Starving For Attention - written by Sheila Kelley
This year there has been a lot of talk about women who prey on married men. Whenever anyone asks me for my thoughts on the "golfer" and the "motorcycle guy," and the women they were - how do I put this in the most subtle and graceful way possible...f@#*ing - I say, “That’s a tough one.” Sure, we could talk 'til we’re blue in the face about how messed up the men are, and we will at another time because baby, that's a whole 'nother editorial. But the women...well, they’re a whole other barrel of snakes.So when I was asked by a magazine writer just last month, “What do you think of the women involved with [insert male celebrity here]?,” I was tempted to make a brash and radical statement, like something I would have said when I was in my 20s. But, I paused because now I know women who have found themselves in situations with attached men, and for them everything was not always what it seemed. It's all so intricate, so individual. For example, there’s the man who told a woman I know that his wife knew all about her because they had an "open marriage." This woman didn’t particularly want a serious relationship so the scenario was perfect for her until...she found out he was lying. And there are more stories like this one based on deception and mistrust.
So I find myself wondering are we talking about two different kinds of women here? On one end of the spectrum we find the kind of women who in this media circus of offenders come out of the woodwork and fess up to their sexual conquests in a grotesquely farcical manner. On the other end of the spectrum we find the women who feel shame because they were lied to and humiliated and possibly hurt another woman and her family? At the end of the day, I find myself wanting to ask the same question to both groups of women – Don’t you deserve more? And, why do you think you don’t?
When asked about these women I have kept my mouth slightly shut with a very precarious smile on my lips; I have said very little. Until now. I can’t remain silent anymore. Let me make myself perfectly clear -- nothing makes it okay to be in a relationship with another woman’s man. Sure, you can try to justify the situation and paint yourself as an innocent, but ultimately it’s still a statement about you - the “other” woman in a love triangle. Your actions scream that you believe you are not worthy of more, and that is what really bothers me.
It’s hard to look away from the media circus. The tables finally seem to have turned on the guys here. Didn’t it used to be the men who paraded their "conquests" through the press? Just for a moment, I will attempt to put aside the devastation of the wives and families who have been affected by these self-serving acts, and admit that secretly I’m thrilled with the media circus, thrilled that these women won’t keep their mouths shut, and thrilled that the press won’t let up on the offending men. It's like watching flaming kamikazes dive-bombing and burning one after another.
These women are a certain but prevalent breed of desperation. Remember, I have seen these kinds of women come headfirst on to my man, a man with a ring on his finger and a child in each hand...
A few years ago I wrote an editorial about a woman who had come on to my husband at a children's party, to which he had taken our kids. This woman went so far as to grab my husband's hand in front of my son and daughter, and write her name on his palm in ink - a kind of...tattoo, if you will. The very same palm which earlier that day had held and caressed my belly. Lovely, right? My rage still burns. Being a man in love, and a man of integrity, my husband came home, showed me the "tattooed" palm and I dealt with the woman head on.
I don’t think she knew what hit her.
Imagine a Mack truck going 180mph, careening straight for a tin can. I don’t think she expected me to be the one to call her using her little palm etching. She never reared her extremely humiliated head toward my family nor me again.
Over the past two months I’ve heard these offending women speaking out in the press, and it seems that each and every one of them knew that the man they were sleeping with was married with children. These women are not hiding in the corners humiliated as offending women used to do. Uh-uh, no ma’am, they want their fifteen minutes of fame, and all the world be damned they are going to get it. These women are and will remain constant and loud reminders to the "golfer" and the "motorcycle guy" that their legacies are forever shattered. In fact, one of the "motorcycle guy's" mistresses is going to build a rather successful business off of her conquest, similar to what Elliot Spitzer’s call girl did; she now writes a relationship advice column for the NY Post. (Really?? Really.)
