A Peter Andre related question (not really about him as such)

[CherryPicking]

Ok so, I made the mistake of listening to local radio the other day, and since then I've had that 90's classic 'Mysterious Girl' as a permanent earworm. Can't shift it. It's still going round as I type.

Anyway, it's given me pause to reflect on the lyrics (over and over, including the rap), and I'm wondering why a man would write a song like that. It's all romantic longing, and it doesn't get more graphic than 'getting closer now and feeling the warmth within'. So, presumably a man wrote that song, not necessarily Pete, and he wrote it to appeal to teenage girls. So it's not the true expression of a man in lust with a girl (presumably a woman over the age of consent). So, do men actually ever feel like this about women? Or is it like the Beatles 'I wanna hold your hand' rather than 'I wanna fuck you in a robotic, jackhammer, porn video sort of way while you look on blankly or appear to be in pain'? Telling the gullible ladies what they want to hear, that sort of thing?

I hope this makes some sense, and I expect the answer will be 'of course some men feel that way sometimes - don't lump them all into the jackhammer box...'

[PoppyBlossom]

You Don't believe men feel genuine desire for closeness or intimacy?

[MephistophelesApprentice]

Is there any possible answer a man could give that you wouldn't regard as a lie?

[CherryPicking]

my marriage was crap, what can I say? I certainly only experienced that desire for closeness and intimacy from him as a means to an end.

[CherryPicking]

Yes Mephis, or I wouldn't have asked.

[PoppyBlossom]

To be fair, the song is pretty blatant that he still wants to have sex with the girl. And what's wrong with that? If the girl wants to have sex with him too.

[MephistophelesApprentice]

Then yes, men do sometimes feel a desire for closeness and intimacy that is only tangentially related to sex.

[CherryPicking]

Nothing wrong with it, but I think it's the romantic preamble that's designed to appeal to girls/women, and be what they're aiming for - that sunset walk along the beach and being adored, whereas rl Pete would be all about the shagging.

[MephistophelesApprentice]

Otherwise the human race would have ended shortly after the invention of porn.

[CherryPicking]

thanks Meph, your input is appreciated.

[flipdoodle]

Yes, I don't read much romantic longing from the lyrics (I can't believe you made me google them). There is very little meaning in them at all, but what I can make out is mostly about wanting to have sex with a girl he has only seen from a distance and knows nothing about.

'I wanna fuck you in a robotic, jackhammer, porn video sort of way while you look on blankly or appear to be in pain' I have never experienced this, I'm very sorry that you have

[PoppyBlossom]

It's a question of gender stereotype in a way, does every woman want the preamble of romance, or is it just what we are told to want? If we don't like the romantic courtship then we are branded sluts for being too easy and 'man like' in our approach. Then there's laddish banter behaviour which means all men must constantly want penetration with as many women as possible, or they are lacking their virile maleness. I'm not sure this is making much sense.

[ScrambledSmegs]

I think I must have only dated men with romantic sides (and married one too). There's great variation in the personality of people - you can't generalise into 'women want romance, men want to bang a hole'

My DH loves the romantic walks/holding hands/gazing into each other's eyes stuff. Sadly he got a wife who says stuff like 'so what about the new Star Wars, eh? Do you think JJ Abrams will respect the canon while still making the great action films he's known for?' while he's trying to look deep into my soul. And I cannot abide a feathery-stroker, while I'm sure some would find that a lovely way to connect with their partner.

[patterkiller]

Of course they do. DH is more than happy to have a cuddle and try to tickle my back I'm not that keenwatching a rom com. And I have often been told that I'm a sex pest if I try to take it further.

[RufusTheReindeer]

scrambled

You sound like me...

Dh loves cuddles and snuggles and kisses...i can take or leave them

He loves rom coms as well...

[WilsonWilsonWoman]

My husband loves to cuddle for the sake of a cuddle.

OP.

[scatterthenuns]

DH didn't want sex last night, he asked for snuggles in bed instead. We wrapped ourselves up in blankets and fell asleep with my head wedged in his armpit. He was definitely just looking for intimacy there!

