Sophisticated Woman Quotes

He grinned, and right then it occurred to him that he hadn't enjoyed himself so much with a woman in a very long time. If Annabelle Granger were a few inches taller, a hell of a lot more sophisticated, better organized, less bossy, and more inclined to worship at his feet, she'd have made a perfect wife.

Godly womanhood ... the very phrase sounds strange in our ears. We never hear it now. We hear about every other type of women: beautiful women, smart women, sophisticated women, career women, talented women, divorced women. But so seldom do we hear of a godly woman - or of a godly man either, for that matter.We believe women come nearer to fulfilling their God-given function in the home than anywhere else. It is a much nobler thing to be a good wife, than to be Miss America. It is a greater achievement to establish a Christian home than it is to produce a second-rate novel filled with filth. It is a far, far better thing in the realms of morals to be old-fashioned, than to be ultra-modern. The world has enough women who know how to be smart. It needs women who are willing to be simple. The world has enough women who know how to be brilliant. It needs some who will be brave. The world has enough women who are popular. It needs more who are pure. We need women, and men, too, who would rather be morally right than socially correct.

He destroyed in her the knowing, doubting, sophisticated Ella, and again and again he put her intelligence to sleep, and with her willing connivance, so that she floated darkly on her love for him, on her naivety, which is another word for a spontaneous creative faith. And when his own distrust of himself destroyed this woman-in-love, so that she began thinking, she would fight to return to naivety.

I didn’t need a man, but if I wanted one I’d take him and use him and then pass him along without a second thought, because I’d become a sophisticated, modern woman if it killed me. Sure. And I would lose ten pounds and age backward, too. Right after I learned to fly my invisible jet.

Peachy. Alrighty, then. She’d just get in her car, run home to check her clothes, hair, and makeup, walk across the street to Jason’s apartment, knock on his door, stare at his masculine hotness in stupid adoration, probably insert her foot into her mouth fifty-five times in under five minutes, then go back to her place and relive the embarrassment all night long while replaying what she should’ve done or said had she been a sophisticated woman, instead of a blundering moron. Done and done. Piece of cake.

The acceptance of woman as object of the desiring male gaze in the visual arts is so universal that for a woman to question or draw attention to this fact is to invite derision, to reveal herself as one who does not understand the sophisticated strategies of high culture and takes art "too literally," and is therefore unable to respond to aesthetic discourses. This is of course maintained within a world - a cultural and academic world - which is dominated by male power and, often unconscious, patriarchal attitudes. In Utopia - that is to say, in a world in which the power structure was such that both men and women equally could be represented clothed or unclothed in a variety of poses and positions without any subconscious implications of dominance or submission - in a world of total and, so to speak, unconscious equality, the female nude would not be problematic. In our world, it is.

A woman who has truly awakened to her sensuality recognizes that she requires a more sophisticated presence. She is not average, after all.

Even in her casual white shirt and cotton pants, she was clearly an independent woman in charge of her destiny. She was so… He paused, searching for words. So sophisticated, so self-assured.

I thought I’d just go and come back a Sophisticated Woman Who Took Her Relationship to the Next Level in the Big Apple.” I wince. There’s no way I’m bringing up Tim right now. “Did Daniel use that phrase again? Maybe if we made him a little dictionary? We could translate his words into something remotely sexy. Take Our Relationship to the Next Level could be Come on, Baby, Light My Fire.

She lit up as she descended the stairs to the hall, knowing that she would not have dared had her father been at home. He had precise ideas about where a woman should be seen smoking: not in the street, or any public place, not on entering a room, not standing up, and only when offered, never from her own supply - notions as self evident to him as natural justice. Three years among the sophisticates of Girton had not provided her with courage to confront him.

In my world, truly sophisticated women are defined by their sensuality, more so than their femininity.

Nature is not infallible. Nature makes mistakes. That's what evolution is all about: growth by trail and error. Nature can be stupid and cruel. Oh, my, how cruel! That's okay. There's nothing wrong with Nature being dumb and ugly because it is simultaneously--paradoxically--brilliant and superb. But to worship the natural at the exclusion of the unnatural is to practice Organic Fascism--which is what many of my pilgrims practice. And in the best tradition of fascism, they are totally intolerant of those who don't share their beliefs; thus, they foster the very kinds of antagonism and tension that lead to strife, which they, pacifists one and all, claim to abhor. To insist that a woman who paints berry juice on her lips is somehow superior to the woman who wears Revlon lipstick is sophistry; it's smug sophistical skunkshit. Lipstick is a chemical composition, so is berry juice, and they both are effective for decorating the face. If lipstick has advantages over berry juice then let us praise that part of technology that produced lipstick. The organic world is wonderful, bot the inorganic isn't bad, either. The world of plastic and artifice offers its share of magical surprises. A thing is good because it's good, not because it's natural. A thing is bad because it's bad, not because it's artificial. It's not a damn iota better to be bitten by a rattlesnake than shot by a gun.

Jack enjoyed watching Amanda's face in the candlelight, her expression by turns thoughtful, amused, and lively, those gray eyes gleaming more brightly than the polished silver. Unlike the other women present, who picked at their food with appropriately feminine disinterest, Amanda displayed a healthy appetite. Apparently it was one of the privileges of spinsterhood, that a woman could eat well in public. She was so natural and straightforward, a refreshing change from the other sophisticated women he had known.

Oh, mention it! If I storm, you have the art of weeping." "Mr. Rochester, I must leave you." "For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your hair — which is somewhat dishevelled; and bathe your face — which looks feverish?" "I must leave Adele and Thornfield. I must part with you for my whole life: I must begin a new existence among strange faces and strange scenes." "Of course: I told you you should. I pass over the madness about parting from me. You mean you must become a part of me. As to the new existence, it is all right: you shall yet be my wife: I am not married. You shall be Mrs. Rochester — both virtually and nominally. I shall keep only to you so long as you and I live. You shall go to a place I have in the south of France: a whitewashed villa on the shores of the Mediterranean. There you shall live a happy, and guarded, and most innocent life. Never fear that I wish to lure you into error — to make you my mistress. Why did you shake your head? Jane, you must be reasonable, or in truth I shall again become frantic." His voice and hand quivered: his large nostrils dilated; his eye blazed: still I dared to speak. "Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical — is false." "Jane, I am not a gentle-tempered man — you forget that: I am not long-enduring; I am not cool and dispassionate. Out of pity to me and yourself, put your finger on my pulse, feel how it throbs, and — beware!" He bared his wrist, and offered it to me: the blood was forsaking his cheek and lips, they were growing livid; I was distressed on all hands. To agitate him thus deeply, by a resistance he so abhorred, was cruel: to yield was out of the question. I did what human beings do instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity — looked for aid to one higher than man: the words "God help me!" burst involuntarily from my lips. "I am a fool!" cried Mr. Rochester suddenly. "I keep telling her I am not married, and do not explain to her why. I forget she knows nothing of the character of that woman, or of the circumstances attending my infernal union with her. Oh, I am certain Jane will agree with me in opinion, when she knows all that I know! Just put your hand in mine, Janet — that I may have the evidence of touch as well as sight, to prove you are near me — and I will in a few words show you the real state of the case. Can you listen to me?" "Yes, sir; for hours if you will.

I didn't want to, even in my imagination, even for a second, to conflate this sophisticated woman with my mother, a woman so frugal and clueless that she had once given me - to have! to know! to wear! - her stretch black lace underwear that had shrunk in the dryer, though I was only ten.

Well?" she teased in turn. "What do you think?" The gray eyes that finally lifted to hers were flaming, but instead of answering, he flicked his burning gaze down her length again. He hesitated, and then said abruptly, "I think that the dress fits you perfectly." Lauren burst out laughing. "Don't ever let anyone tell you that you have a way with flattery, because you don't." "Is that right?" he mocked, his eyes challenging. "In that case, I'll you exactly what I think: I think that you're exquisitely lovely, and that you have the fascinating ability to look like an extremely sexy, sophisticated young woman and an utterly angelic girl at one and the same time. And I wish to hell that we weren't trapped here with a hundred other people for the next few hours, because whenever I look at you I become...uncomfortably eager...to find out how you're going to feel in my arms tonight.

Like non-monogamous relationships, queer ones are no more inherently noble or sophisticated.

The woman had been sophisticated. She had even been wearing nylons.

She knew, even lacking as she was in feminine sophistication, that there were two open roads to the heart of a woman. One is a wedding and the other is a baby. The lure of either is irresistible. As

I had before me an object lesson, I thought: two ways to face the world. One way as embodied by this old woman—simple, unassuming, a kind of peasant dignity, a naturalness inherent in her every move. The other, exemplified by the girl—smartness, sophistication, veneer without substance. I was conscious that I have now opted for the old woman’s way, have thrown in my lot with a creature I would have jeered at a year ago. My present trip to the mountains is indeed a trip to that wellspring of naturalness she symbolized. And I admired my choice: the correct choice, the only choice for a sensitive and moral man in my dilemma.

The modern challenge to motherhood is the eternal challenge--that of being a godly woman. The very phrase sounds strange in our ears. We never hear it now. We hear about every other type of women: beautiful women, smart women, sophisticated women, career women, talented women, divorced women. But so seldom to we hear of a godly woman--or of a godly man either, for that matter. I believe women come nearer to fulfilling their God-given function in the home than anywhere else.

