Increase control by examining the obvious
Cats: Ilona's Take, the change it is a-comin'|A recent study has determined that women are too subtle in bed, and men too obtuse.
Stop the presses!! Really?!?!
Further, “poor male introspection” causes men to translate the things women say according to what they would mean if they said it.
No! Really??
(I could insert a paragraph here doing the standard “why is money wasted on studies proving what is self-evident” rant, but we’ll take that as read, shall we, and proceed. )
“Male” introspection, though? Shouldn’t that be “human” introspection? Because, yes, women are generally more facile verbally. We talk more, we like to talk more, we thrive on conversation in a way that has many men floundering, helpless and overwhelmed. But … isn’t it human nature to hear in someone else’s words what YOU would mean if you said them?
Thus the study reveals that men need to stop and consider what women say, knowing that they don’t always say exactly what they mean. She wants a sexual episode to stop, so she says “It’s getting late.” A guy might pause to consider the possibility — remote, I know, but still — that she does NOT mean “It’s getting late so let’s ditch the foreplay and go straight to the main event.”
And women, we need to stop and consider the possibility that, when dealing with simple, basic souls like yer average guy, we need to ditch the face-saving nuance and just spit it out. You want to stop now? You say, “I want to stop now.”
(If he whines and pleads and tries to coax? You say goodnight and leave. Also relevant here: episodes of rape, in which the man knows damned well she wants to stop and ignores it, were eliminated from the study.)
This is not blaming the victim. Consider this: The study also notes that, even when rape is eliminated from consideration, a full 85% of women have been in situations in which the sexual activities escalated past the point they indicated they wanted it to stop. And most of them didn’t like it. Eighty-five percent of women have been in a sexual situation that they found unpleasant.
Which proves that a lot of men are insensitive dorks, yes. But the study shows us something else, something that gives a woman the opportunity to better be mistress of her own domain, in control of what happens to her.
Here’s another possible conclusion from the study: When you’re confronted with a situation in which something is happening that you don’t like, you can either hope that the other guy will change his behaviour, or you can change your own. Since the only thing I have control over is my own behaviour, I think, in a private clinch with one other person, I’d start with my own self.
If I want to change society at large, I’ll write. 
