Amazons International # 7 ------------------------- Topics: Note from moderator Julie: Bio Julie: Re: the Amazon concept Whitesnake: Bio & stuff --------------------------------------------------------- Sorry about the delay in compiling and mailing this issue; part a big workload and part holiday must take the blame. I've spent a week in London, UK, and as a member of the Women's Combat Sports Club, I was able to meet and wrestle a real pro Amazon wrestler during my stay. I can still feel some memories of her various places in my body when I move... News: Membership has been swiveling around 20; however, recently I placed an ad in alt.personals and it has no soared to 40. It seems that most of the new members are male, so we now have a sex imbalance. I hope this won't create any problems. I'm not usually an advocate of AA, but I might be a bit restrictive about accepting more male subscribers for a little while. As of this posting, all new members should have received all back issues; if you haven't, something's gone wrong. Contact me. (In case anybody wonders: Issue 1 is just an old version of the introduction.) Did anybody else watch the Wimbledon match yesterday, Gabriela Sabatini vs. Jennifer Capriati? Now, there are two real Amazons! -- Thomas --------------------------------------------------------------------- From: juliec@hpsrjtc.sr.hp.com Date: Tue, 28 May 91 07:23:20 pdt I'd like to become a subscriber. I'll give you some background on me, and if you'd like to post it as a biography that's fine. Born and raised a farm girl in Ohio; made money in high school lumberjacking for my boyfriend, so I could buy my own GTO (American musclecar). Learned to drive on my boyfriend's Trans Am. Went to college at a small private engineering college, got my degree in computer engineering. Moved to CA to work for HP, discovered backpacking, motorcycling, skiing, winetasting, you name it. Bought my own Ninja 900 motorcycle - what a blast! Have been lifting weights since a college boyfriend introduced me to them, have recently decided to become serious about bodybuilding - joined the local Gold's and have begun to change my diet. (When I say "serious", I don't mean "competitive" - I think :-). Am an artist in my spare time. I used to wrestle with my current boyfriend, but he weighs over 200 lbs and is also a weightlifter, so this can be really discouraging. I can't even get an edge on the guy, unless I seriously try to hurt him. I also have a horse and do 3-day eventing (this is a competition which takes place over 3 days and involves 3 phases: dressage, cross-country jumping, and stadium jumping). I also run on the days I don't lift weights. Most important influence in my life: my parents, who told us many times "You can *do* and *be* *anything* you want. The only thing a woman can't do that a man can is father a child." Anxious to hear from you and others on this list! --------------------- Julie T. Chapman juliec@hpnmdla.hp.com "Becoming is far superior to being." - Paul Klee "I want to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life... to shave close and cut a broad swath..." - Thoreau --------------------- From: juliec@hpsrjtc.sr.hp.com Date: Thu, 13 Jun 91 13:27:49 pdt Thanks for sending back some of your motivations on starting the mailing list. I've received several issues and it becomes very clear to me how the men on the mailing list feel about strong women - very refreshing!! By the way, if you ever wish to extract something from my email to use in the list, feel free. In answer to some things... My biceps are about my weakest point, I think - I want more breadth in them. And although I would qualify as a heavyweight, at 5'8" and 145 lbs, I'm not yet muscled up the way competitive bodybuilders are; since my frame tends to longer-boned, it's harder to put on nice round clumps of muscle. I'm working on that, though; working out at Gold's, upping my protein intake, that kind of thing. The list of "typical Amazon characteristics", to wit - > -- athletically built > -- self-assertive, capable of independent decision-making and action > -- a particular "heavy" or unconsciously self-confident way of > walking, stressing certainty and physical strength > -- preference for "rough", practical clothing (e g sportswear, jeans, > leather jackets) > -- a "strong" face, vivid eyes (hard to be specific here, but it's the > opposite of the kind of detached, passive, away-from-this-world-looking > expression that one can find in some artworks that are considered to > express femininity). Having a "defined" angular face helps. > -- her looks is not the most important part of her self-concept (even > if she is photo-model beautiful) > -- no or little make-up/fake-up > -- no false behavior (deceptions, manipulations, game-playing etc.) - I found *most* interesting, mainly because if I were to describe myself I would do it in the same terms as were used here! One of my favorite outfits is jeans and my leather motorcycle jacket; as you know, I do a lot of physical activities; people have commented on my walk before, describing it as "confident and catlike"; my face is angular, certainly not beautiful, but has been called "exotic" :-); looks? makeup? what are those?? (Actually, I enjoy getting wild haircuts, and the lab manager here at work about fell over the time I got the hair on the sides of my head dyed purple...). I feel a little funny describing myself in such flattering terms, but enough others have told me these things that they're probably not too far off. Fun to read the way other Amazon women describe themselves; I don't have quite the self-confidence to just blithely describe myself in those ways. On the other hand, while I was out in Boston this past week training field guys, we had a pickup game of basketball at lunch. I have only played about three times in my life, but managed to shoot 75% from the field and do fine at physically blocking and all. What fun! You know, the only hard part is - after I made my first basket one of the big, nice, goofy fatherly sales guys swatted me on the behind and said "waytago!" and then immediately said "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that!" and was all embarrassed because he'd shown sports camaraderie in a way that society says men shouldn't towards women - especially if they're business associates. No amount of reassurance on my part seems to convince the guys that they don't need to apologize for swearing, or for whacking my rear in the heat of the game, or whatever. I'd like that to change. Julie --------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Love ain't no stranger..." Date: Thu, 13 Jun 91 09:54 EDT Thomas, Great mailing list! I have read