"The other night, I organized a dinner for a bunch of evolutionary psychologists in and around LA -- from Santa Barbara to Fullerton to Redlands --..."

Say, Ginger Peterson. Jezebel. Sadly No. Pay attention. See what a professional in the field of human behavior does?

Take a lesson!

I'm a nerd -- the highlight of my life is dinner with other nerds. Most are writing some really interesting books -- or about to have them published.

I agree with your take on the sex differences 100% and always love how it permeates your romance advice, especially those women who are always trying to change a man.

It reminds me of the time my son, about age 12 or 13 at the time asked me "...well what if I want to grow up and have a different wife every 5 years and well... who invented all these rules anyway... and who is this "society" I am always hearing about? I wanna know WHO in society got to decide all this stuff and why I didn't get a vote!?" We were taking about a discussion they had been having in their 8th grade class about marriage and family life."

After I informed him that we didn't live in Utah we had a great discussion about how norms and mores evolve in a culture and how we don't always have to follow the conventional wisdom but we do have to obey the law and fortunately for him, in a democratic society, he would always have lots of choice and free will. Then he wanted to know who got to decide what all the swear words would be.

I would have loved to have been at that dinner table or at the very least been a fly on the wall!

talking*

My NaNo project this year is erotic fiction. I'm trying to portray the characters' motivation and actions realistically. There's very little out there in the market (internet freebies aside) that portrays a realistic relationship in which the female is submissive in more than a situational, damsel-in-distress way. I believe there's a small market for it, but almost everything I've read by men tends to completely sexualize the women and female authors make the men into either scary monsters or guys who eventually realize that love is what matters; the kink equivalent of the much-overused Reformed Rake. I'm constantly asking guys, "Would a man say/do X?" My goal is to write something that men and women will like. Of course it'll never be published, because the few publishing houses that accept kink still insist on a happy ending, and what constitutes a happy ending for men is different than it is for women.

Ah but you're a cool stylish nerd, Amy. :-) Warrior Lovers will always be a special book for me, my first. A girl always remembers her first. :-)

Biology remains the same; how societies support, nurture, attack, or try to mold it -- for better, but usually worse, varies. Do men want women to act like men and vice versa because of biology, or have social values so permeated the process as to render it hopelessly confused? Yet societies by definition, create rules and roles. Which societies have tampered least with the biological relationship between men and women? Or at least done the most to accommodate it? Where can a man be a man and a woman a woman, as they evolve through stages and ages, with the least dissatisfaction? Finally, if wanting love is natural to a woman, why can't it be natural - tho not predominant - for men. What is "love" anyway, without all the social, religious and literature-derived additives? Isn't much if literature an attempt to describe and quantify that feeling? I naturally feel love and society tells me what to call the feeling and what it means and what I can and cannot do about it. Not that there's just one socially approved way. Which is why we're always ruminating about this, trying to find our way.

Ah but you're a cool stylish nerd, Amy. :-)

The feeling is mutual!

Plus, I'll always fondly remember the day I got my Ph.D., simply by virtue of sharing a Vegas hotel room with you.

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/01/29/i_got_my_phd.html

Twins researcher Nancy Segal joked that I could tell people I got my doctorate at the University of Riviera (URLV).

heh, it always cracks me up how women react to having their romance novels called pr0n... "oh, but it ins't that, it's literature."

But there is an important difference, and an odd one. Women and men both say they want a specific something, but it's rarely simple in real terms. The only way I can say it I think is this:

We want what we want from a partner, but we ALSO want to be resisted. Probably so that we can still respect that person as an individual, and separate from us.

My wife reads Jude Devereaux, Mary Balogh and many others. The books usually have a shirtless man and a woman in a low cut dress on the cover. Our granddaughter calls them 'Grandma porn'.

One of the things I love about her is that she doesn't try to change me. I don't think she has a stereotypical woman's view of romance. Love is the way we treat each other, not some fairytale castle in the sky.

To Rosemary:

Was your son really talking about polygamy and not about simply marrying and divorcing every five years? Bizarre. BTW, if he was, tell him that one not-so-minor reason MEN might oppose polygamy (or at least don't fight for it) is that polygamist wives often Do Not Get Along. See Fauziya Kassindja’s book “Do They Hear You When you Cry?" When she was ten (in Togo), she saw two wives of the same man beating each other up; one wife had stolen something belonging to the other and the other wife had retaliated by throwing boiling water at her back. All Fauziya could think, afterward, was "and those two women still have to live in the same house."

Anyway, regarding the question "why didn't I get a vote about what the laws say" I think the obvious answer is: "Because you're 13."

Maybe the important thing to tell him is that when you're too young to vote, you may firmly believe that you will never agree with your elders on ANY issue, whether it's the importance of not eating greasy food every day, the penalties for breaking certain traffic laws, or the importance of not letting kids under 18 vote. However, there's a REASON we tend to change our minds about many things when we Grow Up. (Just how many people in their twenties think it would be a good idea for 16-year-olds to vote - or, more importantly, would be willing to fight for their right to vote when even most 16-year-olds aren't eager to fight for it?)

