Sammy Sams,

“How else will you know I read what you write? 😆”
Well played! 🙂

“Everything sounds better with an exotic accent. 😁”
Very true. I was just watching a movie the other day with actor Simon Baker, who’s Australian. He’s really hot but the accent puts him over the edge … to almost obscene. 🙂

“Yes, I know the story/dialogue in Dick Tracey is meant to be camp. ”
Yes, exactly. It’s camp.

“Keeping that in mind, I don’t think Madonna was a bad casting choice – not at all. She seems a natural for the film. ”
She was, but I think she could have camped it up even more.
I went to see the movie in the theater when it came out and men howled when she was first on screen.

“I think even Madonna’s dad – not usually a fan of her work – was very proud of her turn in Dick Tracey. 😉”
That’s because she was fully dressed. 🙂 And also the movie has a 1940s, film-noir quality.

“I think some of Madonna’s bad reviews had more to do with critics being jealous of her massive popularity than with any truly awful performances. Sometimes, it’s cool to knock people when they’re at the peak of their success. ”
That’s true. We build people up, only to knock them down. Martin Amis wrote that Madonna isn’t greatly gifted or deeply beautiful. There’s some truth to that, but he missed the point. It’s her confidence.

Sammy Sams,
” Don’t ask silly questions, dear. 🙂”
I’m gonna let that slide because you look like Robert Redford. 🙂

“I do think, however, if we paint the picture in the broadest strokes possible, and leave out room for individual nuance, it does seem to me that heterosexuality does involve males in hot pursuit (the male default position?) and females choosing to respond to that pursuit in a variety of different ways – whether it be mutual pursuit, feigned pursuit, feigned retreat, or genuine retreat. 🤔”
Yes, I think there’s a lot of truth to this. But I’d also add that secure people, whether men or women, don’t pursue. They show interest, but if the person they’re interested in starts playing hot and cold or hard to get, they put their attention elsewhere. Limerence isn’t a healthy mating response. It’s not healthy to keep going up to bat for someone who is giving mixed or hard-to-read signals.

“of sexual veto always rests with the female and the power of pair-bonding veto too.”
Sexual veto, yes, but pair-bonding rests (and I’m speaking in broad strokes) with the man. Women are the gatekeepers to sex; men to commitment.

“If all this is true, then a woman who feels this way must be exceptionally cunning to make sure that the RIGHT man is pursuing her. She must find a way to signal her interest to the correct target.”
Women have been signaling the men they want for centuries. At the turn of the century (not this most recent century, the one before that) … and Adam can attest to this more 🙂 …. women would drop their handkerchief near the guy they wanted so he’d pick it up. It’s no different than, “Oh, I didn’t know you were going to be at this school activity. I’ll just sit next to you.”

“This exercise could backfire spectacularly because: (1) the correct target may be indifferent, (2) the correct target may be interested but unobservant, (4) the woman may be signaling a man society says is ineligible for such signals, since he is already spoken for.”
It’s not different than a man showing interest in a woman. He could encounter all these scenarios.

“(3) other males may pick up on the female signal and think it’s about them instead, putting the woman in a very awkward position”
Nah. With my LO, I aimed most of my attention at him. I don’t think it was hard to interpret he was the one I was interested in.

“Perhaps it’s just females don’t wish to make too flagrant a display of desire, because females want the male to risk rejection/social embarrassment should romantic negotiations ultimately prove unsuccessful?”
I think that’s true in general, not just of teenage girls. Women tend to be much more subtle in their display of interest. Society will judge them if they’re too forward, and women are told from an early age that men are the ones who approach and initiate. She’s seen as tacky or desperate if she does too much.

“But they are also the great cowards of the high school dating scene). 🙄🤣”
No more so than teenage boys.

“Heterosexuality puts men in an awful bind i.e. men who want a serious relationship usually have to prove to society (and to women) that they, the men, are worthy. ”
I don’t see it that way. Most women want a commitment. Heterosexual men have what women want.

“When a woman is obliged to deploy her charms to attract multiple men – most of whom she must reject – this seeming “false display of interest/attraction” on the part of the female does create resentment among the males rejected.”
Why does she need to attract multiple men if she knows which guy she wants? I mean, there may be women who like to have a lot of options and don’t know ]who they want. But if you’re asking me … as a general rule … I usually had my eye on someone, back in the day. If a different guy approached me, that didn’t create an opportunity for him. (Not always, but as a general rule.)

“For example, does culture shape the way men and women go about pursuing each other?”
Most definitely. It shapes gender, too. To certain extent, gender is ingrained; to a certain extent, I think it’s a performance.

