It’s About Making Babies!

Cathouse Teri welcomes spring with Sweet Cherry Wine at The Road Lester Traveled.

But spring is often the season that scares women. We’ve been able to hide our bodies under layers of thick clothing for months. Now we’re afraid that our flesh is..

And we all know how the fears go. But should this be an annual, lifelong fear?

Who needs this?

At the end of Angel and the Bad Man, John Wayne drops his gun in the street, rides off into the sunset with his sweetie “I’m a farmer!” he tells the Sheriff.

The Sheriff comments, “Only a man that carries one, needs a gun.”

I think this is true of much of fashion and cosmetics and advertising (sex) gimmicks are horrible. Worse than drugs or booze, or sexual violence, they destroy the ability for most people to live and enjoy their lives. According to the ads, I need an iPhone, an iPod, six or seven new cars, my face pierced, pills and devices to make my stomach smaller and enlarge my .. ahem.

Like the barn cats care. They get their cat food twice a day, and I don’t see them around.

Is it too strong to say, for most women, only one that wears a brassiere, needs one? In some neighborhoods you might not have a choice.

Wearing a bra most often will emphasize the sexual experience characteristics of a woman’s breasts. Does the absence of a bra also signify sexually active and desirable? In a skin-tight t-shirt it does. What about while nursing? Usually the baby, and the mother’s care and joy capture my thoughts.

Is it too strong to say, if you don’t live like a sex object, you are free to live like a happy person without rating your body (parts) on sex appeal? Except the smile. The smile is critical, in my opinion, in getting to know good people.

I mean, if a guy follows a shapely or tanned butt or legs home – what makes you think that he won’t follow another one home in a month or a year? Wouldn’t you rather have a spouse-candidate that knows and appreciates who you are – and respects you, not your tan lines or leg size?

So, Cathouse Teri and all those with mixed feelings about exposure – enjoy the sun and breeze. Figure anyone that matters to you won’t care about how your parts measure on a sex appeal scale. Let them gawk or not. It isn’t your problem.

Peace!

Cathouse Teri responded to an informal email poll that posed the question:

“What should a man do if he is unhappy with his girlfriend’s or wife’s
weight?”

Annie at Smart at Love is looking into relationships and values.

Well, this question seems to have triggered something for Teri. Because her post is quite blunt = a woman’s worth doesn’t change with her weigth. She even closes with:

And then, things change. We change. We all do. This is not a bad thing. I once heard that a woman marries a man expecting him to change and a man marries a woman expecting her not to. And they are both doomed to disappointment. So there’s the rub.

But I think Teri is overlooking something pretty fundamental. Women often sell themselves to men based on their appearance – fashion, makeup, breast size, slinky form and movement. When does ‘change’ become bait-and-switch? At what point should a man be disappointed, that a woman that flaunts cleavage, prominent and shapely hips and thighs discards the effort to portray that particular image she used to ‘win’ him in the first place? At what point does it become a matter of disrespect to unilaterally decide to crop the hair, drop the fancy undergarments, stop the fixation on calories?

Women are the ones that place the emphasis on size and ‘cute’ and fashion for personal worth. Have you never heard an engaged woman comment about losing weight to fit into a particular bridal gown? Or a woman wanting to lose weight for a reunion or beach outing, or ??

When you doll up to catch a guy’s eye – you get a guy that bought what you sold. Surprise! If you snag that Man Of Your Dreams with some particular perfume, don’t be surprised when later his attention wanders when someone else wears it in his vicinity.

When, like Scarlett in Gone With The Wind, you buy into the slim waist/emphasized bust to be ‘attractive’ – why would you even blink, to think that he would expect those ‘assets’ to still have their initial ‘value’ even years down the road?

Yet we still have echoes of the old stereotypes – “Guys don’t make passes at girls that wear glasses”, “Men don’t like smart women”. I don’t hold with much of this. I contend that the guy you bring home because of your Wonder Bra or makeup or because you act silly instead of intelligent and aware – isn’t something to be allowed in the house, nor someone likely to be content to stay at home. Not all of the ‘follow the provocative fashion/image’ guys need to be that way – their parents (mothers) and sisters and classmates train them that breasts and skinny legs and abdomen are the “Bees Knees”.

About the weight thing. I got the same question from Annie. And I said “Tell her”. Because weight should be about health and change, not basic worth of the person. If there are emotional or health or stress changes that add or drop weight – both parties need to be aware of the causes. You know, like the current country song that goes “She never cried in front of me.”

And I am shocked. Shocked! that Teri assumed ‘unhappy about her weight’ meant added pounds, not added or lost pounds. Shocking!

Remember when one of the euphemisms for married was ‘help mate’? The assumption used to be, back in the wild and wooly west days, that life was a lot of work, and a man needed a woman *working with him* just to survive. There was generally a lot more work than food available. Today many people, men and women, have the couch potato ideal of married life. And it takes time to settle in – that being married should not be as much about spending leisure time together, as getting more work done together.

If you want to predict what your spouse might become, take a gander at his/her parents and extended family. See what the genes are, see what family recreations, eating habits, and work ethics they grew up around. Consider whether you are looking at a construction worker or manual laborer, or someone with sedentary work. Consider whether you will be gardening and raising livestock – or waiting for the neighbor kid to rake the leaves and mow the grass.

Exercise is a leisure activity. One that is difficult to allow time for, when there is little activity in your lifestyle – one leisure activity seems as valuable as another, on some scale. So you do have to understand your mate’s ambitions for career, for life goals, for why they want a spouse.

Picking a spouse solely to be a sex partner .. leaves a lot of unanswered questions about what to expect.