I mean I can show-off any bruises or scars as “life experience” but nobody wants to see deformed feet from a life time of high heels in respect for a life lived to the fullest. At least I’ve never heard of it…

So just like heterosexual flirting, then.

It was bullying, battery, and abuse, with a thin veneer of “just joking” slapped on the side as if that ever made it better.

Sounds like “sports” to me…

There certainly are contexts in which it’s possible to engage in friendly competitive physical violence built around mutual respect. We usually call them “sports.”

My experience though wasn’t that it was friendly at all. It was bullying, battery, and abuse, with a thin veneer of “just joking” slapped on the side as if that ever made it better.

I still see this difference in “girl” behaviors and “boy” behaviors as detrimental in a huge way (maybe even mostly) to women and girls. Girls aren’t expected to have any experience with physical confrontation, so a heavily female-socialized woman is going to be clueless about what to do in a fight or when physically threatened. I grew up very physically sheltered, and was never hit even by friends or in a joking manner, so being hit would be completely baffling. I would likely spend a good minute being like “seriously? I just got hit? What the hell? That totally hurt more than I thought it would…” instead of focusing on the circumstances and possibly protecting myself. Having some experience fighting or getting hit, even in a playful or foolish way, would help reduce the initial shock, I believe.

A microcosm of this is my interaction with a friend in college, who grew up as “one of the boys” to a greater extent. The first time she play-punched me in the shoulder I was like “Ow!” and didn’t move, but just gave her the most astonished look. Now that I’ve adjusted to her more physical approach I play-punch her back without any mental distress, and I have no problem realizing that no, it didn’t actually hurt, I was just startled and acting properly girlish. :p

(Obviously, this is not to be taken as “hit little girls, it’s good for ‘em!)

As usual the ‘macho man’ has shot himself in the foot because I don’t know about the other ladies commenting here but I LOVE to see a man with nice hands.

Male manicures are sexy…oh yes. :)

And actually the more I think of it, Mr Manicure probably gets more girls because his car is nice and *warm* haha.

He says that people walk around like that all the time in Chicago when its in the high 20s and the sun is shining. Sounds preposterous to me (coming from Hawaii) but I suppose its possible.

As a life-long Chicagoan, I’ve definitely had the same experience. When I left the house this morning it was in the mid 20s and I actually debated going back inside to ditch the hat and gloves and grab a lighter jacket. Thats mostly because we just had two weeks in the low single digits and cold, even really cold, just doesn’t feel cold when you compare it to what you were dealing with before.