Did he say anything to you?” “Just that I was supposed to watch you while he was gone. A hunt can take several days.” “Really? I had no idea it would take that long.” I hestitated, “So…he doesn’t mind you staying here while he’s gone.” “Oh, he minds,” he chuckled, “but he wants to make sure you’re safe. At least he trusts me that much.” “Well, I think he’s mad at both of us right now.” Kishan looked at me curiously with a raised eyebrow. “How so?” “Um…let’s just say we had a misunderstanding.” Kishan’s face turned hard. “Don’t worry, Kelsey. I’m sure that whatever he’s upset about is foolish. He’s very argumentative.” I sighed and shook my head sadly. “No, it’s really all my fault. I’m difficult, a hindrance, and I’m a pain to have around sometimes. He’s probably used to being around sophisticated, more experienced women who are much more…more…well, more than I am.” Kishan quirked an eyebrow. “Ren hasn’t been around any women as far as I know. I must confess that I’m now exceedingly curious as to what your argument was about. Whether you tell me or not, I won’t tolerate any more derogatory comments about yourself. He’s lucky to have you, and he’d better realize it.” He grinned. “Of course, if you did have a falling out, you’re always welcome to stay with me.” “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t really want to live in the jungle.” He laughed. “For you, I would even consider a change of residence. You, my lovely, are a prize worth fighting for.” I laughed and punched him lightly on the arm. “You, sir, are a major flirt. Worth fighting for? I think you two have been tigers for too long. I’m no great beauty, especially when I’m stuck out here in the jungle. I haven’t even picked a college major yet. What have I ever done that would make someone want to fight over me?” Kishan apparently took my rhetorical questions seriously. He reflected for a moment, and then answered, “For one thing, I’ve never met a woman so dedicated to helping others. You put your own life at risk for a person you met only a few weeks ago. You are confident, feisty, intelligent, and full of empathy. I find you charming and, yes, beautiful.” The golden-eyed prince fingered a strand of my hair. I blushed at his assessment, sipped my water, and then said softly, “I don’t like him being angry with me.” Kishan shrugged and dropped his hand, looking slightly annoyed that I’d steered the conversation back to Ren. “Yes. I’ve been on the receiving side of his anger, and I’ve learned not to underestimate his ability to hold a grudge.

That’s what the enemy wants. He wants you living in a state of defeat. Your defenses down. Your resolve weak and flimsy. Surrendering to an army of insecurities and misdiagnosis instead of courageously thriving in the sophisticated security of your identity in Christ.

It was not as if he did not know what living in Lagos could do to a woman married to a young and wealthy man, how easy it was to slip into paranoid about 'Lagos girls,' those sophisticated monsters of glamour who swallowed husbands whole, slithering them down their throats.

A woman's sexual desire must be filtered through a careful appraisal of potential risks. During human prehistory, women who blindly gave in to every sexual urge likely faced a host of daunting challenges, including - in the extreme cases - death. Most important, from an evolutionary point of view, her children would have a harder time surviving than the children of a woman who limited the expression of her sexual urges to a strong and decent man willing to invest in a stable, long-term, child-rearing relationship. All modern women are the fruit of feminine caution. The result of this whittling away of the impulsive branches of our ancestral maternal tree is a female brain equipped with the most sophisticated neural software on Earth. A system designed to uncover, scrutinize, and evaluate a dazzling range of informative clues.

So the body. There's no living with it till we recognise that one of its functions in our lives is to play the part of buffoon. Until some theory has sophisticated them, every man, woman, and child in the world knows this. The fact that we have bodies is the oldest joke there is.

Let's get it over with, so I can stop wondering. How many have there been?" Lauren stared at him."How many what?" "Lovers," he clarified bitterly. She could hardly believe her ears. After treating her as if her standards of morality were childish, after acting as if promiscuity was a virtue, after telling her how man preferred experienced women, he was jealous. Because now he cared. Lauren didn't know whether to hit him, burst out laughing or hug him. Instead she decided to exact just a tiny bit of revenge for all the misery and uncertainty he had put her through. Turning,she walked over to the bar and reached for a bottle of white wine. "Why should the number make any difference?" she asked innocently. "You told me in Harbor Springs that men don't prize virginity anymore, that they don't expect or want a woman to be inexperienced.Right?" "Right," he said grimly, glowering at the ice cubes in his glass. "You also said," she continued, biting back a smile, "that women have the same physical desires men have,and that we have the right to satisfy them with whomever we wish.You were very emphatic about that-" "Lauren," he warned in a low voice, "I asked you a simple question. I don't care what the answer is, I just want an answer so I can stop wondering. Tell me how many there were. Tell me if you liked the, if you didn't give a damn abou them,or if you did it to get even with me.Just tell me.I won't hold it against you." Like hell you wouldn't! Lauren thought happily as she struggled to uncork the bottle of wine. "Of course you won't hold it against me," she said lightly. "You specifically said-" "I know what I said," he snapped tersely. "Now,how many?" She flicked a glance in his direction, implying that she was bewildered by his tone. "Only one." Angry regret flared in his eyes,and his body tensed as if he had just felt a physical blow. "Did you...care about him?" "I thought I loved him at the time," Lauren said brightly, twisting the corkscrew deeper into the cork. "All right.Let's forget him," Nick said curtly. He finally noticed her efforts with the wine bottle and walked over to help her. "Are you going to be able to forget him?" Lauren asked, admiring the ease with which he managed the stubborn cork. "I will...after a while." "What do you mean,after a while? You said there was nothing promiscuous about a woman satisfying her biological-" "I know what I said,dammit!" "Then why do you look so angry? You didn't lie to me,did you?" "I didn't lie," he said, slamming the bottle onto the bar and reaching for a glass from the cabinet. "I believed it at the time." "Why?" she goaded. "Because it was convenient to believe it," he bit out. "I was not in love with you then." Lauren loved him more at that moment than ever. "Would you like me to tell you about him?" "No," he said coldly. Her eyes twinkled, but she backed a cautious step out of his reach. "You would have approved of him. He was tall, dark, and handsome, like you. Very elegant,sophisticated and experienced. He wore down my resistence in two days,and-" "Dammit, stop it!" Nick grated in genuine fury. "His name is John." Nick braced both hands on the liguor cabinet,his back to her. "I do not want to hear this!" "John Nicholas Sinclair," Lauren clarified.

Harriet loved her new persona. As Maxine, she was courageous and accomplished, a woman of sophistication equally at home in Cannes or on the Indian subcontinent. As Maxine she didn't walk, she strode; she did not merely see, but beheld. The very air she breathed was bracing. Here was a conqueror of worlds.

At first glance, the stewardess appears to have been a reflection of conservative postwar gender roles—an impeccable airborne incarnation of the mythical homemaker of the 1950s who would happily abandon work to settle down with Mr. Right. A high-flying expert at applying lipstick, warming baby bottles, and mixing a martini, the stewardess was popularly imagined as the quintessential wife to be. Dubbed the “typical American girl,” this masterful charmer—known for pampering her mostly male passengers while maintaining perfect poise (and straight stocking seams) thirty thousand feet above sea level—became an esteemed national heroine for her womanly perfection. But while the the stewardess appears to have been an airborne Donna Reed, a closer look reveals that she was also popularly represented as a sophisticated, independent, ambitious career woman employed on the cutting edge of technology. This iconic woman in the workforce was in a unique position to bring acceptance and respect to working women by bridging the gap between the postwar domestic ideal and wage work for women. As both the apotheosis of feminine charm and American careerism, the stewardess deftly straddled the domestic ideal and a career that took her far from home. Ultimately, she became a crucial figure in paving the way for feminism in America.

We hear about every other kind of women- beautiful women, smart women, sophisticated women, career women, talented women, divorced women. But so seldom do we hear of a godly woman - or of a godly man for that matter.....It is a much nobler thing to be a good wife than to be Miss America......it is a far, far better thing in the realms of morals to be old-fashioned than to be ultra modern. The world has enough women who know how to hold their cocktails, who have lost all their illusions and their faith..... the world has enough woman who know how to be brilliant. It needs some who will be brave. The World had enough woman who are popular. It needs more who are pure. We need women, and men, too, who would rather be morally right than socially correct. " Quote from Peter Marshall in the book Un Compromising

The woman was probably six months along in her pregnancy, and the child she was carrying weighed over two pounds. At that time doctors were not especially sophisticated, for lack of a better term, when it came to killing the baby prior to delivery, so they went ahead with delivery and put the baby in a bucket in the corner of the room. The baby tried to breathe, and tried to cry, and everyone in the room pretended the baby wasn’t there.

Rose’s experiences had transformed her from a provincial innocent with a Caribbean accent into a woman of sophistication and hard realism, but the uncertainties of her position had taken their psychological toll, inclining her to extravagance and promiscuity. The bloom of her youth was beginning to fade, and she had such bad teeth (“like cloves”) that rather than open her mouth to laugh, she maintained a tight-lipped smile whilst snickering through her nose, and went out of her way to avoid eating in company.

At one point, he dated a woman from a much more affluent family than his. She was refined and sophisticated, Freireich was a bruiser from Humboldt Park who looked and sounded like the muscle for for some Depression-era gangster. "She took me to the symphony. It was the first time I'd ever heard classical music," he remembered. "I'd never seen a ballet. I'd never seen a play. Outside of our little TV that my mother purchased, I had no education to speak of. There was no literature, no art, no music, no dance, no nothing. It was just food. And not getting killed or beaten up. I was pretty raw.

