got into coaching,
and what mistakes virgins make when trying to attract someone.
www.KarlyStien.com
 For Male Virgins To Get Girls | THIS IS THE BOOK TO HELP THE ADULT MALE VIRGIN FIND A GIRLFRIEND IN 3 MONTHS AND LOSE HIS VIRGINITY |
| Anyone Can Learn How To Have Charisma, and Become The Most Charismatic Person Known. Even An Adult Male Virgin Can! |  Learn Charisma |
 No More "Just Friends" With Girls | This Book Explains Why Women Will Choose A Bad Boy Jerk Over a Nice Guy and What A Good Guy Can Do About It. |
| This is the Coaching Workbook For Women That Was Discussed During The Show! |  Coaching Workbook For Women |
 Part of the Adult Male Virgin Systems | This Book Is Written For Men, Who Just Lost Their Virginity, but are Still Inexperienced With Sex, and Want To Satisfy His New Girlfriend |
Sign Up For the Adult Male Virgin Program and get a girlfriend in 3 months!
The Dating, Mating and Relating Show
The Paradites (pronounced PARA-dytes) was a comedy puppet TV series that Frank Kermit produced for local college TV in 1994-95.
TBT Throwback Thursday - Frank Kermit
Campus Canada Magazine
#tbt #throwback #tb #back #memories #instatb #reminisce #reminiscing #backintheday #instamoment #instagood #throwbackthursdayy #throwbackthursday #instamemory #miss #old #franktalks #frank kermit @emotionalneeds
The Paradites -More of These Jokes Suck
The Paradites Dr. Medicine Sings
The Paradites- Snufter Lungcastle Performs "Don't Call Me Roadkill"
Happy Star Wars Day - May The Fourth Be With You
Happy Star Wars Day!
May The Fourth Be With You!
and
May The Force Be With You!
*********************
An ENA of Han Solo and Princess Leia
Dear FrankTalks.Com Fans,
Franktalks student Pogz wrote out an emotional needs analysis based on the emotional needs of women using the fictional characters of Han Solo and Princess Leia as a fun exercise to see if they would actually have worked in the real world (as real as Star Wars characters could be). I found it so thoughtful and enjoyable that I wanted to share it with all of you.Originally written Tuesday, January 18, 2011
-Frank
An ENA of Han Solo and Princess Leia
By Pogz, student of FrankTalks.com
Han Solo and Princess Leia are a fictional couple. As audience members we can read anything we want into their attraction process because it is fiction. This has probably been done before, but if you want to play that game for fun: (EN = emotional need)
| EN1) Protected her reputation? Her rep would be hurt by associating with "pirate Han". If you're a true princess and the leader of the rebellion, why would you hang out with a pirate who won't throw his lot in with your men, the very men she was trying to lead into battle? Why would she choose "pirate Han" when there are so many other courageous men around her of higher status... dying every day? "Many Bathins have given their lives for this information." |  Take the Luck Out Of Love: Learn the Emotional Needs |
Leia: "Hey guys, great fighting... Sorry about the death of your platoon leader. What was his name... 'Joe' or something? I know I ordered him to take that planetoid. He will be missed. Now I hope you guys follow my leadership in the future... meanwhile, I'm going to go bang this pirate guy who won't fight along the side of you guys. You'll do what I ask in the future right?"
Yeah, people talk. That would have been a morale booster! Let's see, sleep with "pirate Han" and risk losing the war to the Empire? There's more to reputation than just what her girl friends would think of her.
No, it was only after "pirate Han" became "General Solo" that the Princess could completely give herself to him.
Yeah, people talk. That would have been a morale booster! Let's see, sleep with "pirate Han" and risk losing the war to the Empire? There's more to reputation than just what her girl friends would think of her.
No, it was only after "pirate Han" became "General Solo" that the Princess could completely give herself to him.
