From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!seismo!presby!burdvax!bmcjmp
Newsgroups: net.women
Title: a compliment (?)
Article-I.D.: burdvax.567
Posted: Wed Feb 16 05:07:20 1983
Received: Mon Feb 21 08:33:44 1983

I am female. Back in college I had a number of male friends who were just
that: friends. Not dates, lovers, or what have you, just guys I hung around
with. One evening I was out with a bunch of people, and two of these male
friends and I were having a candid conversation about sexual matters. At
some point in this conversation one of them cracked a dirty joke. One of the
other women who was with us heard us laughing and wanted to know what was so
funny. The man who made the joke mumbled something about mixed company, to
which the woman replied, "How come you always tell Barb those jokes, but you
never tell me?" His answer was, "Well, Barb is about as much like one of the
guys as you can get without being one of the guys."

First let me say that this statement was not predicated on physical
appearance, since this other woman and I are about equal in that department.
With this in mind, how would you react to such a statement? Do you think it
would be a compliment to you? To men, I ask, does whether you are talking to
a man or woman make a difference in what you talk about or how you say
something? Why or why not.

I don't know if anybody will consider this important, but I'm tired of
pressing the "n" key on the abortion debate (I argued myself out on that one
back in high school). Hopefully this will generate a different topic for
discussion. If not -- well, I tried. 

		Barb Puder
		burdvax!bmcjmp

p.s. If there's any interest, I'll let the net know how I took that
statement. If I tell you now, it would probably kill a lot of discussion.