Where is the freedom in all this? Nowhere! There is no choice here, no final decision. All decisions concerning networks, screens, information or communication are serial in character, partial, fragmentary, fractal. A mere succession of partial decisions, a microscopic series of partial sequences and objectives, constitute as much the photographer's way of proceeding as that of Telecomputer Man in general, or even that called for by our own most trivial television viewing. All such behaviour is structured in quantum fashion, composed of haphazard sequences of discrete decisions. The fascination derives from the pull of the black box, the appeal of an uncertainty which puts paid to our freedom. Am I a man or a machine? This anthropological question no longer has an answer. We are thus in some sense witness to the end of anthropology, now being conjured away by the most recent machines and technologies. The uncertainty here is born of the perfecting of machine networks, just as sexual uncertainty (Am I a man or a woman? What has the difference between the sexes become?) is born of increasingly sophisticated manipulation of the unconscious and of the body, and just as science's uncertainty about the status of its object is born of the sophistication of analysis in the microsciences.

Years ago, I happened upon a television program of a “prosperity gospel” preacher, with perfectly coiffed mauve hair, perched on a rhinestone-spackled golden throne, talking about how wonderful it is to be a Christian. Even if Christianity proved to be untrue, she said, she would still want to be a Christian, because it’s the best way to live. It occurred to me that that is an easy perspective to have, on television, from a golden throne. It’s a much more difficult perspective to have if one is being crucified by one’s neighbors in Sudan for refusing to repudiate the name of Christ. Then, if it turns out not to be true, it seems to be a crazy way to live. In reality, this woman’s gospel—and those like it—are more akin to a Canaanite fertility religion than to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the kingdom she announces is more like that of Pharaoh than like that of Christ. David’s throne needs no rhinestone. But the prosperity gospel proclaimed in full gaudiness in the example above is on full display in more tasteful and culturally appropriate forms. The idea of the respectability of Christian witness in a Christian America that is defined by morality and success, not by the gospel of crucifixion and resurrection, is just another example of importing Jesus to maintain one’s best life now. Jesus could have remained beloved in Nazareth, by healing some people and levitating some chairs, and keeping quiet about how different his kingdom is. But Jesus persistently has to wreck everything, and the illusions of Christian America are no more immune than the illusions of Israelite Galilee. If we see the universe as the Bible sees it, we will not try to “reclaim” some lost golden age. We will see an invisible conflict of the kingdoms, a satanic horror show being invaded by the reign of Christ. This will drive us to see who our real enemies are, and they are not the cultural and sexual prisoners-of-war all around us. If we seek the kingdom, we will see the devil. And this makes us much less sophisticated, much less at home in modern America.

was spring but it was summer I wanted; the warm days and the great outdoors. It was summer but it was fall I wanted; the colorful leaves and the cool dry air. It was fall but it was winter I wanted; the beautiful snow and the joy of the holiday season. It was now winter but it was spring I wanted; the warmth and the blossoming of nature. I was a child but it was adulthood I wanted; the freedom and the respect. I was twenty but it was thirty I wanted; to be mature and sophisticated. I was middle-aged but it was twenty I wanted; the youth and the free spirit. I was retired but it was middle-age that I wanted; the presence of mind without limitations. My life was over but I never got what I wanted.3

Between Myself and Death To Jimmy Blanton's Music: Sophisticated Lady, Body and Soul A fervor parches you sometimes, And you hunch over it, silent, Cruel, and timid; and sometimes You are frightened with wantonness, And give me your desperation. Mostly we lurk in our coverts, Protecting our spleens, pretending That our bandages are our wounds. But sometimes the wheel of change stops; Illusion vanishes in peace; And suddenly pride lights your flesh— Lucid as diamond, wise as pearl— And your face, remote, absolute, Perfect and final like a beast's. It is wonderful to watch you, A living woman in a room Full of frantic, sterile people, And think of your arching buttocks Under your velvet evening dress, And the beautiful fire spreading From your sex, burning flesh and bone, The unbelievably complex Tissues of your brain all alive Under your coiling, splendid hair. * * * I like to think of you naked. I put your naked body Between myself alone and death. If I go into my brain And set fire to your sweet nipples, To the tendons beneath your knees, I Can see far before me. It is empty there where I look, But at least it is lighted. I know how your shoulders glisten, How your face sinks into trance, And your eves like a sleepwalker's, And your lips of a woman Cruel to herself. I like to Think of you clothed, your body Shut to the world and self contained, Its wonderful arrogance That makes all women envy you. I can remember every dress, Each more proud then a naked nun. When I go to sleep my eves Close in a mesh of memory. Its cloud of intimate odor Dreams instead of myself.

And, so, what was it that elevated Rubi from dictator's son-in-law to movie star's husband to the sort of man who might capture the hand of the world's wealthiest heiress? Well, there was his native charm. People who knew him, even if only casually, even if they were predisposed to be suspicious or resentful of him, came away liking him. He picked up checks; he had courtly manners; he kept the party gay and lively; he was attentive to women but made men feel at ease; he was smoothly quick to rise from his chair when introduced, to open doors, to light a lady's cigarette ("I have the fastest cigarette lighter in the house," he once boasted): the quintessential chivalrous gent of manners. The encomia, if bland, were universal. "He's a very nice guy," swore gossip columnist Earl Wilson, who stayed with Rubi in Paris. ""I'm fond of him," said John Perona, owner of New York's El Morocco. "Rubi's got a nice personality and is completely masculine," attested a New York clubgoer. "He has a lot of men friends, which, I suppose, is unusual. Aly Khan, for instance, has few male friends. But everyone I know thinks Rubi is a good guy." "He is one of the nicest guys I know," declared that famed chum of famed playboys Peter Lawford. "A really charming man- witty, fun to be with, and a he-man." There were a few tricks to his trade. A society photographer judged him with a professional eye thus: "He can meet you for a minute and a month later remember you very well." An author who played polo with him put it this way: "He had a trick that never failed. When he spoke with someone, whether man or woman, it seemed as if the rest of the world had lost all interest for him. He could hang on the words of a woman or man who spoke only banalities as if the very future of the world- and his future, especially- depended on those words." But there was something deeper to his charm, something irresistible in particular when he turned it on women. It didn't reveal itself in photos, and not every woman was susceptible to it, but it was palpable and, when it worked, unforgettable. Hollywood dirt doyenne Hedda Hoppe declared, "A friend says he has the most perfect manners she has ever encountered. He wraps his charm around your shoulders like a Russian sable coat." Gossip columnist Shelia Graham was chary when invited to bring her eleven-year-old daughter to a lunch with Rubi in London, and her wariness was transmitted to the girl, who wiped her hand off on her dress after Rubi kissed it in a formal greeting; by the end of lunch, he had won the child over with his enthusiastic, spontaneous manner, full of compliments but never cloying. "All done effortlessly," Graham marveled. "He was probably a charming baby, I am sure that women rushed to coo over him in the cradle." Elsa Maxwell, yet another gossip, but also a society gadabout and hostess who claimed a key role in at least one of Rubi's famous liaisons, put it thus: "You expect Rubi to be a very dangerous young man who personifies the wolf. Instead, you meet someone who is so unbelievably charming and thoughtful that you are put off-guard before you know it." But charm would only take a man so far. Rubi was becoming and international legend not because he could fascinate a young girl but because he could intoxicate sophisticated women. p124

I once knew a weak woman of fashion, who was more than commonly proud of her delicacy and sensibility. She thought a distinguishing taste and puny appetite the height of all human perfection, and acted accordingly. I have seen this weak sophisticated being neglect all the duties of life, yet recline with self-complacency on a sofa, and boast of her want of appetite as a proof of delicacy that extended to, or, perhaps, arose from, her exquisite sensibility: for it is difficult to render intelligible such ridiculous jargon. Yet, at the moment, I have seen her insult a worthy old gentlewoman, whom unexpected misfortunes had made dependent on her ostentatious bounty, and who, in better days, had claims on her gratitude. Is it possible that a human creature should have become such a weak and depraved being, if, like the Sybarites, dissolved in luxury, every thing like virtue had not been worn away, or never impressed by precept, a poor substitute it is true, for cultivation of mind, though it serves as a fence against vice?

Helene Hanff, an aspiring playwright who had been put to work in the Theatre Guild press office, remembered trying to generate some effective publicity for Away We Go! “This was, they told us, the damndest musical ever thought up for a sophisticated Broadway audience,” Hanff wrote. “It was so pure you could put it on at a church social. It opened with a middle-aged farm woman sitting alone on a bare stage churning butter, and from then on it got cleaner.”16 It was the kind of Americana that Larry Hart distrusted. But at the New Haven tryout he tried to keep an open mind. Of the songs in Away We Go!’s first act, five of them—“Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” “Many a New Day,” “People Will Say We’re in Love,” and “Out of My Dreams”—were destined to become instant classics, with “All Er Nuthin’” and “Oklahoma!” delighting the audience in the second act. But Larry wasn’t so delighted. He might have regarded “We know we belong to the land” as a professionally crafted line, as resonant to recent immigrants as to Mayflower descendants; but “The land we belong to is grand”?

