Risk Assessment and the Game Sexual Attraction

Our whole culture is developed around getting what you want, especially for men.  We women are used to not getting what we want unless we find a man to help.  In life the #1 rule of sales is that a No can always be turned into a Yes.     The problem is becoming more complicated with sexual ruination becoming a thing and the old rules are still out there being followed.  Look up “the art of persuasion” and “how to get a woman into bed” Women and men offer time proven advice choked full of tips and tricks.

I am fully aware of this new and potentially life altering conundrum.   Some women like to feel taken against their will.   It is part of their turn on.   Then for other women just the act itself with two consenting adults is taboo enough to cause fear.   Complicate the game by having women who have the genetic DNA of 1000s of years being considered property and only very very recently being almost treated as equal.   We all agree that temperament is genetic, right?   Women have evolved over the years and have been literally chosen and bred for their compliant nature, just like dogs, for the purpose of supporting man (in any way) and having children with a few bold and courageous women leaking thru to help the gene pool and lead charges to equality.   So let’s go back to these two women mentioned above.   These gals, both good girls, find themselves at a night club.    Woman 1 is going for the thrill of flirting and perhaps more for the evening.   Woman 2 is going to dance and have fun with girlfriends and just dancing with a man gives her the thrill.    Both women act like ingénues, one women is an actress and the other is real.   A normal man cannot tell them apart (but he should).   So now let’s add some drugs or alcohol, and some good old fashioned sexual biology.   If that combination has not all but killed morality let’s add in some male buddies to strike the final blow.   Clearly not all situations are like this.  But most situations that go south have some of these elements.  

Women have spent lifetimes perfecting risk assessment to the point that we do not even know we are doing it.   I can make a list of what I have done while I was in my teens and 20s to avoid being the recipient of cat calls or worse.  Men do risk assessment all the time in life but are having a hard time generalizing this over to women. Perhaps they have just plain discounted us.   They roll the dice and cross fingers all the time in business and they are willing to do it over and over again.  Going bankrupt, divorced or even jailed is just a stepping stone to the next step.  Men have the genetic DNA behind them and remember temperament is genetic, right?   The problem is that men have consciously been willing to take extra risks.   The greater the risk the greater the reward.   Now they are having to apply that risk to courtship which is extremely inconvenient for some.    A simple drunken transgression has the potential to bring them down as if they had sold the family farm for ocean front property in Arizona.  Worse, ruin them without a trial!   It may be wrong and not fair but it would make me stop and take notice. 

What are men and women to do??    Well probably most men are going to say we women need to lighten up, it is just sex for goodness sake.    Didn’t the sexual revolution of the 60s started and fueled by Larry Flynt and Hugh Hefner desensitize our culture?   Recently Robert Redford was quoted in response to the K decision "I feel out of place in the country I was born".   I get what he is trying to say but come on dude, it was far worse for women when you were born than it is today.  When you were born it would have been unheard of for a sexual encounter to ruin a man.  Honestly "me thinks men prosteteth WAY too much.   Ok ok, back to what are humans going to do.  First of all get better at life, be better at being a good person, parents raise your kids better, simple eh?  Women need to understand that not all women are trashy and slutty and deserve or want what they get.  Some women are in the wrong place at the wrong time and things escalated.   Men need to become better at reading women.  Seriously.   If you are driving a race car and you want to go faster and faster you need fine-tuned skills in order to not wreck or worse, kill yourself.  If you are in the corporate world making deals you need to know the person across the table and read them well or the deal could go bad.    Many of my friends are dog trainers, the only way we get better is by reading our dog better.   So the reality is, men need to read women a lot better.   Most women who fight you off really do want you to go away.    Most women who say "wait, no" at even the worst moment really do mean, no.   I would be willing to bet that the woman who really meant yes when she said no is the sort you should stay away from.   So basically any time there is even the slightest hesitation or weakest no, walk the F' away.   I can think of many more alternatives ways to not having your life ruined but to be honest men are smart, they are not stupid.  This is something easy to work out.

I have been thinking about this for some time.   There is actual precedence for what I am talking about.     Thank you, Nichole Hamilton for sharing this one.  

If you play with cats, you must expect to be scratched.   

Prophetic words, I think.   

I know that it really is inconvenient for men to add sexual encounter gone wrong to the list of things that can ruin them but life is full of things we do not like.    The reality is that there are so many men all over the world that have treated women with respect that this will only effect a small minority or the worst risk takers.  

