Being a “good woman” doesn’t guarantee you a “good man”

31 Jan 2011 3 Comments

by misstula in Uncategorized

I find it interesting the things I notice when I pay attention to what women say about other women and their dealings with men. The thing I find most interesting is the rather free and loose use of the word “whore” – or in this case, “ho”. It seems that any parameters, rules, definitions or regulations that ever existed for the word have disappeared. Basically now a “ho” is a woman who conducts some aspect of her sex life in a manner that some other woman does not approve of, or presents her sexuality in a way that another woman finds offensive. So, if a woman is involved with a man other women deem to be unworthy, unattractive, trifling, etc., she is a “ho”. If she is involved with several of these men she is a “ho”. If she is dressed provocatively and men notice she is a “ho”. If she dances sexily in a club she is a “ho”. “Ho’s” are horrible women in most every respect – but their most egregious violation is that they go around allegedly sabotaging happy healthy relationships with a combination of sex, sex, and more sex – that dirty nasty plentiful slutty sex that no “real woman” would engage in. “Ho’s” also supposedly make it difficult for “good men” to maintain their “goodness”, in great part because of the aforementioned dirty nasty plentiful slutty sex.  But quite honestly, if a woman doesn’t like another woman for whatever inexplicable reason that makes sense to her she is a “ho”. So, if we apply this “logic” fairly and evenly, every woman is considered to be a “ho” by somebody. There are no exceptions.

But of course if you scratch the surface of this kind of knee jerk name calling, you’ll come up with a wealth of insecurity. It is truly unfortunate, because the word “ho” is so inflammatory, it makes it difficult to get past it to see what the real issue is. The word is such a red flag, no one is able to take their eyes off it long enough to see anything else. But I am a very calm, rational type of chick, and very little upsets me. As such, I have this to offer to the discussion:

More than anything, women want there to be a map to a successful relationship. They want to know that if they “do” the “right things”, they will be rewarded with a “good man”. But it doesn’t stop there. Additionally, they want the satisfaction of knowing that women who do “wrong things” – ho’s — will be punished, left sad, alone and lonely for their behavior by karma, dharma, or whatever method the universe may employ. So it is a two pronged process – they want to be rewarded for being “good women” and they want to see “bad women” punished.

For example, in the name of being a “good woman”, women will often go to great lengths to make sure they don’t sleep with a guy they are dating for some arbitrary predetermined period of time in the hopes that this will ensure his respect. After all, this is what “good women” do, and women who get busy early on in their dealings with a man or (clutch the pearls) on a first date are “bad women” and will not get a “good man”. These “good women” may go to great lengths to not dress provocatively in an attempt to ensure they aren’t pursued by men just based on physical attractiveness alone, because only “bad women” let some man talk to them just because he thought she had a phat ass. “Good women” may often make a very big deal about the fact that they don’t “mess with” men that are spoken for in some form or fashion, while “bad women” don’t care if a man has a girl or a wife or whatever – they just go for theirs and consequences be damned. “Good women” do the things they do because they know at the end of this “good” rainbow is a pot of man-gold.

What women don’t get it that it is hardly ever that simple.

The truth of the matter is that there really is no guarantee that any particular kind of behavior will give you a guaranteed result every single time, and this is especially true of people, of human nature, of relationships. Waiting 3 months or 6 months or 6 years even to become intimate with a man doesn’t guarantee that he’s a decent man. Treating a man well doesn’t guarantee he’ll treat you well in return. Hell, even dating a married man isn’t a guaranteed ticket to a lifetime of misery and loneliness anymore; the phenomenon of men marrying their former mistresses seems to be becoming quite common these days.

But this flies in the face of everything “good women” do. They carry their virtue around like a badge of honor, like a membership card into the “good man looking for a good woman” society. So when they see a woman, who to their mind is “bad”, or is in a situation that to them is “bad”, but she seems to be content in it, they get mad and then out comes the “ho” card. “Good women” don’t want to hear that there are women in relationships with men that are pretty good – and these are men they slept with on the first date. Some of these women even marry these men. “Good women” don’t want to hear that sometimes the man does leave his wife and marry the other women. And please misunderstand – I’m not encouraging or suggesting any women behave any particular way. What I’m saying is that if you’re behaving in a certain way because you think it’s the only way to get what you want, and you haven’t gotten it by now…you may want to consider that it doesn’t work.

Honestly, I don’t know any single successful relationship that didn’t start out with bumps and rocky roads and behaviors that most “good women” would turn their noses up at. Most of the happily married people I know (not a whole lot of folks, but a few) had relationships full of the types of things “good women” don’t do – infidelity, lying, deceit, etc. I know one girl who started dating a guy who was still sharing an apartment with his baby’s momma – he told the new girl that he couldn’t afford to break the lease because he wanted to buy a house and refused to have that on his credit report. He promised the new girl he wasn’t sleeping with baby’s momma, and would move out immediately after the lease ended.  Are you “good women” shaking your heads? Guess what? He moved out when his lease ended, got his own place, continued to date the new girl, and now they have been married almost 10 years and have a daughter. His son with the baby’s momma is a part of their family. And they’re reasonably happy as couples go.

So, at the end of the day, none of us can throw stones. You never know what life has in store for you. But what I will say is that there is no thick rule book for relationships with all kinds of statutes and laws and ordinances. It is very general and simple – honesty, openness, kindness, caring and…the most important thing…discernment. Being able to discern between people who mean you well and can act accordingly and those who can’t is crucial in the dating world.  It is more important that how you act, because if you can discern a person’s character accurately, you know how you should treat them. If you do the right thing with the wrong person, you’ll get pretty much the same result as you get when you do the wrong thing. At the end of the day, its not so much what you do, but who you do it with.

At the end of the day, people tend to do what they want to do. Your “good behavior” in and of itself doesn’t impact who a person is unless they want it to – and usually they don’t. So please, to paraphrase a famous quote: “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”