Jun 29 2007
The Unknown Soldier in the Battle of the Sexes
It is summer and business is slow. Usually around this time I am updating server software or redesigning sites, but since I have been incredibly productive all through the year doing just that, I told myself it was time to fool around – with code. Recently I installed the gallery add-on for this blog and I started posting WebFinds until I realized that I still have a lot of drawings from the days when I used to illustrate my own articles in Dutch magazines, so I went through my archive to dig up some of these works. Most of the material is quite old and I do not see myself as a true artist when it comes to drawing or water coloring. I just had an awful lot of fun doing it. Most of the material was published with the exception of a series called Women in Pursuit.
As you may or may not know I have never been the greatest admirer of the female sex in general. I have my own personal reasons, but even from an objective point of view being born in the mid-1950s was not a good start to appreciate women. I can still recall feminists marching the streets of Utrecht, Netherlands shouting “All men should be castrated!” — over and over again. I was waiting for the police to make a few arrests but nothing happened. That was strange, because the Dutch already had fierce laws against discrimination and sexism back then. Somehow, feminists could scream, write or publish any sweeping statement about men without consequence, whereas men were dragged to court for sexist behavior almost every week. Somehow that did not seem right to me. It was not in the best interest of equality either and the turbulance was all about equality, or wasn’t it? Maybe it was about superiority? That would have been just fine with me. Only fools and madmen go for dominance and responsibility. Lately I hear a lot of women claiming that there would be no war if only women were in charge of the world. My response is predictable; “Let’s go for it!” or in the words of the late John Lennon; “Give peace a chance” and while we are at it — let us erase the name of Margaret Thatcher from our history books. You probably remember her as the “Iron Lady” who sent out a complete Armada of soldiers to conquer a few islands inhabited by a flog of sheep and a bunch of farmers who did not know what the hell was going on.
It is easy for women to say that they will bring peace to the world. Generations of women have voted for war without actual participation in the fighting. The author Céline saw his corporal’s head blown off by a grenade only to come home to his girl friend who was complaining endlessly that cooking apple beignets for the soldiers made her hair smell funny.
Many male collegues I worked with in the 1970s were sterilized for contraceptive purposes at the request of their partners. To me that was close enough to castration. Lately I often hear that these same men are undergoing multiple operations to hopefully restore the damage in order to live up to the child wish of their almost middle-aged second, or third wives. It makes me think that Freud was not such a fool after all with his theory on penis envy. To give a somewhat simular example: I was circumcised at age 16 and I still know how sex was like before circumcision. Circumcision is a mutilation of the body; it numbs the sensation in the top of the penis. Great work for kids who come too fast and tough shit for those who have a hard time getting it up. I am fully aware that circumcision narrows down the risk of cancer in the female uterus but good hygiene does the same. To me the whole concept is trivial to start with, because where I come from most women live to be at least 80, while men die a few months or years after their retirement. No excuse is good enough to compensate for the multilation of our bodies.
Most of my life I have lived in this stupid war between the sexes and when I die I do not want my name carved on a stone; I just want it to read “The Unknown Soldier in the Battle of the Sexes”.
Even if you hate this “Women in Pursuit” series; you will have to admit that it is a sincere document of a desperate man.
Women in pursuit – Gallery
Main Gallery Entrance (I am still adding pictures.)
For sure no danger for castra and supposed male to have a lost of painful pleasure with circumcision. And fortunately I’m not the one that endure clitoridectomy…so must say that my best lover (very often jew) were my best lovers.
Of course clitoridectomy is much worse; I am not comparing it to circumcision. Still I find it is hard to draw lines. Circumcision is common all over the world. Clitoridectomy in parts of Africa. I guess what I am trying to say here is that any kind of unnecessary surgery (and that includes plastic surgery on older people just to look younger) is a mutilation of the body. It’s hard to compare these mutilations. Of course circumcised men tend to be better lovers because they last longer during penetration (not me, I hate push-ups too) but we men do not have our dicks just to please women. Some of us like to please ourselves and other men too, you know. :-)
Well, I miss the rants on AMEA and I guess many others do too ‘cos it has gone very quiet there. Not sure whether the rant was anti women or anti circumcision. Sounds as if circumcision can be quite a disadvantage for a bloke in his 60s who is already desensitised somewhat from years of use … But women – they are just different, not better or worse. Generally not very logical or direct. But Mrs Thatcher was an exception – and incidentally she sent the soldiers to free the farmers – something a libertarian should applaud – and the war was short but very bloody. And it resulted in the downfall of the dictator who started it and the restoration of democracy in Argentina. Sounds like a lot of winners for the deadly price. I doubt that a male prime minister of the time would have had the guts to take the decision.
Thank you for correcting me on the role of the farmers. So, it was about liberation, once again? And the downfall of another legendary dictator? Here in the Netherlands we were told that the Brits had a hard time adjusting to the fact that Britain was not the Empire it used to be.
A situation to be compared to the Dutch who could not lose the concept of colonialism without causing some bloodshed here and there.
I admit this was one of the worst pieces. I almost agree with you on women, but the older I get the more I am convinced that women are identical to men. In my work and my private life I have seen some shining examples of back stabbing munsters. Reading texts on the web informing us that women are superior in so many ways usually triggers this kind of response. Sometimes I think I am over all that and then suddenly it hits me again, when I least expect it. I should have erased this piece, but I did not because I thought the part about circumsion/sterilization and the historic fact that Dutch feminists marched the streets calling for castration of all men (and sending them to death camps) was not noted elsewhere on the web and I think it should.