"I didn't have much patience for people like me who wanted their man to be in control. I thought they were just uninformed, misinformed, or even weak. I mean, and then meant, no offense, it's simply how I felt. Discovering I was, in part, the very thing I had snubbed, was a real eye opener for me (hence my hypocrite comment). I find much amusement in the fact that I often get a bit frustrated with my situation and want to feel more control on a more regular basis. "

I couldn't agree with this statement any more! You took the words right out of my mouth, Techiechic!

Though I don't work out of the house, I still like to be in control of all other aspects of my life. But there's just something so intoxicating about being under Sparky's (my husband's) lovingly controling hand! It just feels so right!

Great article!

Dynomite

It is interesting that you blame feminism for the failure of your first marriage. Has it ever crossed your mind that you might have had something to do with it?

Louise

"You are and always will remain sex objects in social settings. Your happiness is to be controled in relationships. Don't waste your (and our) time by demanding control. You will be unhappy if we give it to you (if we acquiesce you think us weak and lose respect). Don't waste your (and our) time by demanding equality."

I'll admit that I have no idea who the "you," "your," and "our" are that you're referring to, but I'm grateful that my husband doesn't think like you.

I am utterly befuddled by men who seem to think that the problems of male-female relationships lie strictly with the woman and a broadly (and often incorrectly) defined version of feminism. Part of being an adult (regardless of your relationship dynamic) is learning how to take responsibility for your actions, instead of blaming some inspecific group of people.

I'm 27, almost 28 and I've not had any children yet. I'm so sorry to be the cause of the downfall of western society. I'll work on popping a couple out soon so all is right with the world again.

*eye rolling*
I've read this site extensively and love most of the posts. But, then there are a select few... mostly written by pigs in men's clothing... that just irritate me. I am not a feminist, but I am however very choosey about who I would like to procreate with. I'm shocked to find out that this selectivity in a mate is bringing society down crashing around us.
My bad.

Nice first post.

Pity it was spoilt by Mr Got his Knickers in a Twist "2007 May 14 - 17:26". Many women want control and lots of men love to be sexually dominated. Don't foist your generalisations on us. This is not a one size fits all planet despite what the male leaders in Saudi, Iran or even the land of the Free might think.

Back on the original post if it works for you hand over the finances. I'm not sure I would or could but that might just be my age and stage and all the finances troubles of divorce plus never met a man better at money and tax than I am although I remain to be convinced.

I too am a professional woman who is strong, competent and well thought of in the business sector. I came to know I deeply desired and needed a Taken In Hand relationship a long time ago and am still seeking it. I have been on the other side of the feminist counter. Even though I was angry and demanding, secretly, I wanted a strong man to put me in balance so I could feel the 'containment' I so desperately needed. So, I can only speak for myself, but if there is a man who can contain this strong and professional woman, then I will feel completed and loved.

“I think there's some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.” Alan Rickman

The problems I have with the statement that women have demasuclinated men is:
1. I don't see how demanding equal rights demasculinates men. Simply having rights does not make men masculine. It certainly doesn't make women less feminine. Just because a woman wants to be able to do what men do, doesn't mean she wants to be who they are.
2. If men are strong and masculine, and women are weak and feminine, how can we take that maculinity away from them?

I will agree that there are not many examples of "macho" men on TV, but does life mirror art, or does art mirror life?

"I'm expected to do other not-so-common things, like ... not wear clothing when in bed with him."

Is this a cultural thing? Certainly in the UK nightclothes are (in my limited experience) rather rare. I should perhaps exclude my niece who would be in pyjamas until midday at least.

Please explain.

Bill

PS And another thing I discovered is that (at least two) American women were appalled at the idea of a hair brush in the kitchen. This may link back to another discussion I saw recently about being open with things that bother.

Well Bill, I can't speak for all American women, but I believe most do wear some sort of clothing to bed. I'm not really sure why. I guess it's because we always have since we were little & it's just carried over. Or maybe it's out of convenience. When getting up in the middle of the night with kids, you're already clothed. Who really knows why. It's just been my experience.

About the hair brush in the kitchen...not really sure why they were appalled except the idea of getting hair in the food being prepared. That's totally gross!

Dynomite

Yes, but the point about sitcoms like that is that the husband is the star, isn't he? He's the funniest character, and the wife is just in a supporting role.

My personal opinion is that the greatest sitcom ever was 'I Love Lucy' in which the Lucy was always behaving like an idiot, but she was the star of the show. The insipid Marge Simpson, doting slavishly on her idiot husband, is scarcely an inspirational role model for women. She may have common sense, but she seldom gets to use it, as sheis completely under Homer's thumb. I see 'The Simpsons' as far more insulting to women than it is to men, since the message of the show is that even if your husband is an idiot, you should still do what he says and put up with everything. I gave up watching 'The simpsons' some years ago because Marge's behaviour infuriated me so much.