There once was a female snake that roamed around a small village in the countryside of Egypt. She was commonly seen by villagers with her small baby as they grazed around the trees. One day, several men noticed the mother snake was searching back and forth throughout the village in a frenzy — without her young. Apparently, her baby had slithered off on its own to play while she was out looking for food. Yet the mother snake went on looking for her baby for days because it still hadn't returned back to her. So one day, one of the elder women in the village caught sight of the big snake climbing on top of their water supply — an open clay jug harvesting all the village's water. The snake latched its teeth on the big jug's opening and sprayed its venom into it. The woman who witnessed the event was mentally handicapped, so when she went to warn the other villagers, nobody really understood what she was saying. And when she approached the jug to try to knock it over, she was reprimanded by her two brothers and they locked her away in her room. Then early the next day, the mother snake returned to the village after a long evening searching for her baby. The children villagers quickly surrounded her while clapping and singing because she had finally found her baby. And as the mother snake watched the children rejoice in the reunion with her child, she suddenly took off straight for the water supply — leaving behind her baby with the villagers' children. Before an old man could gather some water to make some tea, she hissed in his direction, forcing him to step back as she immediately wrapped herself around the jug and squeezed it super hard. When the jug broke burst into a hundred fragments, she slithered away to gather her child and return to the safety of her hole. Many people reading this true story may not understand that the same feelings we are capable of having, snakes have too. Thinking the villagers killed her baby, the mother snake sought out revenge by poisoning the water to destroy those she thought had hurt her child. But when she found her baby and saw the villagers' children, her guilt and protective instincts urged her to save them before other mothers would be forced to experience the pain and grief of losing a child. Animals have hearts and minds too. They are capable of love, hatred, jealousy, revenge, hunger, fear, joy, and caring for their own and others. We look at animals as if they are inferior because they are savage and not civilized, but in truth, we are the ones who are not being civil by drawing a thick line between us and them — us and nature. A wild animal's life is very straightforward. They spend their time searching and gathering food, mating, building homes, and meditating and playing with their loved ones. They enjoy the simplicity of life without any of our technological gadgetry, materialism, mass consumption, wastefulness, superficiality, mindless wars, excessive greed and hatred. While we get excited by the vibrations coming from our TV sets, headphones and car stereos, they get stimulated by the vibrations of nature. So, just because animals may lack the sophisticated minds to create the technology we do or make brick homes and highways like us, does not mean their connections to the etheric world isn't more sophisticated than anything we could ever imagine. That means they are more spiritual, reflective, cosmic, and tuned into alternate universes beyond what our eyes can see. So in other words, animals are more advanced than us. They have the simple beauty we lack and the spiritual contentment we may never achieve.

How could she even think what she’s thinking? Alessandro wondered silently as he watched Brianna glare pure murder at the misguided Gertie smiling up at him. Alessandro cocked an amused eyebrow and gave her a polite smile when he noticed the look on Brianna’s face. Didn’t she know that if it weren’t for all these people, Alessandro would drag her onto the bar and fuck her madly? As it was, his body had maintained its state of semi arousal for most of the morning and into this late afternoon. He was half-tempted to drag her into the nearest closet. And she was jealous. Alessandro wanted to laugh at the ridiculous notion. While he could still appreciate the beauty of young Gertie on an aesthetic level, Brianna really had ruined him for other women. If anything, the fact that she had carried his son in her body, given birth to his child, made his primal need and want of her all that more intense. Alessandro considered himself sophisticated and well-schooled in the ways of women and how to seduce them. With Brianna, he just wanted. Her strength, her heart, her passion, her courage, all coupled with a body that kept him hard as a rock for more time than was surely healthy, created the only woman he would ever love. Ever.

Reviewers of every ilk like to feel they are above a work of art. If it puzzles them or if they are intimidated, they are more than likely to trash it. Many artists are not intellectuals, but Burden was, and her work reflected her wide learning. Her references spanned many fields and were often impossible to track. There was also a literary, narrative quality to her art that many resisted. I am convinced that her knowledge alone acted as an irritant to some reviewers. I once had a conversation with a man who had excoriated her first one-woman show. When I brought up his review and offered a defense of her work, he was hostile. He was not a stupid man and had written well on some artists I admired. He had attacked Burden’s work as confused and naïve, the very opposite, in fact, of what it was. I realized that he had been incapable of a fair-minded appraisal because, although he prided himself on his sophistication, the multiple meanings of her carefully orchestrated texts had eluded him, and he had projected his own disorientation onto the work. His last words to me were “I hated it, okay? I just hated it. I don’t give a damn about what she was referring to.” That conversation has stayed with me, not as a story about Harriet Burden so much as a lesson for myself: Beware of the violent response and the sophisms you may use to explain it.

So what kind of woman are you looking for? Let me guess. Professional. Sophisticated. Classy. Intelligent. Basically, Lucia but younger, or do you like a little Mrs. Robinson between the sheets?" She took another bite of her hot dog. Was there any better food? "My relationship with Lucia is strictly professional, but yes, I'd be interested in someone similar." "So, you want a mini-me," she teased. "I mean a mini-you. Not me. Obviously. Lucia is pretty much the opposite of me, which is another reason I knew that job wouldn't work out." "You have ketchup on your cheek." He took a napkin and gently dabbed it at the corner of her mouth. Desire flooded her veins followed by a wave of desolation. She could easily fall for a man like Jay. Smart, handsome, ambitious, successful, and yet she sensed a longing in him, a secret Jay waiting to be free. "Is it gone?" Her voice came out in a whisper. He leaned in and studied her with a serious intensity that took her breath away. He was so close she could see the gentle dip of his chin, the dark stubble of his five-o'clock shadow even though it couldn't be much past four o'clock. His lips were firm and soft, his mouth the perfect size for kissing. She drew in his scent: pine and mountains and the rich, earthy scent of the soil she'd turned in the garden when her family was whole and she never had to wonder whose house she was in when she woke up in the morning.

The traditional Roman wedding was a splendid affair designed to dramatize the bride’s transfer from the protection of her father’s household gods to those of her husband. Originally, this literally meant that she passed from the authority of her father to her husband, but at the end of the Republic women achieved a greater degree of independence, and the bride remained formally in the care of a guardian from her blood family. In the event of financial and other disagreements, this meant that her interests were more easily protected. Divorce was easy, frequent and often consensual, although husbands were obliged to repay their wives’ dowries. The bride was dressed at home in a white tunic, gathered by a special belt which her husband would later have to untie. Over this she wore a flame-colored veil. Her hair was carefully dressed with pads of artificial hair into six tufts and held together by ribbons. The groom went to her father’s house and, taking her right hand in his, confirmed his vow of fidelity. An animal (usually a ewe or a pig) was sacrificed in the atrium or a nearby shrine and an Augur was appointed to examine the entrails and declare the auspices favorable. The couple exchanged vows after this and the marriage was complete. A wedding banquet, attended by the two families, concluded with a ritual attempt to drag the bride from her mother’s arms in a pretended abduction. A procession was then formed which led the bride to her husband’s house, holding the symbols of housewifely duty, a spindle and distaff. She took the hand of a child whose parents were living, while another child, waving a hawthorn torch, walked in front to clear the way. All those in the procession laughed and made obscene jokes at the happy couple’s expense. When the bride arrived at her new home, she smeared the front door with oil and lard and decorated it with strands of wool. Her husband, who had already arrived, was waiting inside and asked for her praenomen or first name. Because Roman women did not have one and were called only by their family name, she replied in a set phrase: “Wherever you are Caius, I will be Caia.” She was then lifted over the threshold. The husband undid the girdle of his wife’s tunic, at which point the guests discreetly withdrew. On the following morning she dressed in the traditional costume of married women and made a sacrifice to her new household gods. By the late Republic this complicated ritual had lost its appeal for sophisticated Romans and could be replaced by a much simpler ceremony, much as today many people marry in a registry office. The man asked the woman if she wished to become the mistress of a household (materfamilias), to which she answered yes. In turn, she asked him if he wished to become paterfamilias, and on his saying he did the couple became husband and wife.

There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood. The boy is walking through the street of his town. He is thinking of the future and of the figure he will cut in the world. Ambitions and regrets awake within him. Suddenly something happens; he stops under a tree and waits as for a voice calling his name. Ghosts of old things creep into his consciousness; the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life. From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy. With a little gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the winds, a thing destined like corn to wilt in the sun. He shivers and looks eagerly about. The eighteen years he has lived seem but a moment, a breathing space in the long march of humanity. Already he hears death calling. With all his heart he wants to come close to some other human, touch someone with his hands, be touched by the hand of another. If he prefers that the other be a woman, that is because he believes that a woman will be gentle, that she will understand. He wants, most of all, understanding.

We had a second date that night, then a third, and then a fourth. And after each date, my new romance novel protagonist called me, just to seal the date with a sweet word. For date five, he invited me to his house on the ranch. We were clearly on some kind of a roll, and now he wanted me to see where he lived. I was in no position to say no. Since I knew his ranch was somewhat remote and likely didn’t have many restaurants nearby, I offered to bring groceries and cook him dinner. I agonized for hours over what I could possibly cook for this strapping new man in my life; clearly, no mediocre cuisine would do. I reviewed all the dishes in my sophisticated, city-girl arsenal, many of which I’d picked up during my years in Los Angeles. I finally settled on a non-vegetarian winner: Linguine with Clam Sauce--a favorite from our family vacations in Hilton Head. I made the delicious, aromatic masterpiece of butter, garlic, clams, lemon, wine, and cream in Marlboro Man’s kitchen in the country, which was lined with old pine cabinetry. And as I stood there, sipping some of the leftover white wine and admiring the fruits of my culinary labor, I was utterly confident it would be a hit. I had no idea who I was dealing with. I had no idea that this fourth-generation cattle rancher doesn’t eat minced-up little clams, let alone minced-up little clams bathed in wine and cream and tossed with long, unwieldy noodles that are difficult to negotiate. Still, he ate it. And lucky for him, his phone rang when he was more than halfway through our meal together. He’d been expecting an important call, he said, and excused himself for a good ten minutes. I didn’t want him to go away hungry--big, strong rancher and all--so when I sensed he was close to getting off the phone, I took his plate to the stove and heaped another steaming pile of fishy noodles onto his plate. And when Marlboro Man returned to the table he smiled politely, sat down, and polished off over half of his second helping before finally pushing away from the table and announcing, “Boy, am I stuffed!” I didn’t realize at the time just how romantic a gesture that had been.