each mail message that you sent me From the list and have been very impressed. Like I promised, I'm gonna jump into the conversation here just to add my two cents' worth. [ You can include my address: rb4572@rachel.albany.edu and my nickname: \/\/hitesnake in the mail message if you wish to include any of it in the mailing list. Thanks! ] I fell in love with female bodybuilders, powerlifters and wrestlers ever since I was 7 years old; I have always loved the look of strength, power and muscle on women - always will, I suppose. :-) In addition to finding them extremely sexy and desirable, I truly respect the effort that they put into their bodies and their healthy attitudes towards life. More and more females today are working out and taking care of themselves, and it's great to see it. Three of my ex-girlfriends lifted weights on a regular basis, and we had a lot of fun; a lot more than if they had not. It _definitely_ helps out in certain areas of a relationship. ;-) Maybe it's being a little too picky, but I'm really not interested in going out with a girl unless she's into lifting. When you've had truffles, ordinary chocolate doesn't cut it. Okay, enough about me, cheers to you for creating this mailing list! And now, on to my comments... In a recent mail message from your mailing list, you write: >Some of you have asked me about the possibilities for creating >an amazon newsgroup also, in addition to the mailing list. >I see some positive aspects and some problems about this. >On the positive side is the larger visibility and reach of a >newsgroup. It could reach many people, and it could be a place to >upheld 'amazon values'; to make the whole subject matter present >and visible. Very true. Exposure and verbal (or otherwise (-: ) participation should be encouraged as much as possible regarding the subject. >On the negative side, at least in my opinion, is that it would not be >private, and it would probably be a lot of flame-fests there, at least >if the group was unmoderated. ("soc.amazons" could be moderated; >"alt.amazons" probably couldn't be moderated, I believe that's against >the ordinary net policies.) I believe it would be difficult to get >enough votes for soc.amazons -- there would probably be many no-votes; >this is actually a "controversial" issue (even with the moderate PR >I've done for this list, I've received some hate-mail). This is true. When you open the list up to the entire net (or at least, those NNTPSERVERS that would carry it) you also open yourself and the rest of the people expressing opinions to flames. Through my personal experience with this, 95% of the people who see something they don't like will u(nsubscribe) to the newsgroup and not bother to annoy/flame the legitimate posters. Still, it's that 5% that can stir up a lot of hassle. By creating the newsgroup in the first place (and I hope it gets soc. not alt. - alt. will be hell...), you will be exposing the controversy to the public, like it or not. In the end, this will benefit all of us. For example, look at the plight of the gay and lesbian groups. For years now, they have been trying to gain acceptance as human beings in our society; it's worked, for the most part. Homosexuality is considered (IMHO) to be another part of society, not something to be afraid of or to ridicule. The same will, eventually, happen with amazons. Another "problem" with creating an alt.amazons or soc.amazons is that a lot of people WON'T be able to access is, due to restrictions placed on the NNTPSERVER at their site by their administration/company/etc. In fact, the Computing Services Center at my university does not allow us to receive alt. newsgroups at all (although I get around this quite easily... (-; ). Everyone who can read alt. or soc. newsgroups can receive Internet mail; not everyone who receives Internet mail can read newsgroups... An effort to increase readership might lose some readers in the process... or simply raise complaints from frustrated people who can only receive the mailing list. Are you willing to mail the people on the mailing list the contents of the newsgroup? Or, as you state below, will they be a private party/night-club relationship? [ They would. I'll never "open up" this list; a newsgroup would be an entirely separate entity. Of course, I'd have no objections to people outside the USENET system subscribing to the newsgroup as if it were a mailing list. Don't confuse that with this list. -- Thomas ] Personally, I believe that a newsgroup would take away some of the integrity of this mailing list. I mean, I don't post on Usenet at all, because (again, like you said below) I don't want to feel like an exhibitionist, and sometimes some of the things that I have to write are a little personal. That's why I like this mailing list, because I can be read and still retain a good amount of assurance that I won't be flamed to death for what I wrote. (Apologies for the length.) >(On the other hand, I might enjoy seeing some verbal amazons dishing >it out to the enemy...) You ain't alone! :-) >I don't know anything about the rules for creating newsgroups, so I'll >leave that process to somebody else. I'd support such an attempt and >vote yes; I suggest to go for a moderated soc.amazons first, and >settle for alt.amazons it that doesn't work out. I don't know anything about creating one either, so I can't help ya there. I would vote "yes" too, because I want to see as much publicity about this subject as is possible - I think people who are interested but are afraid that there might not be anyone else who was interested in it would "come out of the closet" so-to-speak and participate in discussions. >You (whoever volonteers for the task) may borrow from the purpose >statement of this list to a proposal for a newsgroup; you'll find the >latest version of the purpose statement somewhere else in this issue >of Amazons International. I read it... very nice. :-) >The mailing list and a newsgroup should be and would be entirely >separate; it's like a private party with some friends vs. a night in a >noisy night club. The mailing list is more private in nature, and one >can be personal t/here without feeling like an exhibitionist. I hope the mailing list doesn't suffer because of its competition with the newsgroup. Of course, this would only happen if the conversations on the newsgroup were better than those on the mailing list, which is doubtful. :-) > - Thomas \/\/hitesnake rb4572@rachel.albany.edu ----------------------------------------------------------- Amazons International: thomasg@ulrik.uio.no Thomas Gramstad, moderator ----------------------------------------------------------- "A Hard Woman is Good to Find" -- The Valkyries