I have never seen a girl wearing an 'I Hate Boys' t-shirt, the girls and boys I see around mostly seem to be on quite amiable terms with each other, in fact the ones I see around here remind me of the headmaster of a co-educational school who was asked how he seperated the boys from the girls; "We prise them apart with a crow-bar" he replied. You'd need to use a crow-bar on a lot of the teenagers round here in order to seperate them. There doesn't seem to be much hostility between the sexes as far as I can make out.

I can't say I practice Taken In Hand in secret, my husband has always been quite bossy, and doesn't have any particular qualms about being bossy with me within the hearing of other people, if he feels like it. We certainly don't talk about the spanking part, but then I think that is how it should be, I think things like that should be private.

I don't really care what kind of relationships my sons have, so long as they are happy, and i have no particular wish to see them in Taken In Hand relationships, unless that is what they and their partners want.

Louise

Reading your comment makes me profoundly thankful for my husband. I never appreciate him more than when I'm reading the absolute cobblers spouted by men like you.

Louise

Sometimes I wonder, given the clarity of English, how anyone can miss salient points.

A great many people respond more readily to style than they do to substance and unfortunately your ideas and remarks were twice presented to the reader in a style not entirely dissimilar to a mild punch in the face. Half the readers will likely miss the salient points because they're preoccupied with rubbing their bruised noses. No matter ... let's just assume you were busy and in a hurry to make your points and, in your enthusiasm, didn't pay quite as much attention to etiquette as would have been wise. Now to the substance:

Regarding fertility and the collapse of “western civilisation”; you are right it is just arithmetic and there is certainly a risk that very soon we, the people of the free world, will be fighting to retain our liberty because we will be outnumbered by people who subscribe to barbaric ideologies, have more than two children per woman and have them early, and who advocate a non-consensual version of “taken-in-hand”. Its hard to say exactly who, if anyone, ought to be blamed for this. If we want to avoid a repeat of the dark ages in Europe we certainly need to be doing something, and doing it now.

I was a model husband who went above and beyond the call of duty to work for the marriage. I did abide by my vows ...

For husbandly performance you can have 10/10 and a gold star but for modesty its 1/10 and “could try harder”.

Your happiness is to be controled in relationships. Don't waste your (and our) time by demanding control. You will be unhappy if we give it to you (if we acquiesce you think us weak and lose respect). Don't waste your (and our) time by demanding equality. You don't want to be equal. The secret desire you avoid is that you want to look upto and admire your man. Which means you want the controled position and not equality. Which also implies that you have to choose men worthy of admiration. If I had a dime for every feminist that selected poorly we could retire the national debt. (And don't blame us -- the choice side of the equation belongs to you. All we can do is offer.)

You generalised most terribly and expressed yourself somewhat crudely but my experience also leads me to think that equality is misunderstood and over-hyped and I'd be very happy to see “western civilisation” rethink the whole equality business a bit more carefully. It does seem to me that it has encouraged at least as many problems as it solved. If you'd expressed these ideas a little more gently it might have yielded a pleasant discourse amongst friends.

And after years of being sympathetic to women in unrewarding and destructive relationships I did finally have to concede that in most cases (not all) they had chosen those relationships despite obvious warning signs that things were going to be bad. They had, as you suggest, chosen to be controlled but hadn't been too careful about who they chose to do the controlling. It might even have been another case of responding to style over substance. There's possibly a good discussion to be had there somewhere.

Furthermore I know seven women who are presently looking for relationships and at least four of them are seeking to be controlled. Two of them have expressly verbalised that desire, three have indirectly indicated it by their behaviour and comments and the other two have personalities that would lead me to think they'd like to be controlled to some degree but they haven't otherwise indicated that desire. However I doubt if any of them are reading forums like this one.

Regarding the desire for equality: Most women I know have said they wanted to be loved and appreciated and assisted and to have great sex and romance and cute children. I don't think any of them have ever articulated a desire for equality as such and if we could get to the core of their desires I am not sure we would find a desire for equality there at all. There would however be a desire for respect and recognition, which is a related but somewhat different matter.

"Lastly, no man ever crossed a room to meet a woman because of her stellar personality. Of course, you are more than a sex object -- your brain and personality kept him from walking away, but it's not what got him into your sphere of action. Think of that the next time you want to beat up a poster for telling the unvarnished truth -- in a social setting you are sex object. For cryin' out loud, it's not men that dress up like packages with a ribbon, and y'all still do it regardless of 50 years of feminist nonsense."

