Maria Shoulda Terminated this Relationship from the Beginning...

Eager Beaver,

What is wrong with women? How can they listen to advice from people, ignore it and their own internal warning system to end up with guys like Arnold Schwarznegger? Geez, everybody on the PLANET knew that Arnold was a horndog when they started dating. His reputation reaches all the way back to his first days in Hollywood and most likely back to his teenage years. I personally know TWO women who have been sexually harassed by Arnold. In both situations he physically man-handled them completely uninvited not to mention unwanted!!! I'm one person. His reputation in the film industry is hugely filthy. Why did Maria Shriver ignore what was surely everyone's (Oprah, Mary Hart) advice to stay away from this man? She claims that just because her family's men have a sordid sexual history doesn't mean that she just "accepts" that behavior in men. And so you were thinking what exactly when you started dating one of the worst offenders in Hollywood? It just completely boggles my mind. I don't think anyone out here in the real world is shocked by Arnold's love child with the maid but we're more shocked by the fact that Maria seems shocked. Really? Really?
-Hot Mama

Okay Hot Mama,

Can I just say first off that I cannot believe that you know TWO people who he has sexually harassed. On top of that I am SO glad that you share my opinions about him. I literally thought that it was just me. I find him so completely unattractive, like damn near the point of repulsive. And it's like seriously?! A gorgeous, amazing, fabulous, brilliant woman like Maria was bamboozled by Arnold. And on top of ALL of that she managed to stay with him for years and years and years. And stand by him during everything.

I'm certainly not shocked by the love child scandal, and honestly I hardly flinched when I heard the story break. Apparently Maria had known about it for quite a few months before, like even before the holidays! And on top of the that, being the gracious woman that she is, she waited to make the announcement. AND she supposedly let the maid stay with them until after the holidays, because she didn't want to make it rough on her family. Arnold never deserved a woman like Maria, and hopefully she can get out of there fast, and start a new life over with her children. And now that he's no longer in office, I hope to NEVER hear about that scoundrel again!
-REPULSED EagerBeaver

"The Bachelor" Sold Us a Bill of Goods!

Eager Beaver,

I was not going to watch "The Bachelor" this season since they were recycling a past bachelor - so freakin' lame! But being a hopeful romantic I got sucked in by the drama and the triangle of Emily, Chantal and Ashley. Brad Womack and the producers sold us a bill of goods though. Brad claiming he's changed and even Chris Harrison saying he's been through therapy and he's a changed man. I call bull-hooey on that! He's not a changed man as we all discovered on "After the Final Rose" when Emily said she couldn't commit to Brad right now and then reluctantly revealed it was because of Brad's temper! What?! How did Brad even get another chance? I'm going to guess that if the love of Brad's life is feeling his temper (and shouldn't this be the honeymoon phase of the relationship when we only show each other our best sides?) this is nothing new for Brad. And it hasn't exactly been a character flaw that's been hidden from the producers, film crew, production assistants, etc. when he was the bachelor the first time. I'm so mad. Mostly at myself for being sucked in again but also at the producers for not doing the work and finding us a new bachelor to watch! So, not only has Brad not changed, notice he chased the most seemingly unavailable girl on the show! Much more exciting for a man like Brad, not that Emily isn't beautiful or sweet but she definitely was making Brad work for her attention. On the other hand, maybe she just wasn't genuinely interested because she never seemed to be bothered by the other girl's dates and was kinda surprised that Brad fell so hard for her. Whatever the reason, I'm proud of Emily for sticking to her guns and not rushing into marriage with a hot head!
-Hot Mama

Hot Mama,

I couldn't believe when they brought Brad back either... really, he wasn't that great the first time around. And we are all supposed to believe that he has "changed." Is he now a more evolved man, suddenly ready to forge a new relationship. You are so right to call B.S. on that, and we've seen it since the first episode. Really, he is reformed from therapy?? Not buying it, not even a little bit. On top of that, how did he even get two great girls in the end like Emily and Chantal (I wasn't Ashley's biggest fan...) I found it interesting that he has such a bad temper, but I totally see his aggressive vibe. Even in the episode with his brothers, they asked her if she'd seen the "bear" yet, so clearly they know that he has a pretty intense temper as well. I would bet my bottom dollar that these two will never take a walk down the aisle, at least not as a couple! I can guarantee that she won't be able to take Brad's temper, especially not with her daughter. She's already been through a lot, and I can't believe that she would put her daughter through something else if she wasn't 100% in it. Move on Emily, Brad's not worth the wait. Ah "The Bachelor," wonder what's to come next season...
-EagerBeaver

