The June Myth
"It’s still early," said Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY yesterday. "I mean, everybody is so focused on where we are right now — I guess I remember that, in June of 1992, that’s when Bill really wrapped up the nomination — the middle of June, after the California primary."
Then- Gov. Bill Clinton literally did not secure enough delegates through the primary and caucus process until the California primary, June 2, 1992.
But he had sewn up the nomination long before then.
Months before then.
Moreover, the first real contest that year was on February 18, 1992. (No one competed in the Iowa caucuses since Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, was a candidate that year) The first real contest this year, the Iowa caucus, was January 3, 2008. So you’d also expect that race to last later in the calendar — it started more than a month and a half later.
But regardless of that, here are some key dates for that 1992 race that indicate how misleading this argument is.
February 18, 1992 — Sen. Paul Tsongas, D-Mass., wins New Hampshire primary. A scandal-plagued Gov. Bill Clinton comes in second.
February 20, 1992 — San Diego Union-Tribune headline: "Tsongas got most votes, but Clinton says he won".
February 25, 1992 — Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., wins the South Dakota primary.
March 3, 1992 — Clinton wins Georgia. Tsongas wins Maryland. Harkin wins Minnesota and Idaho. Former California governor Jerry Brown wins Colorado. Still all very much up for grabs.
March 5, 1992 — With no money, Kerrey ends his campaign. "We were ready to go full throttle," Kerrey says, "but unfortunately we ran out of gas."
March 7, 1992 — Clinton wins South Carolina.
Harkin announces he will drop out.
March 10, 1992 — Clinton cleans up on Super Tuesday, winning Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas. Tsongas wins Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Tags: good, morning, texas
How is the Mr. Darcy fantasy not humiliating or subjugating to a man’s natural animal urges for constant rough sex?
Ah, she’s a baby boomer ann coulter.
this is pretty fucking old
It’s not nearly as often that they involve acts that can be construed as painful, humiliating, or subjugating.Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for experimentation, but doesn’t it strike you just a little odd that so much of porn involves the “slap her, gag her, degrade her every way you can” routine these days? I mean, just look at any random list of porn titles and consider what the prevailing attitude about women in them is.I don’t think the Mr. Darcy fantasy is quite that ridiculous.
For women, the evolutionary fitness criteria are less focused on the physical. Confidence is a large part of it. The thin, artsy looking guys project the illusion of individualism, independence and self-sufficiency, all of which are evolutionary fitness advantages in a male mate.Your male friends who self-limit themselves to less evolutionarily fit mates are hedging their bets and trying their chances with the less attractive women they think they can score with. Arrange a tall, buxom blonde to offer no-strings-attached sex to any one of them and see how long it takes them to strip naked.
Uh, ditto. The feminist movement fell victim to the law of unintended consequences because it was both not well thought out and because it was aimed at ALL men rather than the men in their lives.If women had demanded respect from their loved ones and peers whether they were housewives or wage-slaves or professionals it would have had some kind of organic basis. But ending up defending lowered physical standards for the military, police, fire, EMT, etc. just so women could wax their horns and pretend to be these things started to show two faces. I would submit that the neo-cons learned this at their mother’s knees; that you could pretend to be something and that meant you actually were that thing. Mighty warrior at the keyboard with a lot of attitude and maximum personal space. Hell, the women bought it, why shouldn’t they go on with the charade?Besides which, the early feminists didn’t bother differentiating between equal and SAME.Same = never was. Equal = always was.
I don’t have any rhetoric. I’m simply saying that the physical features you mentioned above make up only a small part of human sexuality. I think that you’re removing a huge element (personal preference, or at least the illusion of it) from the equation.Of course, a vast majority of men(and bi/lesbian women) enjoy the traits you mentioned. That does not imply that they like them exclusively. Physical attraction is often about the whole picture, or personal quirks as well. Plenty of my guy friends are into the short, petite, small chested types.Likewise, if it were as simple as fertility and natural selection, the thin, artsy looking guys wouldn’t be such a lure(and they are quite a lure). Though I’m definitely not a fan, consider Orlando Bloom. If it were all about evolutionary fitness, no woman would find him attractive.