And, even if we move away from the law and into etiquette matters, such as our "right" to swear when and where we please, well, that's sort of like junk food or too many video games; we THINK we'd be much happier if we could do it far more often than once a week, but when we grow up and realize how much we benefited from the diets and all the TIME spent on books, outdoor games and proper social skills that our parents forced on us, chances are we won't be able to say that we're still miserable, as adults, about not being allowed to grow fat and brain-dead. (Not to mention not having the ability to STOP ourselves from using four-letter words with every other word on those occasions where one really needs to stop oneself.)

There are those, like the founders of "South Park," who argue that we NEED to use foul language as much as possible so the words won't sting anymore and so people will stop using them as weapons. I think it should be obvious that that won't work - people who want to offend will just come up with nastier insults, and on and on it goes. In short, we NEED to have something to offend us. Little kids, especially, who use foul language, often do so simply because they get angry when they're ignored - but since most kids are born narcissists, it should be clear that the LAST thing they need is more attention! Not to say they shouldn't be punished for bad behavior or language - but punishment doesn't have to involve giving a kid a lot of attention.

Little kids, especially, who use foul language, often do so simply because they get angry when they're ignored - but since most kids are born narcissists, it should be clear that the LAST thing they need is more attention!
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I meant to say "because they get angry when they, the kids, are ignored." Such as when it's raining, the kid can't go out, gets in a bad mood as a result, and resents that that mood is being ignored.

But either way, it makes sense.

"Then he wanted to know who got to decide what all the swear words would be."

Belgium!

Heh. Cousin Dave knows where his towel is!

"A lot of women don't understand how male sexuality and female sexuality differ"

Women in the past were well-aware of this difference, and approached it in a more realistic (meaning "adult") manner. Various "oppressive" social structures and practices, imposed mostly by women on men, served to help bridge the gap and moderate the impact.

Today, thanks to the incessant man-bashing of feminism, libertine females feel ENTITLED to demand their fantasies while they demonize those horrible, horny, rapis ..., uh, men.

These usually porky, wanna-be strumpets look up from the paperback with the impossibly handsome, fabulously muscular ravisher-at-the-ready on its cover only long enough to whine that media creates unrealistic standards of female beauty. Then back to the tale of the cruel pirate who, with the help of our heroine and her intoxicating charms, ends up appreciating, and serving, the goddess within each precious woman!

Are relations between the sexes (say "genders" and I'll puke on your shoes) really going to devolve to the point where men, like nervous gazelles drinking at the riverbank, have no choice but to try and snatch a bit o' poon as quickly as possible before they beat as hasty a retreat as possible back to the relative safety of their man-caves? Sure looks like it.

In my local bookstore there's a spot I call the dating section. On the one side are all the pulpy bodice rippers. On the other side are all the graphic novels and trade paperbacks, half of them with buxom spandex-clad women. It makes me chuckle.

And, if I may add this:

It might make a difference if a man were to tell your son that if ADULT males go along with all those silly, stupid rules that boys think only women care about, whether it's eating with utensils, refraining from bodily noises, or writing thank-you emails, it's not because they're henpecked or just trying to get laid - they just understand that becoming an adult has to involve a lot of self-control in multiple areas; how else do you prove that you deserve to be RESPECTED as an adult? I.e., they LIKE being well-mannered once they reach a certain age and get used to it.

Off on a tangent: I'd like to add that there are FOUR types of respect, which overlap much of the time, but they don't have to. Namely, in order, grudging acceptance (as of someone in the community whose politics you loathe), common courtesy, deference (as to a superior) and admiration.

So, one might say: "Courtesy is your right; admiration is what you earn."

However, "common courtesy towards adults," when you're a child, clearly mandates deference, though not admiration.

Most women are taught (brainwashed) that men and women are the same. When they see male behavior that is not feminized they think men are horrible.
I'm amazed at seemingly bright women in their 40's, that are clueless about the differences in male and female sexuality and the imbalances that exist.
I like to use the example that almost any woman can go out and start hitchhiking and be picked up within minutes by a man and be having sex with a man in minutes. She can repeat this pattern multiple times per day everyday of the year.
I as a male can go out to the same street and hitchhike and may not be given a ride at all by any women and in a year and there is a good possibility that I would never be picked up and have sex with a woman.
This usually causes the women I explain this to to go Huh! Never thought about it that way.

There is a huge difference between romance novels and erotic fiction but it seems that the two are being confused by some here. I am a collector of erotic literature but you would never catch me reading a romance novel.

Beth, are you planning to write a romance or an erotic story because you say 'erotic' but you describe 'romance.' Love has nothing to do with erotic literature, neither does painting men as demons. In fact, from your comment I would say that you have never even read a book of erotica. The last thing I want in my erotic novel is a bunch of shit about motivation. I want to be titillated not bored.
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"almost everything I've read by men tends to completely sexualize the women and female authors make the men into either scary monsters or guys who eventually realize that love is what matters;" Beth.
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The statement above proves my point. Erotica is about fucking not emotions. There would be nothing more pointless than making the man an object of disgust rather than an object of lust in an erotic story. The point of the story is to arouse lust not emotions. There are plenty of erotic novels out there that have the submissive-dominant roles, I cannot say if romance novels do or not.