My reaction to your portrayal of it being a choice between Sam and Char is that, indeed, there was no such forced choice in the survey.
Sam is putting on an act? So is Charlotte. She reads self-help books on how to snag a man. Is it that Sam wants something. As in tee-shirt famous in the Navy, "Buy your own fuckin' drink." (it's a play on what sailors hear as they trek their way from the ship to the bars and massage parlors, "Buy me drink sailor and I fuck you long time."
Seems to me that Charlotte wants something too.
I guess it's not clear to me that we've escaped the residual effects of the madonna/whore complex. Whores wants something; Virgins don't. Sexually assertive women are just using sex to get something illegitimate, sexual pleasure for themselves. Or maybe it's just a put on since no real woman acts that way. Real women just aren't that interested in sex, so it has to be an act.
OK. I'm sure this feels like some sort of double bind. Apologies -- this is a pub-like forum, we're just working out ideas.
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I read your post while listening to a More Fiends/Killdozer mixed CD a friend recently burned for me which provided a nice background buzz. Originally, I prepared a lengthy reply which was heavy on the theoreticals but then, unbidden, two thoughts popped into my head derailing that first approach.
Those thoughts being:
one.) I agree that (sadly) the madonna / whore mind virus persists with varying degrees of strength in communities across the country but I believe it's morphed into a blurrier, less rigid thought object than I imagine was the case in previous generations.
and
two.) My life experience probably disqualifies me from evaluating the true strength of this phenomena with any amount of accuracy.
By which I mean, none of my male friends behaves as if there are 'good girls' and 'bad girls' in the world. Only women with whom they click and those they don't for whatever reasons.
My friendship circle extends far beyond the usual self-identifying progressive circles to include a broad range of folks - from people who are very much plugged into the straight life of reflective glass towers, cubicle-based employment and mortgage refinancing to strippers, club rats, night club owners and workers, film makers, neutral-good black hat hackers and assorted night siders.
My bud McG. for example (no, not the director of "Charlie's Angels") married V, a woman whose background as a stripper and amateur adult film performer would surely mark her as spoiled milk in the minds of quite a few madonna / whore blinkered males. But McG. happily dove in for real, fully aware of her past and present but simply not caring because he loves her and also, because he doesn't judge fitness using a binary POV of 'good girl' / 'bad girl'. They're one of the healthiest couples I know.
His parents are not totally happy but he's about 10,00 light years from caring about that.
Having these kinds of guys as close friends has spoiled me; I've forgotten what millions of other men are like - how shocked and dismayed they can be by things which simply fail to move me; how they can compartmentalize women into the marryin' kind and the partyin' kind. So I don't think I really can evaluate the scope of the madonna / whore complex. But as I said, I know it's still there.
Now that I'm sitting here I'm typing, the reason for my negative reaction to the Samantha character becomes clearer too.
I've met real sexy-and-not-ashamed women. When I compare the writer's creation - their vision of what a sexually outspoken and confident woman might be like - to the 3-dimensional flesh and blood women I've had the privilege to know well, let's just say the Samantha-bot seems like a pale imitation, a yawn inducing fake.
DRM