 Take the Luck Out Of Love: Learn the Emotional Needs | EN2) Provided her with a range of emotions Yes, for the obvious bickering they do, but more importantly because he constantly wavered as to whether or not he'd stick around to help the rebellion. He's in, he's out, he's in, he's out... at least as far as the first two movies are concerned. |
We Miss You Princess EN3) Cater to the little girl in her
No hugs from "pirate Han" when her planet was destroyed in the first movie. No sympathy from "pirate Han" for the impending Death Star attack on the rebel base. Not until halfway through 2nd movie do we see anything close to an act by "pirate Han" that would cater to her little girl (when she hurts her hand turning a wrench and he massages it). "General Solo" tries to comfort her in the Ewok village, but she pushes him away... so we never really see a good example of him catering to her in that way.
 Take the Luck Out Of Love: Learn the Emotional Needs | EN4) Assertiveness "Pirate Han" meets this need of hers rather well. "I'm a scoundrel" - I'm a pilot/pirate with questionable morals, if we do the dead, if you fall in love with me, it is not your fault. "General Solo" sort of chumps out at the end of the last movie, when he says he'll step aside so she can be with Luke... luckily for "General Solo", Luke was her brother. Good thing Han didn't say to Leia, "I won't get in the way of you and Frank." |
| EN5) Fear of Abandonment Her fear of abandonment issues are extremely high because her entire planet has been destroyed, her adoptive parents are dead, her biological mother is dead, she is estranged from her dead-beat biological father who destroyed her bio-mom's will to live (yes, like Luke, she has the force; so we must assume that at some level she knows these things), and the death of the all the men who fight for her cause. |  Take the Luck Out Of Love: Learn the Emotional Needs |
Because "pirate Han" is constantly worried about paying his debt to Jabba, he's constantly threatening to leave her and the rebels to fend for themselves. Therefore he is constantly violating her EN5. It isn't until he's frozen in carbonite, Jabba is dead, helps destroy the death star for a second time, and the war is over that she's finally able to commit to him completely - when she knows he's not going to leave her.
Sure, going out into the blizzard for Luke somewhat addresses this need in her. But right after he's back, he's once again talking about leaving to go pay off Jabba. Yes, he wants her to admit that she loves him. But instead of saying "Yes, I want you to stay for me!", she instead calls him a "Scruffy Nerf Herder". Possibly what is irritating her here is that he is not committed to her cause. That she is testing him. Is "pirate Han" only there because he wants to bump uglies with her? Will he leave her if the Empire turns up the heat too high? Maybe it's not even that simple at that point... maybe she just can't handle his death, so she withholds her love, because if he dies it will hurt less.
Sure, going out into the blizzard for Luke somewhat addresses this need in her. But right after he's back, he's once again talking about leaving to go pay off Jabba. Yes, he wants her to admit that she loves him. But instead of saying "Yes, I want you to stay for me!", she instead calls him a "Scruffy Nerf Herder". Possibly what is irritating her here is that he is not committed to her cause. That she is testing him. Is "pirate Han" only there because he wants to bump uglies with her? Will he leave her if the Empire turns up the heat too high? Maybe it's not even that simple at that point... maybe she just can't handle his death, so she withholds her love, because if he dies it will hurt less.
 We Miss You R2 | EN6) Trust Him to be Honest "Pirate Han" is blatantly honest with her, and is hardly ever afraid to tell her how he sees things. "General Solo" seems to be as well. Though in the third movie it seems more like "General Solo" is trying to control her behavior, the exact opposite of what happened in the first two movies. |
| EN7) Her physical protection and safety "Pirate Han" helps rescue her from the belly of the beast (see Joseph Campbell), he saves her brother from her estranged dead-beat biological father at the end of the first movie, he pushes her behind him when he takes a couple of blaster shots at her dead-beat father when at cloud city, and then he allows himself to be frozen in carbonite. |  Take the Luck Out Of Love: Learn the Emotional Needs |
The carbonite is probably the best expression of Frank's EN7, as Han can't take down the Empire himself, and in no way can he ever hope to defeat Vader on his own... but he TAKES THE HIT for her. One can argue that he had no choice, but... well... he ended up in the carbonite because he took responsibility for her safety when they left Hoth.
The passage is blocked. I'll get her out on the Falcon!