” I don’t know if one sex becomes more dominant, or whether the sexes take turns at being dominant?”
I don’t think so. I don’t think one side has any more power than the other. It only feels that way if you can’t get the person you want.

“I don’t know if gay men exert some subtle calming effect on the straight men around them? But in some weird way, the existence of gay men does make the world more hospitable and less stressful for females – at least according to this article. 🙂”
I think there can be a deep friendship between gay men and women because sex isn’t on the table. Gore Vidal said, “It is very easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part, and impossible when it does.” Apparently, he and his lifelong partner had sex, but not with each other. If you watched that recent series “Capote vs. the Swans,” about writer Truman Capote and the high-society women he befriended, Capote was closest to a woman named Babe Paley. And (from what the series infers), Truman was her big love. It wasn’t her husband.

“Have I sent you to sleep yet? 🙂”
Best night’s sleep I’ve had in years. 🙂

@Marcia.

“That was a line of hers that I posted on here a few weeks ago. To you! Don’t reuse my line! 🙂”

How else will you know I read what you write? 😆

“Really? I hate it. It’s as bad as Adam’s “gal.” 🙂 The gal, who’s a spinster, is wearing pantyhose, holding her pocketbook and sitting on the davenport. 🙂 What other old-fashioned words can we use? Pshaw! 🙂”

Have you tried saying it with an Australian accent? Everything sounds better with an exotic accent. 😁

“It’s supposed to be funny.

It’s not supposed to be believable. The movie is based on a comic strip.”

Yes, I know the story/dialogue in Dick Tracey is meant to be camp. Keeping that in mind, I don’t think Madonna was a bad casting choice – not at all. She seems a natural for the film. But, honestly, I couldn’t some of the lines while keeping a straight face. 😉

“I’d agree she’s not a great actress, but she was fine in Dick Tracy. And she was good in the first movie she was in: Desperately Seeking Susan.”

I think even Madonna’s dad – not usually a fan of her work – was very proud of her turn in Dick Tracey. 😉

I think some of Madonna’s bad reviews had more to do with critics being jealous of her massive popularity than with any truly awful performances. Sometimes, it’s cool to knock people when they’re at the peak of their success. Madonna should be commended for trying a lot of different things. But I think she did some things better than others.

@Marcia.

“Does that make me a man? 🙂”

No, of course not, Marcia. Don’t ask silly questions, dear. 🙂

I did say people were allowed to add their own knowledge to my own, so we can get the fullest picture possible…

I do think, however, if we paint the picture in the broadest strokes possible, and leave out room for individual nuance, it does seem to me that heterosexuality does involve males in hot pursuit (the male default position?) and females choosing to respond to that pursuit in a variety of different ways – whether it be mutual pursuit, feigned pursuit, feigned retreat, or genuine retreat. 🤔

Except in brutal premodern societies where female choice is not upheld, and males impose their will on females by force, the power of sexual veto always rests with the female and the power of pair-bonding veto too. I.e. females may not always attract the man they want, and they may not always be able to marry the man they want, but they can always reject the many men they don’t want. 😉

“But I’d say I really wanted my LO. Desired him. Was aroused by him. Definitely. Wanted to get up on him and smell him. 🙂 Some of that was triggered by what I perceived was his interest in me, but it wasn’t entirely based on that.”

If all this is true, then a woman who feels this way must be exceptionally cunning to make sure that the RIGHT man is pursuing her. She must find a way to signal her interest to the correct target.

This exercise could backfire spectacularly because: (1) the correct target may be indifferent, (2) the correct target may be interested but unobservant, (3) other males may pick up on the female signal and think it’s about them instead, putting the woman in a very awkward position, (4) the woman may be signalling a man society says is ineligible for such signals, since he is already spoken for.

Let’s talk about teenagers since teenagers make such great examples. From what I’ve observed, teenage females seem to daydream over teenage males a lot, but are reluctant to approach teenage males. Perhaps it’s not that females aren’t aroused by males to the extent that males are aroused by females. Perhaps it’s just females don’t wish to make too flagrant a display of desire, because females want the male to risk rejection/social embarrassment should romantic negotiations ultimately prove unsuccessful? (Teenage girls are shrewd social animals. But they are also the great cowards of the high school dating scene). 🙄🤣

Heterosexuality puts men in an awful bind i.e. men who want a serious relationship usually have to prove to society (and to women) that they, the men, are worthy. But heterosexuality also puts women in an awful bind too, as I think you or someone else mentioned. A woman must deploy her charms to attract multiple eligible men and yet ideally she’s only allowed to choose one.