CONFESSIONS OF A CLING-ON If a man is walking in a forest and makes a statement, but there is no woman around to hear it, is he still wrong? Or if a woman is walking in the forest and asks for something, and there is no man around to hear her, is she still needy? These Zen koans capture some of the frustrations people have with the opposite gender. And where is the dividing line between someone simply having a need, and someone being a needy person? Is it written in heaven somewhere what is too much need, too little need and just right amount of need for the “normal person?” Ask pop radio psychologists Dr. Laura, or Sally Jessie Rafael, or any number of experts who claim to know for sure, and you’ll get some very different answers. And isn’t it fun to see the new sophisticated ways our advanced culture is developing to make each other wrong? You better keep up with the latest technical terminology or you will be at the mercy of those who do. Whoever has read the latest most recent self-help book has the clear advantage. Example: Man: “Get real, would you! Your Venusian codependency has got you trapped in your learned helpless victim act, and indulging in your empowerment phobia again.” Woman: “When you call me codependent, I feel (notice the political correctness of the feeling word) that you are simply projecting your own disowned, unintegrated, emotionally unavailable Martian counterdependency to protect your inner ADD two year old from ever having to grow up. So there!” Speaking of diagnosis, remember the codependent. Worrying about codependency was like a virus that everyone had from about 1988 to 1994. Here’s a prayer to commemorate the codependent: The Codependent’s Prayer by Kelly Bryson Our Authority, which art in others, self-abandonment be thy name. Codependency comes when others’ will is done, At home, as it is in the workplace. give us this day our daily crumbs of love. And give us a sense of indebtedness, As we try to get others to feel indebted to us. And lead us not into freedom, but deliver us from awareness. For thine is the slavery and the weakness and the dependency, For ever and ever. Amen.

I have come, my lovely,” Roddy said with his usual sardonic grin as he swept her a deep bow, “in answer to your urgent summons-and, I might add,-“ he continued, “before I presented myself at the Willingtons’, exactly as your message instructed.” At 5’10”, Roddy Carstairs was a slender man of athletic build with thinning brown hair and light blue eyes. In fact, his only distinguishing characteristics were his fastidiously tailored clothes, a much-envied ability to tie a neckcloth into magnificently intricate folds that never drooped, and an acid wit that accepted no boundaries when he chose a human target. “Did you hear about Kensington?” “Who?” Alex said absently, trying to think of the best means to persuade him to do what she needed done. “The new Marquess of Kensington, once known as Mr. Ian Thornton, persona non grata. Amazing, is it not, what wealth and title will do?” he continued, studying Alex’s tense face as he continued, “Two years ago we wouldn’t have let him past the front door. Six months ago word got out that he’s worth a fortune, and we started inviting him to our parties. Tonight he’s the heir to a dukedom, and we’ll be coveting invitations to his parties. We are”-Roddy grinned-“when you consider matters from this point of view, a rather sickening and fickle lot.” In spite of herself, Alexandra laughed. “Oh, Roddy,” she said, pressing a kiss on his cheek. “You always make me laugh, even when I’m in the most dreadful coil, which I am now. You could make things so very much better-if you would.” Roddy helped himself to a pinch of snuff, lifted his arrogant brows, and waited, his look both suspicious and intrigued. “I am, of course, your most obedient servant,” he drawled with a little mocking bow. Despite that claim, Alexandra knew better. While other men might be feared for their tempers or their skill with rapier and pistol, Roddy Carstairs was feared for his cutting barbs and razor tongue. And, while one could not carry a rapier or a pistol into a ball, Roddy could do his damage there unimpeded. Even sophisticated matrons lived in fear of being on the wrong side of him. Alex knew exactly how deadly he could be-and how helpful, for he had made her life a living hell when she came to London the first time. Later he had done a complete turnabout, and it had been Roddy who had forced the ton to accept her. He had done it not out of friendship or guilt; he had done it because he’d decided it would be amusing to test his power by building a reputation for a change, instead of shredding it. “There is a young woman whose name I’ll reveal in a moment,” Alex began cautiously, “to whom you could be of great service. You could, in fact, rescue her as you did me long ago, Roddy, if only you would.” “Once was enough,” he mocked. “I could hardly hold my head up for shame when I thought of my unprecedented gallantry.” “She’s incredibly beautiful,” Alex said. A mild spark of interest showed in Roddy’s eyes, but nothing stronger. While other men might be affected by feminine beauty, Roddy generally took pleasure in pointing out one’s faults for the glee of it. He enjoyed flustering women and never hesitated to do it. But when he decided to be kind he was the most loyal of friends.

Whatever happens, I must be back in Somerset by Dec 1 when Mrs Shirley Williams comes to address a rally of the Social Democratic party in Bridgwater. Suitably enough, this hellish woman has chosen the local Comprehensive School as her venue. Rotten eggs and cowpats can probably be acquired locally, but stink bombs and more sophisticated devices should be brought with you. Hoax bomb calls and maniacal threatening letters should be addressed to Bridgwater Police Headquarters. Tea and biscuits will be served at halftime.

I suppose I thought that you might have tried to attract Christopher's attention to yourself. As ludicrous as that would have been." Beatrix tilted her head slightly. "Ludicrous?" "Perhaps that's not the right word. I meant unsuitable. Because a man in Christopher's position needs a sophisticated woman. Someone to support his position in society. With his fame and influence, he may enter politics someday. And he could hardly do that with a wife who spent most of her time in the forest... or the stables." That delicate reminder was like an arrow through Beatrix's heart. "She's more suited to the stables than the drawing room," Christopher had once said.

An exceptional choice for a wife, Sydney," the elderly man remarked. "Poised, unaffected, and quite lovely. You are quite fortunate." No one would have disagreed with that, least of all Nick. Lottie was a revelation this evening, her gown stylish but not too sophisticated, her smile easy, her posture as regal as that of a young queen. Neither the grandeur of their surroundings nor the hundreds of curious gazes seemed to disturb her composure. She was so polished and immaculately pretty that no one suspected the layer of steel beneath her exterior. No one would ever guess that she was the kind of young woman who would have defied her parents and lived by her own wits for two years... the kind of woman who could hold her own against a hardened Bow Street runner.

Meredith stands in a corner with a beer in her hand but she's not smiling. Her nails are painted purple and gold like her teammates but she didn't run today. She didn't even show up. She hasn't returned my calls and won't look at me. I can't stop staring at her. She holds her beer like a professional, like a woman in a commercial with long beautifully delicate but strong hands. Her top has spaghetti straps and plunges down the back so she can't wear a bra. With eyeliner, mascara and lip gloss highlighting her features she looks a little older, more sophisticated and more noticeable. Rowan has noticed her. He keeps watching her with his tiny eyes. He holds a cup full of punch, then he holds two cups full of punch. The he holds and cup full of punch and a beer. He wears a Princeton hat because that's wear he'll go next year, but it is tattered and old because he has always known he is going there. That is why he never has any fucks to give-- because his family can afford not to give them.

Meredith stands in a corner with a beer in her hand but she's not smiling. Her nails are painted purple and gold like her teammates but she didn't run today. She didn't even show up. She hasn't returned my calls and won't look at me. I can't stop staring at her. She holds her beer like a professional, like a woman in a commercial with long beautifully delicate but strong hands. Her top has spaghetti straps and plunges down the back so she can't wear a bra. With eyeliner, mascara and lip gloss highlighting her features she looks a little older, more sophisticated and more noticeable. Rowan has noticed her. He keeps watching her with his tiny eyes. He holds a cup full of punch, then he holds two cups full of punch. The he holds a cup full of punch and a beer. He wears a Princeton hat because that's wear he'll go next year, but it is tattered and old because he has always known he is going there. That is why he never has any fucks to give-- because his family can afford not to give them.

I lied to you,” she said with a belligerent edge. He hid a smile. “I lied to you.” “I’m domineering and used to getting my own way.” “I like a woman who knows her own mind.” “I’m stubborn and opinionated.” “If I’m contemplating a lifetime with a lassie, I want her to show a bit of spirit.” “I have no society polish. A countess should be sophisticated, whereas I’ve never had a season. I’ve never even been to London.” “Aye, you’ll settle into the Highlands well, then. My home is a long journey from the bright lights of Edinburgh—a wee wife who pines for city life would never be happy with me.” She narrowed her eyes. “I kissed you like there’s no tomorrow.” “Are you trying to convince me for or against?” Her lips twisted in self-denigration. “I’m clearly a woman of wayward morals.” He couldn’t contain his laughter. “Is that right?” Her cheeks were fiery now. “You don’t want to marry a flirt.” “If I’m the only laddie my wife flirts with, I have no objection.” Her expression was a mixture of defiance and shame. “How do you know I don’t kiss every gentleman the way I…I kissed you?” He smiled gently. “Have you ever kissed anyone else like that?” “No.” Her long eyelashes, darker honey than her hair, flickered down. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t.” She was bewitching. He’d admitted to being besotted. Every moment in her company only deepened his enchantment. “I’ll take my chances.” “Surely you want a wife you can trust.” “Apart from your…waywardness and propensity for impersonating fairytale characters, I believe you’re an admirable creature.” “Hardly.” The compliment didn’t please her. “I let you take liberties.” “As your future husband, I’d like to place it on record that I intend to take liberties at every opportunity.” He paused. “Scotland’s a gey chilly place, especially in the winter. I don’t want a cold marriage bed.” She stiffened. “There remains one insurmountable obstacle.” “What’s that?” Her delicate jaw set in an obstinate line. “I don’t want to marry you.” With

He grinned, and right then it occurred to him that he hadn’t enjoyed himself so much with a woman in a very long time. If Annabelle Granger were a few inches taller, a hell of a lot more sophisticated, better organized, less bossy, and more inclined to worship at his feet, she’d have made a perfect wife.

