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Sumo says:
December 9, 2014 at 4:45 pm
Presumably a woman who is cussing other people out for attacking you is demonstrating her respect for you and your strength and not defending you because you are too weak to defend yourself.

I’m going to stick by the assumption that we’re working off of different definitions of the same phenomenon.

In the scenario you describe, it’s very nearly a certainty that I would not be present while anyone was verbally attacking me or my character, as most folks seem to be reluctant to say things like that to my face, so yeah – the hypothetical woman in question would absolutely be defending me, not because I was “weak”, but rather because I wasn’t around to do it myself.

I would do the same for anyone I cared about, male or female.

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Liz says:
December 10, 2014 at 9:06 am
Sumo: “I’m going to stick by the assumption that we’re working off of different definitions of the same phenomenon.”

I think so, too. This is similar to the ‘respect’ thing on another recent thread. It’s interesting to debate and consider, but I’m going to side with ‘defense of one’s lover/spouse’. From my perspective, that’s not mollycoddling, that’s loyalty. When Emma defends Eivind Berge (hope I spelled that right) when he is unjustly incarcerated, she is being loyal to him, not treating him like a child. But per the examples given by theasdgamer, I’d agree it depends (context, and all that).

I think the assumption that there is a completely dichotomous nature between the parent versus spouse thing can be taken too far. I do a lot of things for my husband that I do for our children. I buy him surprises and leave little notes. We cuddle a LOT. We tease each other a lot, and not just about sex. Yesterday I made cupcakes for him and the kids, and he enjoys them as much as they do.

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