When a woman is obliged to deploy her charms to attract multiple men – most of whom she must reject – this seeming “false display of interest/attraction” on the part of the female does create resentment among the males rejected. Also, rejected males may come to resent the successful male and wish to cast aspersions on his name. (Clearly, he won by cheating, for how can he be objectively more desirable than the other contenders?) 🤔

Also, there’s the question of how “natural” heterosexuality is in modern contexts. For example, does culture shape the way men and women go about pursuing each other? From what I’ve observed in high school, which presumably was a fairly unbiased environment, heterosexuality – at least in its initial stages – did seem like a collaborative, egalitarian exercise between males and females.

In other words, adolescent males and adolescent females were working together to find ways to be together, and the common enemy was seen as “the authorities” in the form of parents. teachers, etc. I don’t know if males and females change mating habits once they’re fully adult and no longer answerable to “the authorities” of their youth? I don’t know if one sex becomes more dominant, or whether the sexes take turns at being dominant?

One article I read suggested male homosexuality exists because apparently it allows the females in a given population greater choice in the mating market. I don’t know if this is because gay males aren’t competing for women? (I don’t follow the logic of this because fewer eligible males = fewer men for women to pick from).

I don’t know if the mere presence of gay men makes a social environment feel safer for women, even if straight men are also present? (When gay men are present, women feel confident enough to stand up to straight men who make overly aggressive sexual advances?) I don’t know if gay men exert some subtle calming effect on the straight men around them? But in some weird way, the existence of gay men does make the world more hospitable and less stressful for females – at least according to this article. 🙂

Have I sent you to sleep yet? 🙂

Sammy Sams,

“The word “nun” implies I might be getting “none”, as one Miss Blanche Devereaux shrewdly divines”
That was a line of hers that I posted on here a few weeks ago. To you! Don’t reuse my line! 🙂

“I much prefer the term “spinster”. 😁”
Really? I hate it. It’s as bad as Adam’s “gal.” 🙂 The gal, who’s a spinster, is wearing pantyhose, holding her pocketbook and sitting on the davenport. 🙂 What other old-fashioned words can we use? Pshaw! 🙂

“If this is the calibre of line she was expected to deliver”
It’s supposed to be funny.

“(Is there any way an actress can say this line without sounding unbelievable?)”
It’s not supposed to be believable. The movie is based on a comic strip.

“I’m beginning to understand why critics universally panned her acting.”
I’d agree she’s not a great actress, but she was fine in Dick Tracy. And she was good in the first movie she was in: Desperately Seeking Susan.

Sammy Sams,
“Men are aroused by women. Women are NOT aroused by men, strictly speaking. Women are aroused by being DESIRED by men. ”
To an extent, yes. But I’d say I really wanted my LO. Desired him. Was aroused by him. Definitely. Wanted to get up on him and smell him. 🙂 Some of that was triggered by what I perceived was his interest in me, but it wasn’t entirely based on that. Does that make me a man? 🙂

@Marcia.

“That’s called burying the lead, son! 🙂”

I like the way you phrase that. Burying the lead indeed. 🤣

“Were you the person they told all their secrets to?”

Apparently so. 🙄

Apparently, people are much more likely to confide their deepest, darkest secrets in the town nun than in the town woman of easy virtue. Although I don’t like being known as a nun. The word “nun” implies I might be getting “none”, as one Miss Blanche Devereaux shrewdly divines. I much prefer the term “spinster”. 😁

“Dick. That’s an interesting name.”

Madonna wasn’t exactly famed for subtlety. If this is the calibre of line she was expected to deliver, (Is there any way an actress can say this line without sounding unbelievable?), I’m beginning to understand why critics universally panned her acting. 🤣🤣🤣

@Lim-a-rant.

“So in my attempt at summary – your XLO can be aroused by anyone (woman or man) but denies the same-sex side of it (consciously or unconsciously, i’m not sure) and basically plays out a hetero existence. But he also enjoys attention and you got behind those walls so that he could be comfortable with letting some same-sex attraction ‘be’, without maybe fully admitting to himself that was what was happening. Fair summary?”

Nope. 🤣

Neither I nor my male LO ever tried to hide any physical attraction that may have existed between us from the world. I mean, I used to snuggle with him in the lunchbreak in front of his HS girlfriend. And she didn’t mind at all, because she didn’t see me as a sexual threat. She KNEW she alone held the key to his heart.

