Despite our best efforts to dissuade you, many of you have still decided to write to us with your problems, complaints and crises of the moment. We don't have a trained therapist on staff, and this isn't "Dear F*ckin' Abbey", but we DO have Bonnie, who has graciously volunteered her time and heartless perspectives in order to minister to (or macerate) the misguided, with "Dear Fuckin' Bon..."

January 16, 2003

Dear Bon,

I'm just writing to say that I read your Oct. 3 answer to D.K. Jack's question about "conscious" women, and for one of the only times I disagree with you. I think you've focused on the wrong issue. The issue is not male versus female sexual roles, as you have painted it, but rather moral values as they apply to ALL persons. Mr. Jack, although he may be uncomfortable talking about sexuality, is reacting from the moral position that having sex with a married person is unethical, because he feels that cheating is wrong and being a knowing accomplice to it is also wrong. This woman clearly does not feel that way, and feels, as you do, that there is nothing wrong with sleeping with a married person - the cheating is being done by her partner and is therefore his problem. These are both valid moral positions, and the fact that they disagree on this point suggests a fundamental incompatibility. Considering how obviously strongly Mr. Jack feels about this issue, I don't think it would be a good idea for the two to get back together.

It is curious to note that, like on so many moral issues, the two sides do not understand where the other is coming from, or are not even conscious that the other view exists. This is the "consciousness" to which Mr. Jack refers - he expresses incredulity not at hearing a woman express her sexuality (as you have wrongly assessed), but at the fact that she does not share his view on this particular moral issue (she is not "conscious" of it). Mr. Jack is, ironically, equally unconscious of the woman's moral stance.

You identified with the woman and, apparently unaware of Mr. Jack's moral position, could not see what he was complaining about, and extrapolated that he must have a problem hearing women talk about sex.

Sincerely,
Tweenie

Dear Tweenie,
Thanks for the interesting point, though I suspect that it's a bit of a hot button for you personally, perhaps. I did say that if he felt strongly about his narrow view of sexuality (in terms of being more "narrow", which you would perhaps term as more "moral") that it's good to get that up front from the beginning, and that he didn't continue the relationship.

The bigger point is that he wrote asking about our view of a "conscious" woman, not about his or her morality. That her morality wasn't "good enough" for him was never really in question. He was clear about that. However, she may well choose her "immoral" activity very consciously. The most conscious women AND men that *I* personally know are very conscious of what they want, whether it is a monogamous relationship, serial monogamy, non-monogamy, bisexuality with a commited partner of one gender, etc... For example, I know one or two extremely conscious poly people who are scrupulously honest and caring and very moral, while others would consider the poly lifestyle as immoral from the get-go. Ditto another relationship where the woman is committed to her female partner, but has the occasional fling with a man for jollies.

I found it amusing that you thought I "identified" with the woman, particularly given that I was pretty clear that I don't think it's a wise idea to be involved with married or otherwise committed people. However I stand by what I said about the other issues, and I still think that his description of how she "gradually disclosed" and then his complaint of her "embellished" suggests that he was jealous but pushed her to tell him all about it. At the very least, it doesn't sound as if he told her how uncomfortable he was with the description. That to me suggests that as you say, he is unconscious of her moral views, yet at the same time wanted to hear all the dirty details; AND he also then wrote to us for help in finding a "conscious" woman, which in his case can only mean a woman who agrees with his moral perspective. He seems to assume that WE agree with his moral perspective. The reason I nailed him for judging her was because he's asking about finding a "conscious" woman, he didn't ask me about finding a woman whose "morals" matched his. I'm not convinced that the woman in question was "unconscious", and I think that his judgement is pretty hypocritical. If someone says something offensive, speak up, and if they continue, go somewhere else. Further, that he wrote to a site which encourages open minds and also personal responsibility and which doesn't suffer fools is really weird in his case.

Anyway, thanks for your opinion, I rarely (read: this is the first time) get disagreeing feedback except for attention-seeking loons who write a half-dozen times trying to make a point which I didn't agree with the first time (one actually subsequently tried to go "over my head" by whining to the Supreme Bitch; You may someday see that series in the Manipulator files) but I stand by what I wrote. I think you may have responded only to those parts of the information that may be a hot button for you personally, but I am still going to nail the "unconscious" people who write to me complaining about someone else (who did NOT write to us) in a hypocritical fashion.

In other words, any given person's "morals" do not apply to all people all the time. My morals, which include monogamy (at the moment, har) may not apply to you, but I'm not going to judge you "unconscious" or anything else because of that. Where did he get off being so judgemental?

bon