Law Suit or No Pay--Docs, Take Your Pick

Dr. Wes has thoughts on why doctors are dragging their heels about using information technology in healthcare:

"Intel’s Chairman Craig Barrett thinks I’ve been dragging my heels about using information technology in healthcare.

Hmmmm. Dragging my feet over something that represents hours of unpaid labor and exposure to litigation… What could I be thinking?"

Like Dr. Wes, I often have to wonder at some of the things people expect health service providers to do--often for free and with added exposure to liability. I often get requests for evaluations that carry very high liability risk such as violent risk assessments or child custody evaluations. The funny thing is, many times, the client, whoever that may be, balks at the idea that they cannot use their insurance for this type of forensic exam, or that if they have to pay out of pocket, the fee is not just a few bucks. Apparently, my time and exposure to liability means little--people think health service providers are a public commodity, to be used as cheap labor or thrown to the wolves if a patient is harmed in any way--either psychologically or medically because the doctor is overwhelmed with paperwork, patients and out-of-office monitoring. If out-of-office health technology is going to succeed, the liability issues and payment compensation for doctors needs to be worked out in a reasonable way.

Why Men (and Women) Don't Want Sex

I was reading a post over at WebMD on why men don't want sex. The expert gave a number of reasons for the lack of interest--medications, turn-off to aspects of the sex, hormones etc. that all sounded reasonable but I was struck by some of the anger, frustration and downright despair of the male commenters writing in about their lack of desire:

My personal reasons for not wanting sex is disappointment, the word NO, rejection, lack of desire by wife, total indifference. I have heard every excuse heard by man. When the efforts by my spouse are a basically get it over with, you can hardly expect me to get overly excited. Since she consideres sex a chore - just let her read and book and fall asleep.

Here is another one:

After 30 years of marriage and great sex. Prostate surgery ended our sex life.Viagra was tried and it worked well. We had sex for several months when I was given the ok for sex. Sex became less and less, when I asked what was wrong she said "well we had great sex for all these years, had our children and I no longer feel the need for sex"

And from another frustrated male:

Ladies, please consider that this is not an article about your wants. It is just a statement of fact about what causes men to not want sex.

I'm a 27 year old guy, if it was up to me I'd be having sex 10 times a week. However, one of the things that occasionally makes me less interested in sex is that I have to do all the work to make my girl cum and to make myself cum as well. It's all well and good for her to want it, what about wanting to get me off?

FYI, guys jerk off. Get over it. It's not about you. Amazingly, sometimes I just want to cum. I can do it in two minutes by myself instead of the 45+ minutes with my partner (because I want to make sure she enjoys it). Of course, I'd prefer if she'd offer me a hand as long as I don't then have to return the favour.

Some of you may benefit by taking up some of the workload and offering the occasional handjob/blowjob without expecting anything in return. When my girl does that it sparks up my sexual appetite immensely.

After reading this, I traveled over to the "Why Women Don't Want Sex" post and saw 463 comments--some from angry women who had not been helped around the house enough to have sex with their husbands:

As a 28 year old woman, with the same man for 13 years and 3 kids, have a little insight on why women lose interest in sex...It gets beyond boring for us thats why. It becomes a repetitive chore, akin to washing dishes. And even though my man works, when he doesnt want to help me clean or care for the kids, why would I want to spend energy I dont have doing something that is going to feel exactly the way it did last time. Theres no passion, no excitement, nothing. Sex feels like being poked and prodded like your some cow. Is boring, repetitive, and dont you men realize, that girls still just wanna have fun?!!! Pay for us to have a makeover, then buy yourself something nice and please, brush your teeth..Then maybe we would want it too.

A number of the men had responses like this:

As a 45 year old male in a 6 year sexless marriage let me tell you, a lot of the reasons given here are just Bull.

Many, not all but many, of us men, help around the house, help with the chores, take our time making love, and still we are denied sex. We are loving attentive men who help in any way possible and do all we are asked, and still, we are denied relations with the women we love, and with women who profess to love us?

So what did I learn from spending the last hour reading comments from women and men about sex? That I need to go to work earlier and stop spending so much time on the intenet? Perhaps--or maybe I learned that instead of seeking solutions to what bothers their mates, many women (and some of the men) spend their time wondering why their own needs are not being met--and that is no way to fix a broken sex life.