My LO and I were alone together behind closed doors many times. Nothing sexual ever happened. There was no explosive passion there waiting to be unlocked under the right circumstances. He wasn’t a closet anything… 🙄🤣🤣😜

The point I was trying to make is that only a limerent (someone with a super-OCD brain who was teetering on the brink of infatuation) would even try to make sense of the situation. Limerence is like a ridiculous mental obsession. 😁

To a non-limerent, there’s just nothing to analyse. Whatever happened, it was just a fun high school friendship, boys will be boys, etc, etc. I see teenage boys with very close friendships roaming the streets like lovers all the time. It’s just the paranoid prude in me that worried that this friendship was somehow “immoral”.

I only analysed the situation to death because (a) I was worried I might have been in love with my friend and wasn’t sure whether that was really appropriate and (b) because Christianity holds so many prohibitions against sexuality, especially the “wrong” kinds of sexuality, my brain was working overtime to understand the very complicated arena of human sexuality in general. 😉

I was looking for fast answers to questions that don’t really have answers, let alone right or wrong answers. You could say my limerence here had nothing to do with my LO and everything to do with my teenage religious guilt over sexuality. I was the one being “neurotic” and not my LO. My LO felt 100% guilt-free about his friendship with me. He wasn’t gay. (If he were gay or curious in any way, I’d definitely be happy to explore that with him. And I think he would have been happy to explore than with me too, since he was so comfortable with me, both emotionally and physically. He just didn’t have any true sexual interest in males). If “no true sexual interest in males” = straight, I guess he was a straight man. 😇

On the other hand, he wasn’t antigay. He wasn’t homophobic on either a biological level or a cultural level, despite being a fundie Christian. He enjoyed physical contact with me, and attention too, but never came across as bisexual or bicurious. He had no problem with me or with any aspect of our interaction. Come to think of it, I think he just genuinely liked me as a human being!! 😲

People have a lot of different sexual turn-ons and turn-offs. I guess a “turn-on” for me, at least at one point in my life, was pheromones contained in male sweat. But only a tiny percentage of males seemed to possess the “right smell”.

An immunologist would say right/wrong smells relate to women’s need to track a man who can give her diverse genes that will ensure her baby has the healthiest immune system possible. Scent can guide a woman to a healthy male partner whose genes (combined with her own genes) are going to make a healthy baby.

If we’re talking purely physical attraction, scent may be a much-overlooked factor in what can attract a heterosexual female powerfully to a given male partner, and prefer to start a sexual relationship with him over countless other men. Scent may help a woman make up her mind over who she wants for pair-bonding purposes.

Why do I, as a male, sometimes think some men smell sexy, is hard to say. Unless, as Camille Paglia argues, I’m just “caught up in my mother’s Eros”. I.e. the smells my mother likely found sexy I also find sexy. (I was very close to my mother growing up, and had trouble “breaking away” from her emotionally). My mother unconsciously thought my dad smelled great. I, as a much more self-aware person, consciously think my dad smells great. And men who smell similar to my dad smell great also. 😆

Here’s where the story gets even weirder: I am turned on by my own body odour too. I’m not just attracted to other men’s male scent. I attracted to my own male scent. I think this is an area where straight men and “complex” men significantly differ in terms of arousal.

I.e. I am turned on by my own reflection (physical image) in the mirror and by the way I smell. If I told this to a straight male friend, he would look at me as if I were insane. Straight men usually aren’t aroused by their OWN bodies and their OWN pheromones. But they ARE very interested in a woman’s body (visually) and a woman’s pheromones. I seem to have some sort of deep erotic investment in myself whereas I think straight men invest all their erotic energy in the woman they’re seeing. (Heterosexual and bisexual women have also been known to objectify themselves, and to be turned on by their own charms in addition to a partner’s).

Basically, as a gay man, this is how I think heterosexuality works. (Feel free to contradict me if I’m wrong, or to add to my insights with complementary insights of your own). Men are aroused by women. Women are NOT aroused by men, strictly speaking. Women are aroused by being DESIRED by men. The most powerful aphrodisiac for a woman is a man’s desire for her.

Men want women and women want to be wanted by men. Sounds a bit unfair if you ask me, but it is what it is. Heterosexuality may be innately unfair i.e. men have to work a lot harder for women’s approval than women have to work for men’s approval. The so-called patriarchy is nothing more sinister than men working hard (to accumulate wealth and status) for women’s approval.