She wanted people to think she was a worldly, sophisticated character---and she was---but that wasn’t all she was. She was a red-blooded woman with insecurities and hopes and dreams like everyone else. Like him. And she didn’t want anyone to know. Just like him. He coped by making his life as orderly as possible and staying as even-keeled as possible. She made it through with some good old-fashioned gumption, even as she took it on the chin. He couldn’t be the one to let her down.

For starters, a masculine spirituality would emphasize movement over stillness, action over theory, service to the world over religious discussions, speaking the truth over social niceties and doing justice instead of any self-serving “charity.” Without a complementary masculine, spirituality becomes overly feminine (which is really a false feminine!) and is characterized by too much inwardness, preoccupation with relationships, a morass of unclarified feeling and religion itself as a security blanket. This prevents a journey to anyplace new, and fosters a constant protecting of the old. It is no-risk religion, just the opposite of Abraham, Moses, Paul and Jesus. In my humble masculine opinion I believe much of the modern, sophisticated church is swirling in what I will describe as a kind of “neuter” religion. It is one of the main reasons that doers, movers, shakers and change agents have largely given up on church people and church groups. As one very effective woman said to me, “After a while you get tired of the in-house jargon that seems to go nowhere.” A neuter spirituality is the trap of those with lots of leisure, luxury and self-serving ideas. They have the option not to do, not to change, not to long and thirst for justice. It can take either a liberal or a conservative form, but in either case, it becomes an inoculation against any deep spiritual journey. That’s why I call it “neuter.” It generates no real sexual energy or life.

He was raw, seductive masculinity—every schoolgirl’s crush and every grown woman’s late-night fantasy. Refined with a razor-sharp, jagged edge. A man so ruthlessly confident he had no need of stereotypical bad-boy attire. He was sophisticated, savage, and infinitely complicated—I was utterly dumbstruck at the sight of him.

The woman was sophisticated, gorgeous, and dripping with a surprising amount of innocence. That guileless innocence warred with her desire—she had clearly been torn—both drawn to and scared of me. She hadn’t let the fear win out. Most people, even when they had no clue who I was, withered in my presence. A part of Alessia had wanted to withdraw, to cower in a corner of the elevator and keep her eyes downcast, but she hadn’t. She stood tall, and even more intriguing, she had held my eyes. It was surprising how few women or men were capable of that feat.

Cam wiped all expression from his face as he discovered he had been seated next to the vicar’s wife, whom he had met on previous visits to Stony Cross Park. The woman was terrified of him. Whenever he looked at her, tried to talk to her, she cleared her throat incessantly. Her sputtery noises brought to mind a tea kettle with an ill-fitting lid. No doubt the vicar’s wife had heard one too many stories of Gypsies stealing children, placing curses on people, and attacking helpless females in a frenzy of uncontrolled lust. Cam was tempted to inform the woman that, as a rule, he never kidnapped or pillaged before the second course. But he kept silent and tried to look as unthreatening as possible, while she shrank in her chair and made desperate conversation with the man at her left. Turning to his right, Cam found himself staring into Amelia Hathaway’s blue eyes. They had been seated next to each other. Pleasure unfolded inside him. Her hair shone like satin, and her eyes were bright, and her skin looked like it would taste of some dessert made with milk and sugar. The sight of her reminded him of an old-fashioned gadjo word that had amused him when he had first heard it. Toothsome. The word was used for something appetizing, conveying the pleasure of taste, but also sexual allure. He found Amelia’s naturalness a thousand times more appealing than the powdered and bejeweled sophistication of other women present. “If you’re trying to look meek and civilized,” Amelia said, “it’s not working.

Imagine looking back from a vantage point of one thousand years in the future, retrospectively evaluating our current, “sophisticated” medical and scientific procedures. One might see today’s physician waving laser beams over a patient’s body as a primitive, archaic, and incomprehensible healing technique, just as from some perspectives a medicine woman waving eagle feathers, or a curandera holding a crucifix over a patient, is viewed by some as archaic. The similarities are striking and compelling. Future generations may lose touch with the major assumptions underpinning contemporary western medicine, just as many of us have now lost touch with the assumptions integral to older cultures that continue to practice the ancient healing ways. Forgetting the assumptions on which a procedure is based may make the procedure incomprehensible, but it does not make it invalid.

sophisticated-looking than the girl he used to know. People in hospitals never looked good. And yet, somehow, she did. Dianna was in the middle of saying something to a thin woman with a severe black haircut who was sitting on a chair beside the bed when she looked up and saw him. Breaking off in the middle of her sentence, she sucked in a deep breath, her face flushing beneath his scrutiny. And yet, even as he mentally dissected all the ways she’d changed, all the reasons they were more different than ever, his body was telling him to get over there, to pull her tight against him and kiss her until they were both gasping for air. What

Dulles was fortunate to find someone like Mary, a woman whose morals were conveniently flexible—or, as she herself put it, a woman with a “sophisticated point of view.” She had a curious way of explaining her moral dexterity, but Dulles certainly would have endorsed her way of thinking. “In order to engage in intelligence work successfully,” Mary observed, “it was essential to have a very clear-cut idea of your own moral values, so that if you were forced by necessity to break them, you were fully conscious of what you were doing and why.

Would you like to talk about it?” This too was met with deafening silence. Because no matter how much Susannah might like to confide in her Aunt Julia, she just couldn’t. No one could understand how she felt, deep inside. It was too powerful, too unpronounceable, too unwieldy a thing, and if she said it out loud it would just explode like a cannon. “Well,” Julia said with a sigh. “Perhaps I can guess.” She paused to think, but only for a moment. “You are sad because Sebastian has left for his Grand Tour, and you are afraid he will go away and forget you and meet some other young woman. Perhaps she’s Parisian. Or Belgian. Those Belgian girls do have forthrightness that comes with being from such a small country. But regardless of the nationality of this young lady, she is sophisticated and fashionable and she’ll have Sebastian wrapped around her finger. And he’ll never see you as anything other than a little sister.” Susannah’s head came up. She stared at her aunt, her tear-stained cheeks flushed, but her eyes unblinking and suddenly quite dry. “By the time he comes back, your young Mr. Beckett will be married to said Belgian girl, who you will be forced to smile at and visit with at Custard House, even as your heart breaks with every love-coo she sends her henpecked Sebastian.” Susannah gaped. Her mind reeled at the exposure of her deepest, darkest fears. “That was the most terrible thing you could have possibly said,” she blurted out, slapping a hand over her mouth in horror. But Julia just smiled. “It’s also the most unlikely to happen. Good English boys don’t go on their Grand Tour and come back married.” “But… it could. Belgian girls, and all.” “True, but it doesn’t happen to good English boys who rely on their good English fathers for income, at least,” her aunt said wryly.

While their powers might not have been as acute as mine, their future was equally as bleak. We were all in service to Nix. We were all bound to the destiny he laid out for us. And he had no interest in letting us be free. He would use us for his own twisted plots and evil gain. He would use us until he couldn’t anymore. He would use every last ounce of us until we shrivelled into nothing and disappeared without another thought. Welcome to the sophisticated sex trade. Our buyers paid more and our pimp was an international and highly respected businessman, but our tricks were the same and our bodies equally enslaved. In a world where human trafficking was at the highest numbers in all of history, combined, our branch of the insidious business seemed almost human compared to what others went through. But our freedom was still ripped from us and we were still forced to sell ourselves so that others could gratify their greed. A woman shouldn’t have to live like this. A woman should be able to decide everything that happened to her body. And not just women, but girls. Especially girls.

I’m not a loose woman,” she said firmly, without preamble, “and I won’t be your mistress, no matter how many boxes of chocolates you give me.” Caleb rested one hand on the gnarled trunk of the tree she leaned against and bent toward her. “That’s the last thing I think, Miss Chalmers,” he informed her. “That you’re a loose woman, I mean.” “Is it?” She blushed again. Fetchingly, he thought. “You’ve kissed me twice today, Major Halliday. And tonight at the table, you—you—” “I touched you,” Caleb said softly. “And you let me.” Lily sighed. “I don’t know what possessed me.” “I do,” came the easy reply. “You’re supposed to feel like that when the right man touches you, Lily. It’s natural.” She stared up at him. “It is?” Caleb nodded. “Not only that, but it gets better.” Lily swallowed. “It couldn’t.” “But it does,” Caleb argued gently. “One day soon, when you’re ready, I’ll show you.” “It seems to me that you expect rather a lot for a pound of chocolates,” Lily protested. Caleb laughed. “Rebel while you can,” he said. “Very soon things will be different.” She looked as though she didn’t believe her ears. “Of all the audacious, low-minded—” He ran his thumb along her jawline, delighting in her fury and her fire. Taming her was going to be pure joy. “Yes?” It took a mere brush of his lips to make her tilt her head back for his kiss. Caleb wondered if she was sophisticated enough to know how much he wanted her. He’d kissed her thoroughly when she finally placed both hands against his chest and pushed. “It’s hopeless,” she gasped out defiantly. “So stop trying to convince me!” Caleb smiled and allowed one of his hands to stray, ever so lightly, across her breast. He felt her nipple grow instantly taut against his knuckles. “I mean to have you, Lily Chalmers,” he warned, his voice barely more than a breath. “The time will come when you’ll stand at your window watching for me.” She gaped at him. “I see we understand each other,” he said, putting his hat back on and stepping back to see Lily better. She was like some delicate, exotic flower blooming in the moonlight. “Suppose I tell you that I never want to see you again?” she managed after a long time, her voice a breathless whisper. Caleb knew he looked a lot more confident than he felt. “You won’t,” he answered. “What makes you so sure?” “The kiss we just shared.” “You say and do the most outrageous things, Major Halliday.” He

Today, we are too sophisticated to invent names for what we worship, yet we continue to worship love.