Update: A Men's News Daily commenter to this post writes the following:

"Never forget: the single most revolting image, the nightmare that haunts women, is that of the happy, grinning, sexually satisfied male. They really hate that and the sooner we adjust our social expectation to that fact, the better." Truer words were never spoken--I think that some women really do feel this way.

Update II: Some interesting thoughts from Kim du Toit and Mrs. du Toit on men, women and sex.

A New Way to Increase Technorati Rankings?

I noticed that my Technorati ranking and links had increased over the past week and saw that I had been linked by a blog I have never heard of, who is showcasing the pictures of 2000 bloggers. I am on the left side bar--eleven rows down--next to Neo-neocon holding her apple. Okay, it's a neat idea but the purpose of showcasing 2000 bloggers and their mugshots appears to be to get as many links back from these 2000 blogs as possible--and obviously, it works. If you have your own blog and a picture of yourself on your blog as well, you can ask to be added to the list.

Isn't this Outrageous?

In a prior post, commenter titurator veritatis mentioned this Daily Mail article on "Erin Pizzey, founder of the battered wives' refuge, on how militant feminists - with the collusion of Labour's leading women - hijacked her cause and used it to try to demonise all men."

Men can be accused of violence towards their partners and sexual abuse without evidence. Courts discriminate against fathers and refuse to allow them access to their children on the whims of vicious partners.

Of course, there are dangerous men who manipulate the court systems and social services to persecute their partners and children. But by blaming all men, we have diluted the focus on this minority of men and pushed aside the many men who would be willing to work with women towards solutions.

I believe that the feminist movement envisaged a new Utopia that depended upon destroying family life. In the new century, so their credo ran, the family unit will consist of only women and their children. Fathers are dispensable. And all that was yoked - unforgivably - to the debate about domestic violence.

To my mind, it has never been a gender issue - those exposed to violence in early childhood often grow up to repeat what they have learned, regardless of whether they are girls or boys.

I look back with sadness to my young self and my vision that there could be places where people - men, women and children who have suffered physical and sexual abuse - could find help, and if they were violent could be given a second chance to learn to live peacefully.

I believe that vision was hijacked by vengeful women who have ghetto-ised the refuge movement and used it to persecute men. Surely the time has come to challenge this evil ideology and insist that men take their rightful place in the refuge movement.

We need an inclusive movement that offers support to everyone that needs it. As for me - I will always continue to work with anyone who needs my help or can help others - and yes, that includes men.

I was just at the gym watching Fox News discuss a case where a woman in Brooklyn is angry because a judge allowed her husband to build a wall in their home since they both wanted to live there. The couple have four children and the mother was on talking about how "the three older children agree with her that their father should be put out and the youngest has been brainwashed by the father." "Okay," I thought, "it's a possibility, but why air your dirty laundry on television which can cause more psychological harm to the kids and why is it the majority of the time women who are pouring their hearts out on these shows and always bad mouthing the fathers of their kids?" Or take a look at a recent story on Heather Mills, who initially set up a website attacking Paul McCartney for being an uncaring husband and father but then retracted it at the advice of her lawyers.

Isn't it time we took Erin Pizzy's advice and stopped allowing vengeful women and the courts who support them to get away with demonizing men? Families suffer when men are treated as second class citizens, not to mention the men themselves. Men are now involved with their families more than ever before, they deserve support for that, not constant abuse.

Cathy Young reflects on her "fruitful 6 years for this 'dissident feminist'" in her final column for the Boston Globe.

Neo-neocon has an interesting post on her experience with the Psychology Today article on "fearful" conservatives and "rational" liberals. She was interviewed for this particular article and surprisingly, her interview was left out of the article. Perhaps she didn't tell the interviewer what they wanted to hear. I have this happen frequently. XYZ magazine, TV show, etc. calls me and asks my opinion on X and I give my unfiltered response--usually not what they want to hear--and the familiar, "We'll get back to you, uhh....real soon"-click is the typical reply. I have even been told by some shows that "we will just keep looking for someone who agrees with our point of view." "Good luck," I tell them. My feeling on most interviews etc. is that if I cannot say what I want or it will be edited to the point that I do not recognize my words, why do it?