Well, here’s the thing: women don’t know any more about “what men want” than men know about “what women want” … in part because all men, like all women, are different. So women, like men, work with what information they have available to them.Women see men reacting with interest to porn images of women, and don’t see the cases where men express lack of interest in porn — precisely because lack of interest is pretty much invisible. So (straight) women notice that (straight) men like porn, and don’t notice the cases that contradict this, because they are invisible. And since people are great at overgeneralizing, they may conclude, “men respond sexually to porn, therefore, to get them to respond sexually to me, I should be like porn.”Both men and women are more likely to notice the most heavily promoted, stereotypical, mass-produced porn, simply because it is more widely available. And this is the porn that relies on overinflated breasts, heavy makeup, wide-eyed and -mouthed dumb expressions, gangbangs, and money shots: overstimulation and predictable routine, just like the routinized, bland, oversweetened food at McDonald’s.Again: Straight women, like straight men, are looking to understand and connect with someone who’s got different parts and a somewhat different sex drive. They can base this understanding only on limited data, and polluted data at that. Women receive a lot of signals from the media telling them how to be attractive to men; signals from porn are among these. And a lot of those signals (both porn and non-porn) express attractiveness as a single absolute standard: “what men like” as a single set of attributes.Of course it’s not that way. Men are diverse in their sexual likes just as much as women are. But if you take your impression of “American beer” from Budweiser and not from (say) Rogue, Stone, and Dogfish Head, you’ll get a pretty limited view and you’ll completely misunderstand anyone who actually likes beer … and if you take your impression of what “female sexiness” is from the Budweiser-equivalents in porn, you’ll completely misunderstand anyone who actually likes women.
What you say is almost certainly true. But a huge part of her point is that (a lot of) women, to varying extents, DO feel like they need to be offering at least some of what porn has to offer - or else they will never be able to compete.As a woman, I thought this article was spot-on.
How are women’s fantasies about men any less ridiculous?
That’s super rad, and I’m sure there are TONS of guys just like you. Women love you and value your existence - it’s not that. It’s just that we’re not confronted with men like you saying that every time I turn around, on billboards selling Pepsi, in women’s magazines about how to keep a man, in tv advertisements, etc - instead it’s predominantly borderline-pornographic imagery. So while I really do value hearing your voice saying that, it is often drowned out in my subconscious by the millions of “be a whore!” messages I get all day, every day. It’s not your fault at all, it just sucks.I also don’t mean that it’s impossible to get out of that mindset - but it takes a lot of extra mental work that I really wish I didn’t have to do all the time.
Well, yeah. You wrote above about the manipulations of sexual perceptions by mass-produced porn. I followed through by observing that mass-produced porn has a pervasive, manipulative effect because it mass-media.I thought we were both talking about the consequences of mass-produced porn. I though that was clear from context.
Yeah, well they are liars. They tell lies. It’s what they do.
Interesting, and thank you. It clarifies some things for me (which are not very well articulated below). Women receive a lot of signals from the media telling them how to be attractive to men; signals from porn are among these. And a lot of those signals (both porn and non-porn) express attractiveness as a single absolute standard: “what men like” as a single set of attributes.Sounds like we have a common enemy, especially because mass-media typecasting targets females more than males (with implications about both genders). My concern is that it works too well especially now that porn is mainstream and commoditized.Maybe my anecdotes are uncommon, but the media stereotypes seem to be working and the only reason I’ve thought of is maybe there’s more legitimacy to them than I’d like to think there is. The bullshit is starting to look believable. (In my defense it’s working adversely to its intent.)But I still believe it’s factually incorrect and morally wrong. I’m hoping my perceptions are askance. I’m at an impass until I figure it out.
I swear I remember reading this same article years ago