Feeling secure for the moment, I took in a few more details. She was wearing a midnight blue dress, something with texture, maybe raw silk. It was cut just above the knee, with three-quarter length sleeves, an off-the-shoulder neckline, and a deep V cut in the back and front. Her shoes were patent leather stilettos with sharp toes. There was a handbag to match the shoes, and a gold Cartier watch with a gold link band encircling her left wrist. It was a man’s watch, large and heavy on her wrist, and its incongruous heft served to accentuate her femininity. Her hair was swept back and away from her face in a way that accentuated her profile. Overall the look was controlled and sleek, sophisticated and sexy. None of it, especially the shoes, would be ideal for escape and evasion, if it came to that, so I realized she must have chosen it all for some other operational imperative. There are all sorts of weapons in the world, and I reminded myself that when this woman was dressed for work, she was anything but unarmed.

He took it off, and she could see his hair was damp with sweat, as was his shirt on closer inspection. He mustn’t have bothered showering after his training session. Juliet’s belly tightened. There was just something about a sweaty man that had always done it for her. Good sweaty. Not the festering-for-hours-never-worn-deodorant kind. The healthy kind worked up through hard physical labour. The primal survival kind that attracted a woman to the type of man who could keep her in mammoth stew and furs. It clearly didn’t matter how sophisticated humans thought they were or how far they’d come. Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and it still got down to how a man smelled. Mother Nature was one crazy bitch.

Saffron, how are you?" Logan asks and he sounds genuinely interested. How am I? Small talk, right. I rest my hip on the table and give my back to Logan as I look down at his date. "Would you think it odd for a man to come to a small town and proceed to not speak to you for six months?" Her perfect lips form a grin. "Everyone or just me specifically?" "You, specifically." Her eyes light with humor. "Yes, that is odd." "Odder still for that man to then take you to bed and blow your mind with sex for almost twenty-four hours before ditching you and then staying off the radar for a week?" The humor has left her gaze now, but she answers anyway. "Indeed." "So what would you think when that same man shows up at your place of employment with a beautiful woman and attempts to engage you in small talk?" Her eyes leave mine for Logan's, but I don't miss the emotion in her gaze. She's mad. "Exactly." I turn and give Logan my full attention. "So how am I, Logan?" I pull out the chair next to him and sit down. "I could pretend to be a cool, sophisticated woman and lie to you and say I'm fabulous, but that just isn't me. What I am is hurt and more than a little pissed, so the idea of making small talk with you is repugnant to me, unless that talk is centered on what I'd like to do to you. For example, I'd love to reach for that dull butter knife and stick it in your eye, giving it a hard turn just for good measure. The idea of strapping you to a man-sized lobster trap and throwing you into the ocean holds a great deal of appeal, as does the thought of running your ass over with my car, repeatedly. I could sit here all day making small talk about that, or you could just shut up and order some goddamn lunch.

wise, sophisticated, cynical, and sentimental, and, at the same time, diplomatic and discreet.

The old Talmudic Jewish philosophers may have come a bit closer to quantifying risk. But here, too, we find no indication that they followed up on their reasoning by developing a methodical approach to risk. Sambursky cites a passage in the Talmud, Kethuboth 9q, where the philosopher explains that a man may divorce his wife for adultery without any penalty, but not if he claims that the adultery occurred before marriage.13 “It is a double doubt,” declares the Talmud. If it is established (method unspecified) that the bride came to the marriage bed no longer a virgin, one side of the double doubt is whether the man responsible was the prospective groom himself—whether the event occurred “under him . . . or not under him.” As to the second side of the doubt, the argument continues: “And if you say that it was under him, there is doubt whether it was by violence or by her free will.” Each side of the double doubt is given a 50–50 chance. With impressive statistical sophistication, the philosophers conclude that there is only one chance in four (1/2 × 1/2) that the woman committed adultery before marriage. Therefore, the husband cannot divorce her on those grounds.

wish to experience a tranquil dying without whining about or withstanding death. “Like birth,” my treasured collaborator Sandra warns in Death’s Door, “death is surely by its nature undignified.” True, but with the help of hospice at home I wish to avoid being cut, drained, wired, monitored, intubated, and ventilated within the artificial life support systems of an ICU. “To die ‘naturally’ is to find a way to have a graceful death when the prognosis is terminal and further treatments are of questionable value. It is not a rejection of medical science, but rather an attempt to use the sophistication of modern medicine to treat—in a different, better way—those who are seriously ill or near death.” I

It makes Celia furious that around ninety percent of the women on Italian TV are fabulous specimens with great legs, superb chests and hair as glossy as a mink's pelt, and that every prime-time programme, whether it be a games show or football analysis, seems to require the presence of an attractive young woman with no discernible function other than to be decorative. She shakes her head in disbelief at the shopping channels, with their delirious women screaming about the wonders of the latest buttock-firming apparatus, and bald blokes in shiny suits shouting ‘Buy my carpets! Buy my jewellery, for God's sake!' hour after hour after hour. She can't resolve the contradictions of a country where spontaneous generosity is as likely to be encountered as petty deviousness; where a predilection for emetically sentimental ballads accompanies a disconcertingly hard-headed approach to interpersonal relationships (friends summarily discarded, to be barely acknowledged when they pass on the streets); where veneration for tradition competes with an infatuation with the latest technology, however low the standard of manufacture (the toilet in Elisabetta's apartment wouldn't look out of place on the Acropolis, but it doesn't flush properly; her brother-in-law's Ferrari is as fragile as a newborn giraffe); where sophistication and the maintenance of ‘la bella figura’ are of primary importance, while the television programmes are the most infantile and demeaning in the world; where there's a church on every corner yet religion often seems a form of social decoration, albeit a form of decoration that's essential to life - 'It's like the wallpaper is holding the house up,’ Celia wrote from Rome. She'll never make sense of Italy, but that's the attraction, or a major part of it, which is something Charlie will never understand, she says. But he does understand it to an extent. He can understand how one might find it interesting for a while, for the duration of a holiday; he just doesn't understand how an English person - an English woman, especially - could live there.

The woman I am about to meet, like all the Christians I had been interviewing, allowed the suffering inflicted by the communist regime to deepen her love for God and for her fellow persecuted believers. Now, in liberty and relative prosperity, the children of the last communist generation have fallen to a more subtle, sophisticated tyranny: one that tells them that anything they find difficult is a form of oppression. For these millennials, unhappiness is slavery and freedom is liberation from the burden of unchosen obligations.

Morty: Hey, gang, come on! Look it, just `cause we're losing doesn't mean it's all over. Phil: Cut the crap, Morty. I mean, the Mohawks have beaten us the last twelve years, they're gonna beat us again. Tripper: That's just the attitude we don't need. Sure, Mohawk has beaten us twelve years in a row. Sure, they're terrific athletes. They've got the best equipment that money can buy. Hell, every team they're sending over here has their own personal masseuse, not masseur, masseuse. But it doesn't matter. Do you know that every Mohawk competitor has an electrocardiogram, blood and urine tests every 48 hours to see if there's any change in his physical condition? Do you know that they use the most sophisticated training methods from the Soviet Union, East and West Germany, and the newest Olympic power Trinidad-Tobago? But it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER. I tell you, IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER! IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER! IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER! The group: IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER! IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER... Tripper: And even, and even if we win, if we win, HAH! Even if we win! Even if we play so far over our heads that our noses bleed for a week to ten days. Even if God in Heaven above comes down and points his hand at our side of the field. Even if every man, woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn't matter, because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the guys from Mohawk cause they've got all the money! It just doesn't matter if we win or we lose. IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER!

Lesbians were, in the public image, loathsome creatures. They were seen as hard, sophisticated females who seduced innocent girls or women into mysterious “perversions,” or as sad caricatures of men, trying to dress and act as males, and generally aping some of men’s worst characteristics. Hollywood made “butchy” women into repellent monsters, vampires, or other subhuman creatures, and the theater portrayed practitioners of the love that dares not speak its name as neurotic, tragic, or absurd. No woman in her right mind would want to be seen so negatively. No actress admitting to loving women would be a success.

With the cultural portrayal of the smallest details of existence, the distance between one's experience and one's perceptions of it becomes enlarged by a vast interpretive network by this ubiquitous cultural network, the experience must be denied. This process, of course, does not apply only to women. The pervasion of image has so deeply altered our very relationships to ourselves that even men have become objects - if never erotic objects. Images become extensions of oneself; it gets hard to distinguish the real person from his latest image, if indeed, the Person Underneath hasn't evaporated altogheter. [...] each image hitting new highs of sophistication until the person himself doesn't know who he is. Moreover, he deals with others through this image-extension. (Boy-Image meets Girl-Image and consumattes Image-Romance). Even if a woman could get beneath this intricate image facade - and it would take months, even years, of a painful, almost therapeutic relationship - she would be met not with gratitude that she had (painfully) loved the man for his real self, but with shocked repulsion and terror that she had found him out.

that girl is beautiful, and so sophisticated. That’s a grown woman, you hear me?