I can't speak for anyone else but I hadn't actually seen my husband before we were attracted to each other. We were both sat down on a bench/table thingy and he made a comment loudly enough for me to hear. I added a comment to it and we both laughed. It went from there.

Quite frankly I find your view of women as dressed up as packages with ribbon highly insulting. As for men not dressing up well, you obviously walk around with your eyes closed. Men wear aftershave, gel, fashionable clothes etc. what is that if it's not dressing up.

Just because a woman makes the best of herself and wants to look attractive it is not because she wants to be leered at my sleazy men who view her as an object. It is because she wants to look in the mirror and feel good about herself.

Please pull your head in and stop being such a sexist arse.

The way you talk about women is the way one would discuss a dog at crufts. I am very glad that my husband's view is totally opposite to yours.

Sully

I'm very glad that you have such a happy relationship. I fear, however, that it may not last. Why? Because you have not learned from your last failed relationship.

I feel that I can speak with some authority on this subject because I, like you, was the model partner who was abandoned by my unfaithful husband. I was also every bit as arrogant as you in thinking his behaviour to have been 100% at fault. However, despite this initial thinking, I was totally committed to the vows I made when I married him and I was determined to find out if there were some way that I could repair my failed marriage. Initially I thought this would involve getting my husband put right. Perhaps a counsellor would be able to show him the error of his ways. To kick-start the process, I read everything I could lay my hands on but the more I read the less palatable the message became. Despite my fidelity and loyalty, it became apparent that everyone with any deep understanding of how relationships work believed me to have been 50% responsible for the ending of my marriage. My fidelity and loyalty and "model wife" act hadn't been worth a hill of beans because I hadn't listened to or met my husband's needs.

Over the years building up to the failure of my marriage, I was quite sure that I was right in just about everything I thought, said and did. Others didn't think so however. My husband called me arrogant; my lovely, kind, gentle mother called me arrogant. My sisters and even one or two of my best friends told me I was arrogant. I told them all that they were wrong. I told them that I listened to their comments and that I acted on them. But the truth is that I didn't. Now I know the truth. I was an arrogant fool, but a lucky one, because I finally got the message - and in the nick of time to save my marriage and my wonderful family. My husband likes the newer, gentler, more responsive me. He didn't want a new model, he just wanted a wife who would respect him and listen to him. And I guess that's what we all want, male or female, taken in hand or not.

What has this all got to do with you? Well it was your display of a similar arrogance, disregard and downright disrespect for the views of others which set me off. It is not for nothing that a number of women posters have responded so strongly to your writing. It is your arrogance that has prompted their response. In my case it was those arrogant little words "I was a model husband" that got me. For the truth is that you can't have been a model husband - if you had been your wife would never have left you. Maybe you were being what you thought a model husband should be but did you ever stop to find out if you both shared the same model?

This is not to say that I think your ex-wife blameless. Clearly she wasn't. But in any relationship we all carry 50% of the responsibility for the good and for the bad.

I accept that you are now in a wonderful relationship and that you consider yourself to be extremely lucky. And so you are. But I think it would greatly help during the good and bad times ahead if you could develop a little humility and listen carefully to your partner. For now you seem to be meeting her needs and that's great but also apparently entirely fortuitous. It will likely happen that her needs change as you move through life together. Remember then, if things start to unravel, that to be the model partner you must learn about and meet your partner's changing needs. If you can genuinely do that you then you will undoubtedly have a lifetime of true happiness and may even discover that your ex-wife was not so bad after all, perhaps just as misguided as you.

Oh and just for the record I know of at least one man who crossed the room because of the sparkling intelligence of the woman concerned and not for her dazzling good looks. The woman was me, the looks definitely middling, the repartee electric. The man concerned was lovely - a wonderful life-long, enduring love. I remember the sigh he gave one evening after a highly charged and absolutely electric debate; "God, I miss arguing with you". He had moved away and was only back for a very brief visit. If you have ever watched the daft film "Red Sonya", our arguments were like the unending fight between Sonya and Arnie. Two minds absolutely equal but with one partner longing to submit while remaining resolutely determined to be brought to submission rather than surrender voluntarily. Delicious. But based entirely on minds meeting and not bodies. Sadly, since we can only live one life, that relationship is forever frozen in a "who knows what might have happened?" place. But there you go - another small thing you've got wrong.

"To the not-so-young lady that has already squandered her most fertile years, yeah -- get going if you intend to have any children."

If my selectivity in choosing a mate means that I don't have children yet, but that I also don't have to put up with a man (piggie) like you for 18+ years...it's worth it.

And didn't the US's population just hit a record high?
I guess I'm NOT causing society's decline.