All I ever needed to know about male-female relations, I learned from watching an episode of Star Trek

Some women seem to find the aspect of being controlled or led around by their men, a very attractive, provocative, and intriguing thing. I, quite frankly, don't.

I suppose, like many women, I too have a desire to find the strong male figure; but I prefer one who isn't quite as intensely domineering as the character of Khan is portrayed in the episode of Star Trek where his sleeper-ship is found and he's brought out of stasis.

How to put it... I find the thought of a person overpowering me in such a fashion, to be very repugnant. I don't like not having some sort of control, and I wouldn't find being chosen by such a person at all flattering. He had all the appeal of a man mastering his pet, and treating it like a posession, not an equal, or a living creature.

I don't care for being ordered about, and certainly not by someone whose idea of choice is his way or no way at all.

There's a lot to be said for someone you can stand toe-to-toe with, with whom you can stand on equal terms, and with whom the imbalances don't occur in such a fashion to make you feel humiliated and cheated, but only in such a way that is natural to all human relationships.

Relationships shouldn't feel like a battle to be fought, won, and lost; at least not in the sense of a control issue. There are always battles between two sides of any story; small victories; small losses; but the ones where the victor denegrates and sneers upon the person who has lost that round, are that of the unhealthy sort.

There are certain types of neanderthal behaviour that strike me only as one person treating another as lesser; lesser in the sense that the person doesn't have the brain capacity to take care of themselves in any fashion. We all like to be babied now and then, but I wouldn't want to be babied in the fashio that I was being viewed as a sub-moron without the brain power to even tie my own shoes. There's a difference between protectiveness and possessiveness, though.

As much as I may have control issues also, I still don't care for those that are weaker than I am. I hate the feeling of having to compensate for what might be missing; which is why I don't deal well with depressives when it comes to relations at all more intimate than the purely platonic. I can't deal with people who constantly need their feelings spared, or who require me to always walk on eggshells. I suppose it's partly due to my sometimes needing to be treated that way myself; but I prefer to be around people who don't aggravate that sort of behaviour in me. I like people who can complement, and enhance, the stronger and more solid aspects of my personality and character.

I don't believe that there is such a thing as equality between people; that would require us to all be precisely alike, but I do believe in equal footing. I do believe that people can compensate for, tolerate, and appreciate, the imbalances that will always exist between any two parties of any relationship.