So he DID take the hit in order for her to escape. It is at this point, when he's being lowered in to the hole to be frozen, she says to him "I love you".
It could be argued that "pirate Han" leaves her with one last abandonment issue by saying "I know", instead of "I love you too". But this is where "pirate Han" dies. Wow, that's some dedication! In his final death act (ok, the script says he was frozen, but really guys, he died and was reborn like Jesus). This final act of his, the fact that he took the hit, proved that he would not abandon her. The war still needs to be won, but upon his rebirth, he will no longer be the pirate scoundrel who can't be relied upon. Instead, he will be "General Solo".
 Take the Luck Out Of Love: Learn the Emotional Needs | EN8) Handle Her Sexuality As the Star Wars movies aren't overtly sexual (except maybe for the metal bikini), it's almost impossible for us to know if he could handle her sexuality. We assume that because he's a space pirate and doesn't care much about morality... that he believes "in a blaster", that he's probably of the mindset that whatever she's into, he'd be alright with it. |
Another point here is that he must understand her sexuality somewhat because half-way through the second movie the hand rub on the Falcon got him a Kiss... though he admittedly lost having sex due to logistics. He couldn't recover from C3PO's interruption.
Lastly, as leader of the free galaxy and a princes (not to mention - being a petite, extremely hot woman in her 20s), most men probably see Leia as a Madonna figure, and suck up to her like no other woman in the galaxy. "Pirate Han" treats her like a man should, and thus she recognizes that he understands that the prim and proper princes is also a sexual being.
Lastly, as leader of the free galaxy and a princes (not to mention - being a petite, extremely hot woman in her 20s), most men probably see Leia as a Madonna figure, and suck up to her like no other woman in the galaxy. "Pirate Han" treats her like a man should, and thus she recognizes that he understands that the prim and proper princes is also a sexual being.
| EN9) Prove you have Good Genes "Pirate Han" got an award for helping destroy the first Death Star, and died a frozen death toward the end of the second act of Empire Strikes Back. What a story to tell your girl friends. "My guy, he died for me! I feel so safe around him!" Girls, beware your friends! When thawed out at the beginning of Jedi, he was reborn as "General Solo." Having put in the work, he rose to the rank of General in the rebel forces. |  Take the Luck Out Of Love: Learn the Emotional Needs |
Now that his deeds have earned him the respect of the men she leads, "General Solo" is now a high-status guy as he is a General - a rank fit for the boyfriend of a princes. We can assume that association with him adds to her reputation, and doesn't detract from it. Plus he's a pilot, and chicks dig pilots. It is probably safe to assume at this point that she no longer thinks of "General Solo" as a "Scruffy Nerf Herder."
 Take the Luck Out Of Love: Learn the Emotional Needs | EN10) Prove he is not a closet homosexual We never see "pirate Han" with another woman, we only see him hanging out with a naked Wookie... who appears to be quite devoted to the pirate... what's the special relationship there? Also "pirate Han" was once part of the Imperial navy (you'd have to have read some of the books to know that)... and you know what people say about sailors. Leia needs more info here in order to know whether or not he's a closeted Wookie lover... |
In Conclusion
In short, scoundrel pirate Han (the one she can't handle) doesn't get Leia, but respectable General Solo does get the princess. Pirate Han constantly violates many of her ENs or has yet to prove to her he can address her ENs. General Solo has addressed all of her ENs (Ok, maybe not EN10, but come on guys. The movie was targeted at Kids... so we'll let that one slide) and he gets the Babe. Thus he is no longer really her opposite, but instead her equal.
So no, opposites did not attract in the case of Han and Leia.
Now there maybe more evidence within the books about Han addressing or not addressing her needs, but that takes us back to my original point... these people are fictional, and thus, only George Lucas knows for sure whether or not Leia had her ENs addressed properly. My guess is that he probably didn't have Frank's theories to guide him when he wrote the script.
However, it seems to me that Han made some sort of "hero" journey throughout the trilogy, even though General Solo seems a little more wimpy at the end of the third movie than Pirate Han did at the beginning of the first. After all when he finally tells her that he loves her, she says back to him, "I know." Geesh!
