Pleading Eyes wrote:I disagree. =(
There's a little story I'd like to tell you that I think could prove my point.
...Once upon a time, I was a young college student who'd never before fallen in love. I used to actually think I was asexual because I just seemed to lack a real desire for that kind of interaction. I respected the kind of romance I saw in Disney movies and read about in novels, but never experienced in real life.
...And then I met her. My first crush.
She was beautiful. She was incredible. She was intelligent. She was everything I had ever wanted in a woman.
But I was young. I was foolish. And way back when, I was a lot like Larry.
I pursued her diligently. I wrote her poetry, and sent it under the door of her dorm room. I wrote her a song, and sang it to her in the common area while my best friend played the guitar. I bent over backwards, trying desperately and at times pathetically to meet her needs. I was obsessed with this thought that we were fairy tale lovers and she'd fall for me once she truly got to know me.
...She took advantage of the attention and the adoration for a time, and then she finally got sick of it, pulled me aside and said: "Perseverance, you're a great guy and all, but you're acting like a real jerk."
I couldn't believe it! Guys who took advantage of women, or pursued women only for the benefit of one-night stands, or who treated women like objects, those were the jerks. I wasn't like that at all. I was the hopeless romantic, the aspiring poet, the committed lover. I wasn't...
...And then it suddenly dawned upon me that I had, in fact, been treating this girl as if she were an object all this time.
It's just that, whereas the prototypical bar-hopping bastard would exploit women without investing any emotions into the ordeal, I was investing plenty of emotions and willing to give all of myself for her sake...but I was still treating her as if she were a prize to be won. I think it was at that moment that I finally understood Jasmine's line to "Prince Ali", back when she was pissed off at him for doggedly pursuing her at the expense of really getting to know her. (Horray for obscure Disney references!)
This is how Larry views women. It's misogynistic. It's just a different kind of misogynist. Larry views women as the ultimate prize to be won. He doesn't truly care about them. He cares only insofar as they're each exceptionally beautiful and talented trophies. He may only want one trophy and he may idolize her and adore her and treasure her forever, whereas other misogynists would throw her away. But at the end of the day, to Larry, women still aren't people. He interacts differently around men than around just about every woman. The minute Phoenix shows Larry a picture of a girl he can barely contain his sex drive. To Larry, women are prizes. Desirable prizes, unattainable and idealized prizes, but prizes nonetheless.
Larry's unhealthy manner of viewing relationships condemns himself in every relationship he's in. Women do exploit him, but only because he's eager to enable their exploitation.
Larry does worship women, and he worships women in a way that actually degrades them and devalues them. To Larry, one hot supermodel really isn't any different than the next. His misogynism is proved precisely because he's so shocked to learn that a woman has cheated on him. He's so blissfully wrapped up in his own fantasy universe that he's incapable of realizing his objectification and his idealization of a real human being.
In comparing his lovers to angels and all manner of celestial beings, Larry failed to recognize they were humans with real human desires, real human needs, and the human capacity to choose whether or not they loved him back. Depriving women this "choice" and seeking relationships for all the wrong reasons is precisely why I perceive Larry the way I do.
Ah, well. It's just my opinion, after all. To each their own ship indeed.
(And now that this thread has been thoroughly derailed, it's time for me to get some rest!)
. So was Calisto's laughing fits (though it was funny also).
and 
just don't like them at all
<=== hahaha
