From: utzoo!decvax!decwrl!sun!gnu
Newsgroups: net.women
Title: Re: friends and lovers
Article-I.D.: sun.210
Posted: Mon Mar  7 22:31:09 1983
Received: Tue Mar  8 07:42:03 1983
References: crimson.1469

Roberta Taussig was sad that Anton Aylward (and, by extension, other men)
would not offer sexual closeness to some of his female friends.  My own
experience is that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't -- but
sometimes when it doesn't you are left without a friend.  It seems to me
that we've all been taught that sex is such a Big Deal (be it a positive
or negative Deal) that when sex comes into the picture with someone we
care about as a friend, the relationship can change in un-nice ways.
I've avoided sexual things with friends because I'd rather keep the 
friendship going strong than risk it for some (small amount of) additional
closeness gained by sex.

Part of the problem here for men, in particular, is that "offering sexual
closeness" to a woman is quite often not an acceptable thing to do.
Why didn't any of Anton's female friends offer sex to him?  Putting the
man in the role of having sexual closeness offerred is pretty unusual
(and nice), especially from close friends.  I don't know if in general
men deal with having to say "yes or no" better than women, but at least
they don't have to fight their way thru fears about having it forced on
them, being thought of as "loose", and all the other garbage we throw at
women.

	John Gilmore, Sun Microsystems