*****************
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Have something to Add?
Write your thoughts in the comments below and share this article to see how many of your friends think like you.
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Yes For Sex Education Because Ignorance is NOT Protection
Ignorance is NOT a form of Protection
Sex Education in Schools is a MUST
By Frank Kermit
The following represents my opinion on the topic of sex education in elementary and high schools in general.
A question that I get a lot from my clients when coaching is,
“Why don’t they teach about relationships in school?”
Many of my clients are in their 20s, 30s and even 40s, and struggle with basic fundamental principles about how to relate to other human beings through romantic intention relationships.
The reason I give them, is that if they were to teach relationship skills in the classroom, they would then also have to teach about S-E-X because sex is part of having relationships.
Unfortunately, the topic of sex education in schools pushes a lot of people’s buttons, such that the only thing most education systems and parents want taught is abstinence, if anything about sex is taught at all.
Teaching abstinence, when some of the students are already sexual active and or are constantly bombarded with sexual influences including media, images, pop entertainment, and email links to porn sites
does not prepare young adults to be able to cope with sex and relationships.
Why do we need relationship and sex education now, when we did not seemingly need it before?
Actually, we have always needed it.
It is just that society has now changed in ways that make relationship and sex education a “must have.”
Once upon a time there were social norms that dictated what each person was expected to do, and what roles people were brought up to perform based on their gender.
Social norms simply told people what they could and could not do, if they were too seek out careers, hunt, provide, tend to the children, manage the home life, and what was expected of everyone sexually, including when sex was to occur, with whom, and under what conditions it was considered righteous.
Today, those social norms have been removed.
People have CHOICE.
The power to choose: who they partner with, what gender to partner with, how many to partner with over the course of their lives, if they want to terminate a partnership, and if they even choose not to enter partnerships at all.
Nowadays, people even have a choice if they want to live as, or transform their bodies into, a gender opposite the one they were born into.
Concepts like “’til death do us part”, the natural expectation of producing children and gender roles have been affected by legal divorce, birth control and human rights.
Today’s singles and couples have unlimited choice as to how they can manage their relationships and sex lives, but as I teach it:
The Power of Choice: without the knowledgeable skills to know what to do with that power, can lead to a misery so great, it can sometimes be worse than living in a system of oppression that meets human beings basic needs.
There was a time when ignorance was considered a form a protection. Some elderly adults I have spoken too talk about when they where children how discussions on the topics of puberty and menstruation cycle were never mentioned; At least not until AFTER a young lady had her first period.
By then the poor girl had to be reassured she was experiencing a normal process, even though the young lady was traumatized by the site of her own blood without a previous explanation of why it was happening to her.
The question remains:
Who exactly was being protected?
1-The children kept ignorant of their own bodily processes?
2-Or was it the parents and authority figures that were perhaps too embarrassed, ashamed, or fearful of what having those kinds of “talks” would represent?
Pretending that sex does not exist, nor not teaching children what sex is, will not in any way protect them from the potential threat of sexual abuse or online predators.
It is not just children that need relationship and sex education.
Studies show that 10% of all newly diagnosed AIDS cases in the USA are in heterosexual women over the age of 50. Yes, they too are at as much risk of sexually transmitted infections as anyone else.
Ignorance about sex and relationships is not a form of protection.
In the opinion of this author, it never was. However, ignorance has always been proven to be a key element in what perpetrators seek to identify in their potential victims. There is nothing endearing in keeping our people, young and old, naive about sexuality.
In fact, you are potentially sentencing them into the clutches of those individuals that would happily take advantage of it, or have them engage with others who are just as ignorant.
When my coaching clients ask,
“Do you think that status of relationship and sex education will change?”
all I can say is,
“I hope so.”
Frank Kermit
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ABOUT FRANK
Frank Kermit
NDG Encore Singing Chorus Administrator,
Obese Recovery Coach
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(~30 yrs experience)
Author of over 20+ books of original content
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