These women want recognition for their sexual exploits in the same way that men have wanted to be recognized for their sexual exploits for ages. They’ve taken on the male role. They’ve become mini-men, and their bodies have become cold hard weapons with which to do their damage. (I sure would like to teach them a little S Factor.) These women are desperate and they are incomplete, because somewhere along the line all of the integrity that they might have had was lost. And so they scavenge, subsisting on leftovers and stealing the rottenest of meat. But why?
I have a theory that helps explain this: I call it the Campfire Theory.
Picture a campfire. The campfire is big and warm with thick crackling flames and it is surrounded by men, lots and lots of men. It is the campfire of the male culture, our culture. It’s a campfire fueled by the male point of view, masculine stories, masculine tastes and values, masculine desires and dreams. And masculine rules. It is healthy and burning bright but it is overcrowded because this single campfire is where we all live. Around the inner circles of the roaring campfire, in concentric circle after concentric circle, sit the men, cooking, eating, telling stories, building a strong, healthy male culture, vying and competing to get closer to the center of the flame. Some of them are accompanied by a wife or girlfriend, and together the couples eat fresh grilled steaks and vegetables, they sip cold beer from a cooler, and they enjoy the warmth of the campfire. Because it’s the only campfire most of us know, it represents strength, security and companionship. But to get close to the center of the flame you have to either be a man, act like a man, be with a man, or exploit yourself sexually to attract male attention.
Some women have battled their way into the center circles of the campfire alone, living by masculine rules, becoming pseudo-men. For many women, however, it is impossible to compete against men in a male world. Therefore, most single women around this campfire live in the far outer circles trying to cultivate their masculine nature so that they can get closer to the center of the fire. They sit just outside the fire where they can almost feel the warmth from the flames. They're kinda warm, kinda not, shivering but not freezing to death. These women are hungry. They stalk back and forth looking for ways to get closer to the flame. Every so often one of the individuals at the campfire tosses a scrap of meat over their shoulder to the ground. The single women jump at it. They are so hungry for the strength, security and companionship of that campfire, they settle for a leftover meal. They subsist on gristly pieces of meat leftover from someone else's full meal. And sometimes they try to get the men closest to the flame to pay attention to them (whether they are with another woman or not), so that he will bring them up close to the warmth and safety of the flame.
These women battle each other, tearing each other apart and grabbing what they can for themselves and sometimes their children. This is no way to live. This competition and distrust between women is not innate, it is not a natural feminine state. It is a cultural dynamic that women have had to develop in order to survive in this male world. This unnatural distrust and competitiveness between women is a great divider of a united feminine sisterhood. The integrity of the feminine has been compromised, creating a culture of disenfranchised women on one hand, and desperate women on the other. Women who will forgo what they know is right just to survive, just to get a little piece of the warmth of the "golfer's" fame or the "motorcycle guy's" celebrity, or some other man’s security.
To be clear, in order to be a part of this campfire, women find themselves in one of three groups:
1. Cultivating your masculine, or yang side, because that is what is valued in this campfire, and then shoulder your way up front.
2. Hooking up with a man, married or not, who will help you get to the center of the flame. You might be able to do this by staying authentic to who you are, or you may have to hyper-exploit your body and face for the pleasure and attention of a successful man so that you can get closer to the center of the fire on their shoulders.
3. Continuing to live on the outskirts like a hungry peripheral scavenger always looking for more sustenance in the form of male attention.
Women in these groups have all kinds of reasons for being in them...
- They think a leftover meal is easier and safer than venturing out in the darkness alone to find their own food.
- Others remember that they already went out looking for their own food but they couldn't find any so, hungry, and with no other choice, they wandered back to the campfire.
- Others think the food looks so good it might be possible that the women and men seated at the campfire don't deserve it all to themselves.
- Or they think back to a time when they themselves were seated at the campfire and had their food stolen from them, so why not do the same to someone else.
- Still others think, if they wait outside that campfire long enough one of the men will abandon their wife or girlfriend and welcome her to sit beside him. They know this to be true because the men around the campfire have given them that impression.
- And some women think, "I was meant to sit at that campfire and destiny made a mistake. That woman took a spot that is rightfully mine." More distrust between women is cultivated, more dislike, more betrayal.
