How Can You Laugh at a Time Like This? is a Dream Machine Site The Dream Machine --- The Imagination of the World Wide Web

In some ways, I was an early rebel to this way of thinking and acting. I remember being very depressed when I found out that my older sister, Camille, had been drummed out of college (where she was studying pharmacy, following in the footsteps of our father) by the incessant harassment she received by the hundred or so of her classmates...ALL male. She was certainly bright and talented enough to do the work. But, she couldn't take the heat of constant sniggering commentary. Insinuations that she was a "dike" (lesbian), that she ought to get married and have some kids, that she needed some "stiff cock"...all took their toll on her psyche until she simply gave up and returned home to live with her parents. In the small town where we lived (Hartford, Wisconsin) there were slim pickings for a women of her intelligence and beauty. So she remained single, living at home and working as a bank teller, until she was twenty eight. Women also did not get promoted to executive positions in those days. Finally, as luck would have it, she encountered an "import" in the person of Anthony Secola, a West Bend Aluminum engineer from a small town in Minnesota (Mountain Iron) with a great sense of humor and enough experience with small town living and a thick enough skin to withstand the pressures of being a new guy in town. They married, had two wonderful daughters and remain in Hartford, happy and healthy to this day. I asked her recently if she ever regretted caving in to the pressures of college and, I assume fortified by her good fortune and the intervening years, she said, "No, never." Not all sexist tales have unhappy endings.

I encountered a slightly different form of this nonsense when the fact that my younger sister, Susan, was not a straight 'A' student was withheld from me. That's right, she was above average in intelligence, had a plenty good enough grade average, but for whatever reason, was not the honor student that her three older siblings had been. This knowledge was kept from me (and who knows who else) because it was assumed that I, as a male, would think she was just another dumb cunt if I knew the truth! Now I really loved Susan. We are less than a year and a half apart in age and were always very close. I was OUTRAGED at this insinuation, but hadn't a clue what caused it or what to do about it.

Another short tale of woe. As a child, I was a math prodigy. By the time I reached high school I had, on my own, mastered just about the entire high school curriculum. As a sophomore, taking geometry, the teacher decided it was a waste of time for me to do the same work as everyone else and assigned the entire set of Euclid's constructions as a project instead. There are over a hundred of them, but they took me less than a month to complete. So it went. Also, with couple of exceptions, the only kids with whom I could intelligently discuss mathematics, were all girls.

You can imagine my consternation when, as I started advanced algebra as a junior, I found that only one girl remained taking this math course, while it had filled up with jocks...not exactly "dumb jocks"...but athletes who had been counseled to take it because they were destined for college via athletic scholarships. These guys were, shall we say, less than enthusiastic about the course and spent more time trying to copy my work than studying or doing homework.

When I went around to all my former female classmates to discover why they had dropped out, each told the same story. They had been told by their senior counselors (I was a grade ahead of most of my classmates) that they would have "no need" for advanced mathematics as housewives and mothers. The assumption was plain and simple. None of them would attend college. And, this "prediction" proved to be quite accurate. Out of my graduating class of 110, only one girl started college in the fall. I found this situation pathetic and often said so.

Still, with all this indignation and rebellion burning in my heart, I entered adulthood with only marginally better attitudes toward the intellects and constitutions of women, both the "average" woman and the woman to whom I was first married, Mary. Perhaps I had just become accustomed to "common knowledge." Perhaps I was not as resolute as I remember myself to be. In any case, Mary had to put up with a stubborn know-it-all asshole for much of her married life. Since I considered myself to be smarter and better informed than she, I seldom backed down from any intellectual position I had taken, regardless if it concerned matters of fact, or simply matters of opinion.

Entering into consensual bigamy (See: Bigamy - I) gave her a slight respite. As I have said before, while it was relatively easy for one large, smart-assed male to dominate just about any woman, there was no way I could stand up to two intelligent, determined and UNITED women. Nevertheless, I attributed my "losses" in disputes to being overwhelmed by force, not by the simpler and more accurate observation that I was wrong. They, of course, said this, but I didn't really believe it.

If you buy them from here, we get a kickback!

Fortunately, we were both wrong. I relented first and begged her to take me back. She accepted, but, still smarting from her many negative experiences with men, did not reveal just how much she had wanted me to come back until much later, when she trusted me more. So I returned, with hat in hand, to Minneapolis. But, I had a plan. I had decided, during one of my many lonely evenings in Oakland, that if I ever got a chance again, I was going to give in, as quickly as possible, in each and every dispute. Regardless of whether I thought I was right or wrong, I was going to act as though I was at fault and accept whatever "solution" presented to me by Gypsy.

At first Gypsy thought this new behavior was condescending bullshit and one could hardly blame her. She KNEW that I did not give up that easily when I thought I was in the right. But, after many hours of patiently explaining what I was doing, after many fights in which I adopted this strategy, she began to believe I was sincere. Nor, was it necessary for me to lie. Even when I thought she was wrong, I explained that I was going to BEHAVE as though she were right. That way, if I sincerely followed HER prescription...ALWAYS...we would BOTH find out the truth.

And that is what happened. Usually it WAS me who was in error. Years of experience as an alpha male was strong conditioning to overcome. When it had been her who was mistaken, she quickly realized it and relented. Even though it took a hard toll on my ego and testosterone flow, the give-up-gambit was so successful in resolving disputes that it became easier and easier to perform as years went by. We never again separated for longer than hours and were able in almost all cases to quickly and relatively painlessly resolve our disputes. Recently, I finally got some outside reinforcement for this strategy when I found, by reading a newspaper article, that marriage counselors were now advising males to do just what I had been doing all those years and...lo and behold...it WORKS!

So, that is why I AM pussywhipped...and why I am proud of it.

See you tomorrow...

...the best independent ISP in the Twin Cities

The Dream Machine --- Network Services

A newspaper near you.