My LO? Honestly, I think he was just a very sweet guy. He was a good listener. He seemed able to “see” people and “hear” people when he interacted with them. The fact he was comfortable with my unmistakably male anatomy was just an added bonus. But, you know, he grew up with two brothers. Maybe male bodies just weren’t much of a novelty to him? Conversely, I was an only son. 🙄🤣

I think I was limerencing over this male. (Or – another possibility – I was limerencing over some other male while friends with this male, and my horrible mood swings were bleeding into both friendships and undermining both friendships). However, I don’t think either male was limerencing over me. 😊

Maybe physical closeness was mildly pleasurable for this chap in a sensual way? However, it wasn’t pleasurable for him in a limerent way. (Mild sensual pleasure and limerent euphoria are not the same thing. Apples and oranges, really). He might have been getting a very low dose of generic-touch-related pleasure, but he wasn’t getting limerent gratification.

In other words, my LO enjoyed his friendship with me, and his friendship with many individuals of both sexes, but he didn’t crave me. I may have been special to him in the sense of being one of his closest friends, but I wasn’t his “drug of choice”. Our bond wasn’t painful for him. If he had romantic feelings for me, those romantic feelings were mild and they were fleeting and for him they were a totally normal and utterly benign part of adolescence. There simply wasn’t anything shocking going on between us (from his perspective anyway). 🙂

People-pleasing tendencies = he did admit to having these. (Might be the explanation why he was so nice).

Bisexual arousal patterns = I think I’m just talking about myself here, and then projecting onto former LO. I experience whole-body arousal, you know? Not just arousal in one specific (The Netherlands?) area. My entire body tends to come “alive” in response to appropriate stimuli. I’m like some extra-terrestrial lifeform – I have pleasure receptors everywhere. My sexual response isn’t a purely male sexual response, which is why I feel a little ill-at-ease around straight men – I’m not really the same as them. I think my LO’s sexual response was a purely male sexual response. (More Netherlands, less Extra-terrestrial from Outer Space). 🤣

Fair summary: LO didn’t have any motives. He was just a straight dude being a straight dude. Straight men can be absolutely lovely. Golly gee, who knew? 😁

Sammy Sams,

” Two old men on the train looked me up and down and one said to the other in relation to me: “He must think he’s Robert Redford!” … I dress like Robert Redford does in some of his movies such as “Out of Africa”.”
You look like Robert Redford?!! And you’re just telling us that NOW? That’s called burying the lead, son! 🙂 He was so hot in “Out of Africa.” When he washes her hair and recites “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.”

“I was purer than the driven snow”
I’m sorry to hear that. 🙂
I was very painfully green in my younger years, too. Although I was dying for someone to come along and change that but was so shy and awkward, I had no idea how to lure it over to me. 🙂

“Ironically, I was attracted to the boys and the occasional girl who WERE ribald jokesters”
Everybody is. 🙂 (I’m joking. Not everyone is.)

“More irony: for some reason, my peers decided I was the perfect receptacle for salacious gossip. I sort of became the unofficial archivist of all the school’s off-colour jokes and dirty stories. And then I have OCD – so, decades later, I remember every lurid detail. 😜”
Were you the person they told all their secrets to?

Some of the best lines are spoken by Madonna in “Dick Tracy.”
“I was beginning to wonder what a girl had to do to get arrested.”
“Dick. That’s an interesting name.”
“Are you going to make a move or do I have to do everything?”

@Marcia.

“Ah, so the young Sammy was a ribald jokester! 🙂”

No, I wasn’t a ribald jokester – not by any stretch of the imagination. I was purer than the driven snow – apart from my sexy accent.

People used to apologise for using swear words around me. I had an “aura of holiness” about me. 🙄

Ironically, I was attracted to the boys and the occasional girl who WERE ribald jokesters because I liked their fun energy, and I did get most of the punchlines even if I didn’t visibly show it. My sense of humour has never not been intact, even if people around me were/are quick to classify me as prudish and/or painfully conventional. 😁

More irony: for some reason, my peers decided I was the perfect receptacle for salacious gossip. I sort of became the unofficial archivist of all the school’s off-colour jokes and dirty stories. And then I have OCD – so, decades later, I remember every lurid detail. 😜

In other news, I got paid a NOICE (that’s “nice” spoken in an Australian accent) compliment the other day. Two old men on the train looked me up and down and one said to the other in relation to me: “He must think he’s Robert Redford!”

I’ll take a win when I can get it. I think the old men were referencing my broad-brimmed hat, my shirt-jacket-in-one, my beard. I dress like Robert Bedford does in some of his movies such as “Out of Africa”. However, Redford in his heyday was known as one of the handsomest men alive, so I’m not disputing comparisons! 🙂

Also, I watched Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express” last night. Some good lines:

Femme fatale: “Eyes linger any longer, and I’ll have to charge rent!”

Dashing rake: “I’ll pay…”

Hercule Poirot: “Romance never goes unpunished, mon ami…”