In closing I feel we do need to give allowances to teen age brains and teen age sexual awakenings.   This has nothing to do with the K decision.   It has all to do with science and young people who are out becoming social and independent and learning about life and making the mistakes that they can learn from.   There is a reason people under 18 are usually tried as children and the record is cleaned as an adult.    Parts of the brain are still maturing and adult skills for actions and consequences don't yet exist.   These socialization years for teens are super important for their development and should not be held against them.   There is real science behind this and we need to be very careful in our outrage against children. 

Copyright 2018 Ciera Reflections. All Rights Reserved.

No Kids - happy?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/style/no-kids-happy.html

My 40s were amazing!    At 40, I was 3 years into what was turning out to be an amazing business partnership in a lucrative business.   I was minutes away from buying a brand new SL500 on my own!  I could go anywhere, buy anything, eat at good restaurants, and stay at the best hotels!   I had the 5 key possessions, a gold watch, expensive shoes, purse and sunglasses, the car, and oh yeah #6 the most amazing jeans!!   I worked out religiously and was fit and lean.   I also had fun.   I had good friends and good men in my life.    What was conspicuously missing was children.    In my 40s I might have had 20 something kids, but I did not. 

At a very early age I remember saying to my brother, “I am not getting married and I am not having kids”.   He did not believe me.    He was two and a half years younger than I.     Later, much later in our lives my brother is married and had 2 lovely good boys.    During this much later time my brother came to me and said “you were right, how did you know at 13 you were not getting married and not having kids?”     I don’t know how I knew, I just knew.   Kids are so observant and feel so much more than adults realize.   They are clean slates and have an inherent ability to understand right and wrong and who they are.    It gets all screwed up when neurotic adults get involved to condition them to wrong is right and right is wrong.   Anyway, I think I knew deep down that I was too selfish to raise children and that was wrong to be a selfish mother.    I think I did not understand that a child is actually a part of you like your hand or heart.    I did not understand because I was not raised that way.  Had I understood that a child was a piece of you and therefore fully entitled to you being selfish and selfless all over them I may have done things different.    This was the beginning of the “Age of Aquarius”, not literally, but it was an awakening and people especially young beautiful free people, were starting to think of themselves and buck tradition.   It was OK to not follow the scripted path.    I fell for it hook line and sinker!   I was growing up to satisfy me and me only.   

No regrets, no regrets ever….. until…..  OK I still have no regrets but I was so conscious in my choices I cannot regret them and they made me who I am today and that is someone who can reflect on choices. 

So to this other blogger, I say, you are hanging around the wrong people.   You possibly are unhappy and have the regrets, even tho your life is good, but you are trying to convince yourself otherwise by writing about it.    “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”   (One of my favorite quotes.)   BUT!  Good Grief, I have never been accused of being unhappy or judged (at least not in front of me) by anyone.     My confidence knows no bounds even when I am wrong.   I am very good with myself.   I have, however, envied others with their beautiful children and watched them grow to be good kids and teens and then move on to their own lives.   I have never wanted to trade places though.    My 40s were so fun, I was still young and fresh and financially secure and in some ways beautiful (at least to me).   This was not possible when I was younger, it takes years to find your place and freedom in life.   I had it all, then.   

Now in my late 50s I can reflect (without any sadness) about what it might be like to have 30 something kids and grand kids.     I think I may have missed out.    I feel more today than ever that family is everything.     I still have a wonderful life but seriously something is missing.     I am slower to get out of bed.    My travel does not include galloping a horse in a herd of Giraffe across the Masai Mara in Kenya, anymore.   I have more downtime so more time to think about what could have been.   That is the beauty of youth, we can be so busy that we never stop and truly think about things that we cannot understand at the moment but are worthy of thinking about.     How will I feel in my 60s and then 70s?   Was a wonderful life of catering simply to me worth trading for dying alone.   Only time will tell.   Those are thoughts for Future Lorelei!   HA!   I am still the same. 

Meanwhile these are some of my thoughts, today.    What do I want to do now to make my life worth having lived.  (Children and their children are your legacy)   Who am I?   Where and how do I want to spend my last 20, 10 and 5 years??     Who will ensure that a nursing home treats me with compassion??   Anyway, no need for sadness I have some answers and I know where I am going and I am excited about the future (yes still).    I have plans but no regrets.   I had to be me in order to be me.