Figleaf's latest post about precious bodily fluids reminded me of an encounter that I had a few years ago, and have never quite managed to figure out.
I was living in the city that I'm going to call Nio Essia for blog purposes, just to mix up my science fictional names. The apartment building next to mine was under construction, and being the talkative animal that I am, I struck up a friendly acquaintanceship with the builders. They told me how once, while knocking out a wall, they discovered some sort of document from the late 1800s hidden inside, bearing the names of a woman who had lived there and her twelve (yes, twelve!) children. Their main comment on this discovery was "that woman spent too much time on her back".
I was so gobsmacked at this assertion that all I could muster was a blank stare and a feeble change of topic. Of course, it's both sexist and inappropriate to critique the sexual habits of a woman you've never met, but that was not the surprising thing. What dumbfounded me was the sheer illogic. Having sex twelve times in your life with your spouse is too much? Had they, these 40-ish construction workers, really had sex fewer then twelve times in their respective lives? One of them was married: did he not have sex with his wife? Or was the negative judgment only meant to apply to women who have sex more than twelve times in their lives? These seemed like excessively personal questions, so I didn't ask them (or maybe I'm just making excuses for being too slow on my feet).
I still have no idea what they could have been thinking.
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2 comments:
My guess? They weren't thinking.
What gets me is there's no assessment of her husband. I mean it sort of stands to reason he spent just as much time on his hands and knees, right? Was she supposed to be fending him off to maintain either her or his virtue? Or what? If so then how regressively progressive of them to leave the decision making up to her. :-)
Nope. Not thinking is the most likely explanation.
Take care,
figleaf
I think you're right. It's just amazing that people can fail to notice that level of inconsistency. (Making the remark to a woman shows a whole nother level of blindness. I don't think they were trying to be hostile; they had the air of people making friendly conversation and not people deliberately reminding me that my femininity makes me inferior in their eyes.) I know blindness about gender (or race, or class) can be a useful coping tool, but the mental gynmatsics are still impressive.
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