"The Social Network;" Women are Powerful

Eager Beaver,

A man's desire for a woman is powerful. And I mean WAY powerful. This desire has brought down churches, businesses, kingdoms and governments for centuries. It's truly shocking when you think about it. Just in the last five years alone we can all quickly think of presidents, politicians, ministers, businessmen, movie stars, musicians, etc who have forsaken their lives and, in most cases, wives, for the sake of desire. A man's desire for a woman has crumbled careers that men spent decades building. I just watched, "The Social Network," last night and my take away from it was, again, that women are amazingly powerful. Mark Zuckerberg supposedly created Facemash, the website that he initially started one drunken night at Harvard to compare all the girls on campus to farm animals, because he was hurt that a girlfriend had broken up with him. While creating this website to humiliate all girls he drunkenly blogged about how the now ex-girlfriend had hurt him, how her boobs didn't measure up etc. Immediately after Facemash crashed Harvard's server, Mark is approached by a group of three guys to start a social website called Harvard Connect because "all girls want to date guys from Harvard."


Of course, the rest is history, he cribbed the idea and created Facebook which in seven short years is worth 50 BILLION dollars! All because of men's desire for women! There's some question as to whether or not there ever was an Erica, the girlfriend, but something happened that caused Mark to create Facemash in the first place and it sounds to me like an insecure man being spurned is probably a good guess. We women get down on ourselves but really men are motivated by one thing in this life and that is getting the girl. We all need to remember that, not give it away like free candy on Halloween.
-Hot Mama

Hot Mama,

It is SO weird how the world works. I JUST watched this movie this evening with my Mom. We were both completely engrossed in the movie and absolutely loved it. It made me wonder if Mark is such a complete freaking asshole in person, like he is in the movie. My Mom watched an interview with him on Oprah, and I know that there has been a lot of controversy over it, because Mark says that the movie doesn't accurately portray him. He started the Facebook over a girl, he lost his best friend in the entire world, and he didn't even really care about the money! It's just so mind boggling. I wish that he would write a book so I could see into his mind and understand just exactly how it works. And after all of that, I wonder if he is happy now. Now all I have to do is... invent the NEXT Facebook...
-EagerBeaver

Does Penis Size REALLY Matter?

Eager Beaver,

All my life women have tried to reassure men that size doesn't matter. That it's the "motion of the ocean" that rocks our world. And to some extent this is true. BUT the more true thing is that size DOES matter and, more specifically, girth is what matters because it provides us girls with more friction for our button. Long and skinny doesn't cut it. Long and large is just downright painful. There's just this sort of "right" size for most women that works. Longish and girthy but not too girthy because that can lead to "rug burn." Penis size, while important for achieving possible orgasm during intercourse, is actually not the most important thing. The most important element in love making is a man's skill because most women, much as we would LOVE to, do not come through sexual intercourse alone. Our buttons are a little too far away from the action and a little too small to be hit in the right spot for maximum friction during intercourse. So, having a man who is skilled in the way a woman's body works is AMAZING. And I mean really skilled as in "I didn't even know my body could do that!" skilled.

I had the good fortune to have sex with someone whom I'd been friends with for four years but never imagined hooking up with (for a variety of reasons). We discussed whether or not we should take the friendship to the next level because we worried that we would ruin what we had. After some sexting, it just became too much and we went there. In my mind, it would be an OTO thing because, frankly, I thought it would suck and that would be the end of that. Boy was I wrong. Holy Cow. My friend turned out to be the most amazing, skilled lover I ever had in my entire life and I learned some things about my body I never knew before. Like what? Well, that whole debate on whether or not women can gush fluid while orgasming? I found out for the first time in my life this is absolutely true! Unbelievable. It actually makes me sad though because I went through my adult life not knowing I was capable of this. I have been sexually conservative, in terms of partners not emotions, most of my life. Didn't have sex until I was 22, met my husband-to-be at 25, got married at 28, divorced at 41 and have kept men out of my children's lives for all the obvious reasons. So, to experience this now blows my mind, and other body parts, in so many ways. And in terms of the friendship with the guy; I think we may have screwed the pooch. Which sucks. Sex on top of friendship just doesn't work. I am grateful to him for showing me how amazing my body is BUT also fearful that I won't find someone that skilled EVER again. Based on your own short experience Eager Beaver, what do you think about the possibilities for me? Should I just move into the home now?
-Sad But Exhilarated Hot Mama

