[Capriole]

I guess your experience--the cheerleaders marrying the Hell's Angels--really does show that opposites attract. Women do find themselves attracted to the dangerous bad boy, if only because we hope, at an instinctive level, that a big tough guy can protect us. And men in some cases want to have that petite golden fluffy sheltie of a girl who seems innocent and adorable. Little do men suspect that some of the most angelic of blondes has a core of steel.

As far as your church being unusual: you did give the impression that most of the people there were those who had been through the criminal justice system. I had the image of a group of thirteen thousand ex-cons, ex-addicts,and other very troubled types. It's good to hear that your church is also a real melting pot, as ours is.

Your last line seems so on-target. If you do couples counselling, you're not going to see the happy marriages, the ones that have gone on for 25 years. It's clear that if you do enough counselling you can get awfully sore-hearted and burned out. I'm glad you're getting a chance to rest from those wars.

[Euro-American Scum]

I guess your experience--the cheerleaders marrying the Hell's Angels--really does show that opposites attract. Women do find themselves attracted to the dangerous bad boy, if only because we hope, at an instinctive level, that a big tough guy can protect us.

I think the dynamic is a little more complex than that. In the vast majority of cases I was involved with, yes, she wanted a rough tough bad guy. He was exciting. He was dangerous. He was sexy. And she was drawn to the danger. But in almost every case, she wanted to, and thought she could, control him.

In almost every case, the violence came as no surprise to the wife. He roughed her up before they were married. Guess what? He roughed her up after they were married. Throughout all this, I kept thinking of the old saying -- "A sure-fire way to fail is to keep doing what doesn't work, expecting different results."

As far as your church being unusual: you did give the impression that most of the people there were those who had been through the criminal justice system. I had the image of a group of thirteen thousand ex-cons, ex-addicts,and other very troubled types. It's good to hear that your church is also a real melting pot, as ours is.

My bad. Again, I was trying to keep on topic. But we are pretty diverse. We have a local vetrenarian who gave $30 million cash to our building fund, and owns 1/3 of all the available raw land left in California. We also have a children's minister who has some nasty scars on his shoulder from taking five 00 buckshot pellets in the back during a gang shootout in some East L.A. barrio. And everybody in between. The true diversity is the real thing, not some lip service paid by liberals which really translates into some sort of government control.

It's clear that if you do enough counselling you can get awfully sore-hearted and burned out. I'm glad you're getting a chance to rest from those wars.

Me too. -:)