I lied. I did read something Edg wrote, because I was curious as to whether he had regained his sanity. It appears that he has not, therefore in the future he goes back on the Don't Bother To Read List until this passing coup de foudre has passed.
And I won't address his demands for me to explain and deny his fantasy accusations, for two reasons. One is that they are fantasies. The second, and far more important, is that I owe him or anyone else no explanation or justification for anything I've ever done in my life. None. If you want a cinema reference for why I feel this way, see the fine film "The Contender." Joan Allen's character in that film personifies my philosophy. But I do need to address a few things he said, because they slander a place he clearly knows nothing about, and is mistaking for dark places that exist inside his mind. --- In [email protected], Duveyoung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > But, to me, a 60 year old guy > looking to get laid by a 25 year old barmaid in a > country -- where it is "understood" that a woman > found out and about without a man nearby is asking > to be raped ... > ... > Curtis, would you suggest that a woman walk alone > at night in Spain? Probably not -- why? Cuz men > have dicks and can man-handle most women, right?, > and in Spain, well, better for women to stay inside > their casa-burkas, right? This cannot be allowed to pass. Clearly Edg has not been to Spain in recent decades. Any woman, young or old, can safely walk the streets of Sitges at any time day or night, with almost zero fear of being hassled, much less raped. In my time here I have seen almost *no* examples of the macho or misogynist male mindset he claims is omnipresent here. The lack of it shocks even me. I would characterize the Spain that I live in -- as opposed to the fantasy Spain that Edg sees in his mind -- as far less misogynistic than, say, Australia or Mexico or even parts of the United States. As for a woman being able to safely walk the streets alone without fear of being raped, I would say that Sitges is probably a great deal safer than the town that Edg lives in in the United States, wherever that may be. In gen- eral Europe is a far safer place for women than the United States, and in specific Sitges is far safer than Paris. And I've heard intel- ligent, world-savvy women I know describe Paris as the safest city they've ever experienced. As for women needing to be protected, I'm sorry, but Edg needs to stop going out with those rubber blow-up dolls you get from the porno shops. *They* need to be protected from the world because, like many fantasies, one quick puncture and poof!, they're gone. But real women aren't like that. The women I have met and observed here in Spain are energetic, alive, intelligent, self-possessed, and they don't take no shit off *anybody*, male or female. If someone thinks that they've got to be "protected," and that he's just the man to do the protecting, well I wish him luck tilting at his *next* windmill. Spain is not like Edg's fantasy Spain. Women are not like Edg's fantasy women. And I'm not like his fantasies of me, either. May he wake up from this current bad dream soon.