Oh Hot Mama,

I don't even know WHERE to begin on this one. I think that you are absolutely right, penis size does play a part in the quality of sex, but it is definitely not everything. People are so obsessed with men who have a big dick, but really, what's the use if they don't know what to do with it?? It's like guys who are extremely hot and feel like they don't have to do or give anything in a relationship... so NOT cool. I've been lucky enough to have the same AMAZING, mind-blowing, didn't know it was possible, kind of sex like you've had. And just like you, it didn't end well. And once it's gone, you wonder if you will ever get that again. From my experience so far, I haven't been fortunate enough to find it again. Here's to hoping for both of us, that someone is going to come along and restore our faith!
-Eager Beaver

Mancations: Good or Bad for Your Relationship?

Eager Beaver,

I just came back from a week in Vail with the girls, and while all of us were single, all the guys we encountered were married! There were lots of groups of 5-7 married guys on mancations. Every single one that I observed was looking to get laid. And that's not just my opinion, it's my girlfriends' opinion as well. I went two years ago and it was the same story. And the occasional single guy was just a dog you wouldn't want anyway. Even the most benign looking man seemed to be influenced by the pack mentality. It freaked all of us out. What do their wives think they're doing in Vail? Skiing? Well, yes probably but also probably with women they'd met in the bar the night before. We met one group of guys who had every intention of going skiing when they arrived in town four days ago but never did because they were way too hung over the next day, every day, to make it out of the condo! In another group, we witnessed the men's wedding rings disappearing as the week wore on! Meaning, when we met them, they had them on but by the end of the week they had taken them off. One of them claimed it was because the ring might hurt his finger should he take a bad fall. OMG. Seriously?! Another group decided to plan a mancation houseboating without their wives and tell them they were going fishing. All the while recalling the last time they had done that, 10-15 years ago, they had naked chicks running around the houseboat the whole weekend. Ladies, as much as we know our guys need some guy time, anytime they're going with a group of buddies to somewhere other than an actual forest with tents and guns on their backs, it's a sign they're looking for trouble. As in, trouble for you because they are looking to get laid. You can deny, deny, deny all you want that YOUR husband never would and maybe he wouldn't intentionally but once they are in a town with hotels and other women trouble will come a-knockin'. I don't care if they say they're going golfing, fishing, biking, hiking, wind-surfing, skiing, water skiing, etc. if where they're going there are going to be women and bars (from the biggest to the tiniest town) there is going to be trouble. Not every man will get laid for sure and maybe none of them will on any given trip but what freaked us out was that ALL of them wanted to and it's just a matter of time (years), and the odds, that eventually all of them will.
-Hot Mama

Hot Mama,

This makes me so freaking DEPRESSED. I thought that this was something that I could expect from guys who are my age, not men in their 30s, 40s, and upwards from there. I thought that the whole "mancation" thinking was just for guys my age who were going to Cabo on springbreak and messing around before coming back to their girlfriends. Thinking that men who are married and in committed relationships are still looking to do the same thing is completely sickening. It makes me wonder if I ever even WANT to get married. On the same token... maybe men are getting away with this because their wives are turning a blind eye. A lot of my friends have taken back boyfriends who have strayed (on vacations or just in the same town!) Maybe if we stopped tolerating this behavior, it wouldn't be so commonplace. I want to be with someone who I can trust to take a trip with his buddies and still know that he is being faithful to me. And I would expect the same thing from my partner... that I could go on a trip with the girls and he wouldn't be worried about me meeting and hooking up with someone else the whole time. It just makes me wonder, if we can't trust our boyfriends or our husbands, then WHO can we trust?!?
-Distraught Eager Beaver

Up In The Air...

Hot Mama,

I am sitting in the airport after a long and grueling week of travelling, and I am BEYOND excited to finally be heading home and the idea of having a good nights sleep in my own bed. Not to mention not having to live out of a suitcase... I'm sitting in a bar "working" and looking around at all of my fellow travelers. The bar is FULL, like 100% (excluding me) of SWM. Not that I am surprised that the majority of people traveling are Single White Males, but still, it makes me wonder, who is on the other end of these men? I imagine that the majority of them are married, although I can't see if everyone is wearing a ring. And I wonder how their wives feel about managing everything on the homefront.