OP, I'm sorry about your ex. He fucked you up, obviously. Men are just people though - some people (both genders) use intimacy as a method of getting laid, whereas others don't. This isn't a gender question, its a personality one.

[CherryPicking]

oh no this is on discussions of the day.

PoppyBlossom I think I understand.

For the record, I'm certainly not assuming that all women want hearts and flowers, or don't enjoy sex for the sake of sex. I just think there's a music industry which has spend half a century selling women romantic stuff...

I'm not sure whether this is a rant about men, or about the pop music industry now.

[CherryPicking]

scatter you may be right there. Not once did my ex want snuggles for the sake of snuggles.

[ScrambledSmegs]

Ha, Rufus . Romantic stuff just makes me feel silly.

[YonicScrewdriver]

Cherry, I'm really sorry your ex was an arsehole. I would agree that intimacy without sex, or before and after sex, is possible and desirable for many people, men and women.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I don't agree with the OP, because I think men like intimacy and all that guff as well.

However, I do think there is a type of musician John Mayer who write smoochy, lovely dovey lyrics and in RL are shits who treat women horribly; talk about their sex lives and generally act like utter knobbers. I actually think it can work the other way as well. By all accounts (well Mark Kermode's) men who make horror films are lovely and people who make rom coms are arseholes.

[LovelyFriend]

Firstly I think the song is very obviously about getting the girl into bed.

Also PA was totally sold as a sexpot kind of pop star with all those abs and chest photos and floppy hair.

To me it all fits and is completely obvious teen pop. Hot looking guy sings "hey girl you are amazing. All I can think about is staying up all night shagging you."

Job done.

[CherryPicking]

I think the thing is, the song doesn't objectify the woman in a derogatory way, (unlike Blurred Lines etc) and teenage girls of that era were being sold the idea that they could expect to be adored, not just objectified. I guess 1D stuff is in a similar bland vein nowadays though, or was.

I just wondered how much of that manufactured pop song idea of what men want is actually what men want at all. Maybe it is my ex coming into play here - nothing moved him - not sunsets, not beautiful landscapes, he didn't see the point of poetry.( Not that 1D or Pete are exactly poetry, but there's a point to what I'm saying somewhere, I'm sure) Because a lot of manufactured pop sung by male popstars seems surprisingly similar to the stereotype of what women want. I'm on the fence about Ed Sheeran - not sure how manufactured he is, but that 'love you til we're 70' song was somewhere between sickly and pretty good, so who knows, maybe it was all his own idea rather than some 'what teenage girls want' marketing expert's?

For me, I'm struggling to reconcile the idea of there being mainly good men out there, with what Caitlin Moran says about the majority of porn. Surely if most men do have empathic, sensitive souls there wouldn't be such a market for porn where the woman is basically relegated to a bit of furniture to be humped? Or worse... Surely all porn, or most of it would have some human emotion to it, because it's a male buyer's market, isn't it?

I remember staying over at a male relative's house - a sensitive, thoughtful, likeable person by most people's standards. Was looking for something I'd dropped under the bed and came out with some really horrible porn dvds 'sluts suck tramps' cocks' or something - I mean a horrible way to describe both homeless people and women. And this was him! A 'nice' guy! So are these sensitive men you lot describe the same? Are they able to suspend their empathy for other human beings in order to have a wank, whenever they feel like it? And is that ok?


I seem to have gone off on a tangent there... going back to the original point - For the record when I was 15 I would have sooner gone to school in my nightie than listen to Peter Andre voluntarily, so it's not like I'm an old fan - earworm doesn't account for taste! I'm sorry if this all sounds quite confused, I'm just working it out as I go along.

[thatstoast]

In Fantasies of Feminity, there's a line on porn that stuck in my mind. It basically says that porn is arousing because it's designed to be arousing. Just like horror films are meant to be scary and make you jump.

It's a bit like junk food too. I love a big Mac even though I know it's bad for me. If I was choosing for someone else, I'd probably pick healthier food but we don't always make the right choices for ourselves.

For teen music, I do think there's a heavily censored version of popstars that gets put out. It's a very generic, floppy haired image.