Women living in the full bloom of their nature are phenomenal creatures. We are the givers of life, we are magnetic and we are born perfect, graceful beings. It is when we try to live within a man’s nature with male values and a male culture that we lose sight of what our bodies really do look like and how we "should behave." We suddenly become pitted against one another to determine who is the prettiest, who has longer more lustrous hair, whose breasts are bigger, whose stomach is flatter and who has nicer shoes. We turn up our noses at one another as we walk down the street, sensing competition rather than camaraderie from our fellow women.
Let's revisit that male campfire. Come with me as I take the hand of one of the women and lead her away. We walk a ways into the night, it's dark and lonely and scary and she clasps my hand tightly. We walk in a long, slow, S-curved pattern weaving our way around trees and rocks under the quiet night sky. Several times the woman asks to return to the campfire but I encourage her forward. She is very unsure of herself, she lacks the confidence to venture out on her own, she grips my hand tightly. Until...up ahead in the distance there is an unmistakable warm, reddish-yellow glow and the sound of sensuous music playing. I feel the woman's hand relax in mine and as we walk closer to that glow we hear laughter. The woman lets go of my hand and walks ahead of me, stronger and more confident in her steps.
As we pass a large formation of rocks, we come upon...another campfire.
My S friends, this campfire is larger than the first. The flames are roiling and wild, and surrounding this campfire are women, sparse amounts of women but they are there. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, soldiers, mothers, wives, girlfriends, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, daughters, students, models, dancers, police officers, scientists, poets and the list grows. At this campfire are my friends Dr. Louann Brizendine and Regena Thomashauer, Dr. Christiane Northrup and Lissa Rankin, and all S Factor women past and present. We are unified and we are glowing with the knowledge of our bright feminine power -- and it is this glow that feeds the campfire and lights up the night. It is the campfire of the feminine culture. We are well nourished on the integrity of our feminine mind, body, heart and soul and there is plenty of integrity to go around. We are not in petty competition with one another, we are sisters, comrades, allies, friends. Instead of judging one another, we embrace our similarities and our differences and we bond over a common goal, to elevate the feminine to the highest stature possible. There is great respect between women here. No one woman dares to infringe on what another woman has in the form of a man. She doesn't need to, because she doesn’t need the male approval over here. There is joy and laughter and some of the women, the S women, dance our curves around the campfire to the delicious music, content in our individuality, our beauty and our oneness.
Sweet, huh? It gets better. There are men who love the women who sit at this campfire. These are the husbands and the boyfriends and the single men who admire fully enlivened women. They're entranced with desire for women who are independent and feel secure with or without a man by their side. They are entranced by the energy that surrounds women who have stepped into their power because they know that together they will be even stronger.
Take a moment to let that image get real and rub against your skin. It doesn’t have to be an image, it doesn’t have to be mythology. It could be our present. For S Factor women it is our present inside the walls of our studios. When you bring the power of your beauty out into the world and share it with women who have yet to drink from this fountain of knowledge, it will belong to all women.
You can choose to turn down the leftover scraps from around the first campfire and as scary as it is, S walk your way through the woods to the second roaring fire. This is where you will find the whole feminine package of emotional, sensual, sexual, intellectual, wholesome, alive, funny, irresistible, divine YOU. She is there waiting for you to come find her, to discover, reclaim and unite with your natural, beautiful self.
I believe in women. I believe in the camaraderie of women. I believe in the goodness of women. I believe every woman has something to offer when she is capable of living in her full feminine nature. Do you? Do you dare to believe? I hope so. If you do, post my editorial on your Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and blog pages and anywhere else you can. Encourage your female friends to post it on theirs. Text it, chain email it, spread the femme message far and wide so our second campfire will be so full, so united, so strong, and it will glow so brightly, that it can be seen from the heavens... With plenty of room for our sisters who may be lost in the wilderness, blinded to the fact that a safe, nurturing, beautifully feminine place does exist inside of them and in all women.
