Maggie's Farm

Our post a while ago about Claire's Knee had me thinking about enchantment. You may recall that the Rohmer movie was about a gentleman who became enchanted, bewitched, charmed, by a teenage girl.

Nowadays, in our pathologizing way, we might say "obsessed" instead, even though it is an entirely natural thing for men to be bewitched by women (and, until very recent history, entirely normal for young teens to marry). It doesn't necesarily take much to have this effect: a knee, the way she holds a teacup, a dimple, a sexy imperfection, the delicate way her fingers touch your hand during conversation, or the way she says "Thank you." Feminine graces do have a magic to them. Men, piggish oafs that these adorable creations are, generally lack the magical effect on women... unless they are sociopathic or narcissistic.

We now say "What a charming person" without necessarily meaning too much. Perhaps just meaning that they are pleasant, use the right fork, and do not say the f word at dinner. However, the etymologies of the word charm, like enchanted (and certainly like bewitched) have powerful origins in notions of magic spells and of being captured or controlled by something. (And, interestingly, in singing. Music can be an enchantment, can't it?).

The things that these words describe have remarkable powers for good, and for destruction. Like drugs.

Editor's addendum: Some may recall that the three bat brothers in Pogo were named Bewitched, Bothered, and Bemildred. Always cracked me up, because my Godmother was named Mildred. She was from Tallahassee, dramatic in her graciousness and warmth, and always wore big, high-fashion hats. Would not go out without a hat. An enchanting lady who held my Godfather in her spell until he died.

Thanks to all who have taken the time to respond to my questions this week.

My final question is just for fun.

You have just won a one-week trip, all expenses paid (except gratuities), with however many passengers the airplane can hold (or fewer), on a round trip flight on a G-650 to anywhere - but only to one destination to which the airplane can fly non-stop - and an airport on which it can land.

What's your destination?

Readers have been generous with their comments on my questions this week, and it's all been helpful and sometimes inspiring. (This question series is only for this one week.)

Here's my question for today:

Men are often viewed as the lustful ones with sinful hearts if not actions, while tradition has often held women to be more contained, demure, and lacking in ordinary lust. While men often tell me about their almost-drooling at babes while walking down the street - even happily married men - I rarely hear that from women. (Obviously there is a huge range in sex drive and sexual interest and imagination between individuals.)

So are women just quieter about reacting to hunks they see, or are men really more lascivious? In other words, are women just as prone to purely physical attraction as men, or do they really need a "relationship" to become interested? Or, to put it another way, are women as likely to make daily life as much of a pornographic experience as men do, on average?

How much sex is a person "supposed" to want? I don't think anybody can answer that question.

Short video: Is sex addiction a disease?

One of my (many) problems with Psychiatry's DSM is one of making "diseases" out of things I might either view as symptoms, or simply as behaviors which deviate from some shrinks' view of "normal."

When it comes to movie stars and the like (as the link mentions), it's another matter. Many of them seem to live like kids in a candy shop, relatively insulated from consequences. When handsome men or lovely beauties are throwing themselves at you all day long, what's a person to do? Especially after a few drinks, a few lines of coke, etc.

Psychiatry is able to justify viewing substance addictions as diseases because, for many people, continuous substance abuse can lead to an alteration of the reward pathways in the brain, resulting in a drive which is challenging to resist.

With sex, however, those reward pathways are already built in to the system as one of the strongest animal instincts we have to grapple with in life.

As usual, I must leave this post at mid-thought, but I will pose the question to our readers:

Is "Sex Addiction" a disease? Or is the idea a "diseasification" of decadent people with lousy self-control and poor capacity for delayed gratification?