Not that women don't most of the time (even when men are present), I am just thinking it must be 100x harder with the husband not physically there. I think about my roommate and how sad she is that I am gone all of the time, and I wonder how it would be if I had a husband. Currently, I have a great job and make good money and do a lot of traveling, so would that make me the breadwinner? Would I have a house-husband? Would my husband be alone watching the kids? Would we take turns? It's interesting because one of my co-workers travels almost as much as I do. She has a full-time nanny during the day for her two year old daughter, but when she is gone for overnights, her husband is totally Mr. Mom. She will be gone for three, four, five days at a time, and he covers it on the home-front. I think it is such a great new-age way of thinking. They both have great jobs and at the same time, they both totally have each other's backs and are in a true partnership. If I ever get married ad have a family, I want you to be Auntie Hot Mama, and stay and take care of my kids when I am gone for work, k?
-Eager Beaver

Eager Beaver,

Ha ha! Me stay home and take care of kids at this stage of life, good one. No, I am just about done raising my two beautiful children and looking forward to the freedom that it is going to afford me very soon. I am worn out. I have given everything I have as a single Mom to raising them to be wonderful people and soon it will be your turn to try your hand at this challenging and most rewarding life task! And of course your own mom and Auntie Hot Mama will be there to give you an assist from time to time but I know you'll do a great job! And I hope you're lucky enough to find a husband who seems to be as great as your coworkers. Negotiating the "who stays home while the other works/travels?" is probably the trickiest minefield of any marriage. It is fraught with compromise for both people AND the kids! It is still a new-age way of thinking because men's ego still prefer that they are the major breadwinner in the family, not necessarily sole, but definitely main. So, if you think you will be the majority breadwinner you're gonna need some kind of secure guy to take a financial backseat to you. And if you feel comfortable traveling and leaving him home to attend the play dates/groups without you, then go for it.

I think unfortunately any marriage where one or both parties travel leaves your marriage door that much more ajar for someone else to come in. Between staying in hotels, attending conferences and after-conference dinners or parties, the traveling man/woman has many many more opportunities to stray. And initially a newly married man/woman probably(?) wouldn't stray but put on a few years, a few kids and a few pounds and that new hire at the office that has to travel too suddenly looks overwhelmingly attractive. They have the lightness of not being bogged down with work, a home, children, aging parents and an unhappy spouse. Or they're in the same boat. How wonderful it is to have someone who understands all of your problems over drinks in the hotel bar and intoxicating to feel listened to. It's a cocktail designed to put the strength of even the best marriage...up in the air.
-Hot Mama

Catch and Release

Eager Beaver,

I have a friend who dated a man for a month that she met online. And for that month he chased her with everything he had. In this friend's case that meant talking about his spiritual growth, listening to her psychic dreams, writing her detailed emails of his emotional journey and hopes for finding a soul mate, etc. Stuff that makes me gag (mostly because it always seems suspicious to me) but is a total turn-on to my friend. She was head-over-heels for this guy, said she had found her "ethnic-hippie" soul mate. I was genuinely happy for her. Yay, someone had finally found their perfect match! That means there's hope for everyone! Yay, yay, yay! Until...he'd had what he wanted a few times and then suddenly he needed to "find himself" (at 57?) and he needed his "freedom" (after four weeks?). OMG. I'm getting so tired of men. It's seems so depressing and hopeless. How can you trust a one of them? We go into these things with our guards up and so they tell us what we need to hear and our walls begin to crumble and we let them in, ALL the way in, and then, presto change-o, they're gone! It seems every single one of them (from 17 - 70) is all about the hunt and using whatever it will take to land the woman who's in their bullseye and then they take us down, skin us emotionally and leave the carcass. Disgusting analogy I know but doesn't it feel like the truth?
-Hot Mama

Hot Mama,

I completely feel for your friend. It seems like everyone I know has had these same sort of experiences with men. It's like seriously, is this where 2011 is headed?!? Even in the past few weeks I've had a couple of friends dealing with this issue. It's happened to me TWICE in the last year, and it's like WHAT THE FUCK! Remember Mr. Mixed Messages? We went through this multiple times in the eight months that we were dating. He pursued me and sent emails and text messages about how he was falling in love with me and never felt about anyone the way that he felt about me. And then suddenly I would open up and reveal my feelings and he would just VANISH and tell me that I was coming on to strong. We had a horrible ending to our time together... He just stopped talking to me and left the country two weeks after the last time we spoke. Who do they think they are?! I am getting to the point where I wonder why we even bother. They just hurt us and break our hearts. I just don't even know if there are any good ones left. I really don't.
-Sad and Depressed Eager Beaver