3 posts tagged “mars pluto”

This sounds like the guy has Mars Saturn or Mars Pluto to me... (Upon attempting to figure out a chart since he mentions his birthday, looks like he has Mars semisextile both planets.)

"There was a time in my undergraduate studies when I decided to reject everything considered masculine.  I had just started learning about feminist philosophies and the associated feminine ideals: pacifism rather than violence, gentleness rather than strength, and love and the erotic rather than pain and competition.  My readings convinced me that maleness was something to diminish rather than champion.  The patriarchal structure of societies seemed to be the root cause of oppression and warfare.  Matriarchal societies, as illustrated in my books, were about cooperation, farming, and a communal society of ideals.  Matriarchal religions, worshiping a feminine goddess or the sacred feminine, were more about love and the erotic, and less about hellfire and beating the loving snot out of heathens. 
Additionally, I had a thing for scarily smart women (still do) and a lot of them were getting into that avenue of philospophy.
I learned a lot about gender and women during that period of my life, but I remember feeling disquieted, like I was hungry and wasn't feeding.  Riding wildly through D.C. on my motorcycle provided some sustinence, but it wasn't quite my thing.  A ticket for reckless riding stopped that sort of nonsense quickly. 
One evening, while drunk, I received a text from a friend that set me off.  I don't even remember what the text was about, but I do remember pounding on my dorm door until it busted off the hinges and bounced off the opposing wall.  My hands hurt.  The door was trashed.  People were coming out of their rooms to find out what the hell was going on.  And, I felt good.  Real good.
I've always been a violent sort.  My mother used to joke that our phone number was on the principal's speed dial.  Weekly meetings with school staff about my fighting became routine for both my mother and I.  The kids in the school yard had a deal - they'd get to make my life miserable and in return, I'd get to beat the snot out of them.
My mother tried her best to channel this aggression into sports.  I played ice hockey, but preferred bashing people into the walls instead of playing with the puck.  In middle school and high school, I wrestled.  I also tried football, but found that my size hadn't caught up to my aggressive tendencies.  The bigger boys made short work of my knee and that was the end of my sporting career.

I needed an outlet, otherwise I was just going to take Hellspawn, put him in the car, and drive off without telling anyone where we went.  Getting into tussles at parties helped a bit, but it ruined my clothes and there was always the risk of hurting someone badly and being on the hook financially. While flipping through the net some time in the early morning, while taking a break from watching Hellspawn sleep and doing homework, I stumbled on some pictures provided by the Society for Creative Anachronism.  The pictures showed folks in full metal regalia pounding on each other with sticks. 
I looked at the pictures, and corresponding movies, for hours.  I wanted to do that.  I needed to do that.

At 26, I've come to terms with my violent tendencies.  But, I've tempered them, and redirected myself to the appropriate activities.  That's ultimately the crux of being a man - knowing the strength and dangeousness of the masculine and using them wisely.  A real man doesn't beat his wife and kids.  He beats other people with sticks within a structured environment.  A real man embraces his competative nature, but cautions it with humility and a bit of chilvarly thrown in."

So I'm listening to NPR about "can an abuser be reformed?" So far the opinion of the experts is, "Probably not. Most of them don't want to, and if you send them to a court program, that just means they stop abusing this one and go on to abuse the next girl."

Then about midway through, a guy named Tom who is an abuser calls in. Yes, he grew up in an abusive family. This guy wanted to stop pushing/shoving/nearly punching/choking his wife, he's ashamed of having done it. he's voluntarily gone to residential programs and anger management to stop doing it. He says it makes him feel powerless. He hasn't done it for five years.

And even he says that the urge to hit never goes away.

When they asked him if he'd advise someone else's wife to leave, he said he'd tell his wife to leave if he wasn't getting help. He calls it "next to impossible to overcome it." And also, "It's something I have to deal with for the rest of my life, so I have to believe that there is a way to overcome this."

Another interesting point: he says he was not a violent person and didn't get into fights before he was married, and had no idea he could be that way.

In related news, the comments on this article on whether or not it's acceptable for a woman to hit a guy (answer: no) are interesting, especially given the number of women who admit to have done it in the past and wish they hadn't.

Elsa has a couple pieces on this.