The Feminist Ethic?

Ever listen to that Paula Cole song, 'Where Have All The Cowboys Gone'?

"Where is my John Wayne?
Where is my prairie sun?
Where is my happy ending?
Where have all the cowboys gone?
Where is my Marlboro man?
Where is his shiny gun?
Where is my Lonely Ranger?
Where have all the cowboys gone?"

Yeah! Where HAVE all the damn cowboys gone? I know the song was written tongue in cheek and is really something of a sarcastic feminist anthem, but...still. I've spent many years now discussing the pros and cons of equality between the sexes. You'll not find a more ardent supporter of feminism and putting these men in their place, which frankly is where our place is now, because let's get real boys...you've had the football, the enchilada, the hot tamale long enough. It's our turn to prove conclusively we can do EVERYTHING better than you can, which is why you're so damn protective of the football in the first place. I mean, we don't even need you to have babies anymore. We don't even need SPERM to have babies anymore. And despite all our protestations to the contrary, we haven't needed you for sex in eons. Your days are numbered boys.

Still...I realize that for all my big talk about equality, I'm a sexist.

I WANT a Marlboro man, with a big gun to keep me safe. I want to stay home with the kids and raise the family while he goes off to kill the steer and I want to know that he can protect us and keep us safe and that he will kick anyone's butt if they make me cry.

Isn't that pathetic? For all my tough talk of needing a man, I realize that while I don't need him to have orgasms, I need him to feel *safe*. I mean...let's face it. Orgasms are nice, but aren't they so much better when he has an arm around you and is whispering in your ear? That's about feeling loved and feeling cherished. You can't do that on your own.

***Important, obligatory disclaimer***

Those of you who prefer women to men, I salute your obvious superior intelligence. This is in no way to suggest a woman needs a man to stay safe. If another woman does it for you, great. I myself pant about Susan Sarrandon and have an embarrassing crush on Neve Campbell. I'm just saying that for me, a man does it.

I've always thought of myself as bisexual, bisexual beyond the usual experimentation that is done when you are tossed from your home to live with fourteen other girls, none of whom have seemed to clue into the idea yet of masturbation, preferring *company*. (Read: group home). But with women, I am more masculine, and it is only with men that I am so female. Soft and lush and warm and born with 'fuck me, but don't hurt me' eyes that always makes men melt. I touch men in that place where they *need* to protect, to save, to defend someone from the evils of the world.

You would think it would be a perfect fit, huh? Here we have Transient, well on her way to having the perfect sex life with the perfect Harrison Ford kind of guy. You would think I had been made to fuck, to be kissed hard and often, made to coo and have babies, etc. I was made to be physical. It would have been a perfect fit, men and me...

EXCEPT

...for rape, and incest, and abandonment, and domestic violence, and all the bad people and bad choices which led me there.

I rage at my lost legacy, a legacy of being female the way Monroe and Scarlett were. I rage because I KNOW how it should feel to be held by a man....I feel it in my bones, as much a part of my genetic makeup as my hair color or dimples on my breasts. I know what it is supposed to be like, and I just...can't. All that warm, lush, ripe passion sits locked inside me the way Superman is locked inside his paralytic body and I *rage*.

I know...all this goes in direct contradiction to what you normally think is the 'pure' feminist ethic. And don't get nervous. I was made to be brilliant, and free and competent and successful, too. But if feminism was about making us all the same and training out any need to get laid or want a man, you can count me out. It's supposed to be about a woman's right to be *herself* without being told she has to fit someone else's preconceived notion of who or what she can be, and that should include any preconceived ideas about what a true feminist should be about.