Men, bonding together, invented culture as a defense against female nature. Sky-cult was the most sophisticated step in this process, for its switch of the creative locus from earth to sky is a shift from belly-magic to head-magic. And from this defensive head-magic has come the spectacular glory of male civilization, which has lifted woman with it. The very language and logic modern woman uses to assail patriarchal culture were the invention of men.

The fact that the woman (ʾiššâ) came from the man (ʾîš) shows that they are made of the same stuff. Adam goes on to name his wife “Eve” because she is to become the mother of all the living (Genesis 3:20). The creation of Eve inspires Adam to poetry, which is a problem for theistic evolutionists, for how could someone be capable of producing sophisticated qualities of poetry if his speech were still evolving at this point?

Seeing this side of Camille, the ordinary woman who’s not wearing a mask of sophistication to impress everyone around her, impresses me a hell of a lot more than the socialite act.

Hebrew the three occurrences of the demonstrative pron-noun this (zōʾt) in verse 23 show Adam’s exclamation of the one who rightly corresponds to him. The fact that the woman (ʾiššâ) came from the man (ʾîš) shows that they are made of the same stuff. Adam goes on to name his wife “Eve” because she is to become the mother of all the living (Genesis 3:20). The creation of Eve inspires Adam to poetry, which is a problem for theistic evolutionists, for how could someone be capable of producing sophisticated qualities of poetry if his speech were still evolving at this point?

In Hebrew the three occurrences of the demonstrative pron-noun this (zōʾt) in verse 23 show Adam’s exclamation of the one who rightly corresponds to him. The fact that the woman (ʾiššâ) came from the man (ʾîš) shows that they are made of the same stuff. Adam goes on to name his wife “Eve” because she is to become the mother of all the living (Genesis 3:20). The creation of Eve inspires Adam to poetry, which is a problem for theistic evolutionists, for how could someone be capable of producing sophisticated qualities of poetry if his speech were still evolving at this point?

How could this highly sophisticated, 1,194-line narrative poem, adapting Ovid’s Metamorphoses and written in polished stanzas of iambic pentameter, possibly be his first creative endeavor? Besides, the author had already written several anonymous plays. Skeptics see the workings of a carefully constructed pretense: a concealed author debuting as “Shakespeare,” making out that this is his first work. How the Stratford man came to meet the fashionable aristocrat, or why he dedicated the poem to him, is another mystery. Biographers tend toward the view that Southampton was Shakespeare’s patron, financing his early poetic endeavors. But no mention of Shakespeare has been found in Southampton’s papers, and there is no record of payment.

A sophist and a Sufi. You are a sufisticated young woman.

The quotidian patterns of society are revealed without my making an effort. I walk down the street, watching people go about their business, and though not a word is spoken, the subtext is conspicuous. A young couple strolls by, the adoration of one bouncing off the tolerance of the other. Apprehension flickers and becomes steady as a businessman, fearful of his supervisor, begins to doubt a decision he made earlier today. A woman wears a mantle of simulated sophistication, but it slips when it brushes past the genuine article.

he slut label is unifying. When I meet a girl who self-identifies as a slut, I immediately feel an affinity with her—like, one of us. It’s like a modern-day vagina version of the Freemasons, except without the cool secret handshake. (Unless a hand job counts?) I believe that once we accept this more contemporary, sophisticated definition of “slut,” it will be easier to accept the label as a badge of honor.

When you read western fiction -- and it's probably true of everywhere else, too -- you'll find that before 1920, as a rule, there were no women outside of certain roles in fiction. There were no people of color out of certain roles in history. They didn't really have a history. They were supporting characters to a broad white male story. Those people, those characters, nobody imagined that a woman could be strong enough to knock out a man because no woman was written about like that. Nobody could imagine that a Black man could understand the theory of relativity because nobody had written about that. Nobody could imagine a sophisticated, sensitive Indian, Native American. If you want to be in the culture, in history of the culture, considered in that history, then you have to exist in the fiction. If you don't exist in the literature of that country, your people don't exist.

This volume represents a terrific research undertaking. Carolyn M. Edy has done a thorough job of exploring the intersection of public policy and gender identity. Her work displays a sophisticated understanding of gendered discourse and the construction of the genre of woman war correspondent. This study makes a significant contribution to both women's studies and the history of war correspondents in general, male as well as female. While highlighting the careers of notable women, this book also explores the careers of those whose work had previously been omitted from media history and places them within the context of the journalism of their times.

She is not sophisticated. She just needs those who can understand her. An elegant woman is uniquely beautiful and very powerful. She is content with who she is, yet so down to Earth.

He was fascinated by Beatrix's competence at things women were not usually competent at. She knew how to use a hammer or a plane tool. She rode better than any woman he had ever seen, and possibly better than any man. She had an original mind, an intelligence woven of recall and intuition. But the more Christopher learned about Beatrix, the more he perceived the vein of insecurity that ran deep in her. A sense of otherness that often inclined her toward solitude. He thought that perhaps it had something to do with her parents' untimely deaths, especially her mother's, which Beatrix had felt as an abandonment. And perhaps it was partly a result of the Hathaways' having been pushed into a social position they had never been prepared for. Being in the upper classes wasn't merely following a set of rules, it was a way of thinking, of carrying oneself and interacting with the world, that had to be instilled since birth. Beatrix would never acquire the sophistication of the young women who had been raised in the aristocracy. That was one of the things he loved most about her.

The next day, I phoned Senator Sander’s office and reported the activities of this man. By 2011, Sander’s office was fully informed about the CIA in my life and I was told that the office would send a Congressional Liaison officer to complain to CIA about what Sander’s staff termed “stalking.” In 2009, I also filed a FOIA request with the FBI in an attempt to learn if FBI was following me. I doubted that they were but I wanted to make sure. I had never found FBI participation in MKULTRA. The FOIA came back no documents located. After the incidents with the blond man, and my growing anger at the behavior of CIA, who I was certain was behind the harassment, I phoned the FBI office in Albany, New York and explained the situation I had been involved in with CIA. I recall telling the FBI that I realized it all sounded crazy and that the behavior of the CIA was indeed crazy, but that what I was reporting to FBI was accurate. I told the woman on the phone about being followed for months by a man I was able to identify as an undercover federal agent and I gave her his name. I asked the FBI to help me stop the harassment I was being subjected to by CIA and asked them to check with Senator Sander’s office if they still didn’t believe me. I never saw the blond man again and as the weeks went by, I noticed I wasn’t being followed. My new lawyer thought it was unusual for the FBI not to open a case file on a complaint, but I never heard from FBI. By May 2011, I had only one encounter with a stranger in a parking lot. It was similar to the other encounters, without the hostility demonstrated by the blond man. The harassment stopped in late 2010, except my phone remains tapped. I stopped seeing strangers following me, and my mail stopped being stolen. I did however note that by 2010 I stopped sending FOIA requests and no longer requested the help of elected officials. I suspect the reason the harassment stopped was because of the complaints I made to Sanders and the FBI. I don’t doubt that CIA was responsible. Who else would have the sophistication to pull off the types of surveillance that I was subjected to for years after I filed the lawsuit and discovered the Vermont CIA experiments?

Let me start by saying a true sensual woman is a tastemaker. What do I mean by that? I mean she sets the standard of what is pleasurable, desirable, sophisticated, refined, intoxicating, elegant, classy, sexy, healthy, delicious, saucy. Women naturally possess the power to create ANY taste. "There are not more than five cardinal tastes, yet combinations of them yield more flavours than can ever be tasted" (Sun Tzu). The sensually awakened ones are cognisant of this and use it to their advantage while those who are not awakened often see it as some form of "female oppression." They say, "You're putting women under pressure." But what about men, Lebo? Well, men are not tastemakers like women are. Why? Because, unlike women, MEN CAN'T AND ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PLAY WITH THEIR INNER CHARACTER TOO MUCH. For instance, a man is essentially restricted only to pants. A man can’t wear a dress, high heels, lipstick and the list goes on. This limits a man from becoming a significant contributor in the tastemaking process of life and love, except financially of course. But it doesn’t limit a woman in any way, shape or form. Women can wear dressess, even men's pants, etc.. They can put on ANYTHING actually and still be celebrated. Marilyn Monroe wore a potatoe sack. Lady Gaga wore an infamous dress made of raw beef. That's why I believe being a woman is the greatest privilege of all. Marilyn Monroe said, "One of the best things that ever happened to me is that I'm a woman." Marilyn understood that women are THE REAL TASTEMAKERS IN LIFE and relationships, not men. BEING A MAN DOESN'T REQUIRE AS MUCH AMBITION AS BEING A WOMAN. Women are relationship navigators because they are naturally more ambitious than men. That's why again, Marilyn said, "Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition." Our ultimate quest as men, whether we realize it or not, is to live under a woman's spell. That makes us happy, and seem stupid at times. Sadly, most women are not sensually awakened enough to realize that. They don't know that the ultimate secret to keeping a man content with one woman lies in her sensuality.

She is not sophisticated. She just needs those who can understand her. An elegant woman is uniquely beautiful and very powerful. She is content with who she is yet so down to Earth.