I can never figure out the blogosphere. I start blogging less frequently, and my traffic — and comments — go up. May 2009 has seen my highest number of visitors this year, despite a notable reduction in the number of posts. Go figure. Perhaps less is more?
Lots of discussion below last Thursday’s post, much of it both civil and thoughtful. I’m appreciative. Once again, the theme of male insecurity has been raised and discussed; once again, we find ourselves discussing the topic of feminism’s impact on men. Reading the comments, however, I’m struck by something that seems both logical and ever more apparent: one source of the resentment so many men seem to feel towards feminism and what it has wrought lies in their perception that it has made women less, rather than more, sexually available to them.
We recently debated the “problem” of men “never feeling hot.” Commenters of all sexes shared painful stories of feeling unattractive and unwanted. No question, it’s hard to live with the sense that one is physically undesirable, particularly in our beauty-obsessed culture. The psychic toll that sense takes on men and women alike is real and undeniable. But where it gets really ugly (intended word) is when we see flashes of male entitlement, part of what is often called the “Nice Guy” syndrome. That entitlement manifests as the angry, indignant claim certain men make that women “should” see past their physical shortcomings and their social ineptness: Why can’t they see what a nice guy I am? Why are women such superficial bitches? Many women have been on the receiving end of hostile, sometimes whiny tirades such as these. Whatever sympathy might be possible for the unlovely and the awkward vanishes utterly in the face of such astounding entitlement.
I wrote last fall against the tired old “male responsibility requires female vulnerability” thesis peddled by an array of social conservatives from Brad Wilcox to Kay Hymowitz. The thesis is that men “need to be needed”, and in the absence of feeling needed (by women) they will behave badly. Therefore, women need to make themselves vulnerable and dependent, forcing men (or giving them the opportunity) to take charge, to play the role of the knight-in-shining-armor, to feel indispensable. To listen to the right-wingers tell it, once men are given the sense that they are indispensable, they will shape up and fly right, illegitimacy and crime will vanish, the rise of the oceans will cease, and all God’s children will say “Amen.” Or something like that. Of course, in order for men to feel indispensable, women will need to surrender, become docile and nurturing rather than independent and ambitious. We’ve heard this hooey a million times before, but like supply-side economics, this belief in the “responsibility for vulnerability” transaction remains a difficult bogeyman to slay.
Here’s the connection to our Nice Guys(tm): feminism has empowered women economically, educationally, and socially. An increasing number of women can afford to live on their own, and can find happiness and fulfillment outside of a heterosexual relationship. This means that increasingly, sexual relationships with men are a choice rather than a necessity. And when we don’t need something, and can afford to act out of desire alone, we can be much more selective. Thus a great many men whose physical, social, intellectual, and emotional attributes add up to a less than stellar sum will go “unselected” by the women they long for. Dimly aware of an “earlier time” when “women knew their place” (the bygone days of the vulnerability for responsibility exchange), these men direct their rage not only at the women who reject them but at the social movement that empowered women to be more “choosy” about those with whom they mated. If it weren’t for feminism, these lads figure, women would need them for financial survival — and as a consequence of that need, would be more willing to overlook their various defects.
Hence the appeal of younger, more economically vulnerable women; hence the appeal of mail-order brides. Hence the misogynistic attacks on independent women and the institutions (the academy, the marketplace, the political system) that seeks to encourage that independence. No wonder so many of these angry men are clustered on the political right, even when the GOP takes stances at odds with their own economic interests! In their minds, the Democratic party and the liberal left has created opportunity after opportunity for women — and, as a direct consequence, made men’s access to dependent girlfriends and wives that much more difficult. No wonder the rage boils up.
I feel like the more independent we as women become the more the men who whine on this subject will just get ignored. They will either have to evolve with us and up their viability as interesting creatures in their own right or be left behind: unable to find a suitable mate to reproduce with and eventually become extinct. I’m being dramatic of course. Seriously the men who get upset about why nice guys finish last don’t get invited over again. BTW stridently telling about what a nice guy negates the point.
Hugo wrote:
Interestingly it seems that the correlation works both ways. I have observed that independent women, having chosen a mate “out of desire alone,” upon finding themselves economically dependent on him (through pregnancy or unemploymnet) struggle with it and may even lose the desire they started with.
There seems to be something, in women and men both, that struggles against giving up personal autonomy to a relationship.
I think the premise is nonsense, If I’d had the sexual availability of women in my youth (the seventies) that I have now, I’d never have done anything with my life.
Gosh, Gonz, talk about your myth of male weakness! In other words, if women are too sexually available, men lose all ambition? I got my Ph.D because I wanted to get laid more often?
Well, this explains why I haven’t already published three books and run for higher office. Too many women giving it up too easily in my past.
Hugo,
How is this not a rational reading of these men’s situation, cause and effect? In an economy of desire in which only sexiness matters, the unsexy will fall by the wayside. This creates an unbridgeable gap between desire and fulfillment in the psyches and experiences of low-status men, status, like its surrogate, money, being sexy, like inherited good looks. There are subcultures of social training about which aim at training men to incarnate a party girl’s idea of sexytime, which is nothing if not adaptive, although perhaps not what poster #1 would like.
Yes, it’s rational in the sense that women with resources can afford to make better choices. That’s as it should be. How low does your self-esteem have to be, for Pete’s sake, to say, “Gosh, the only people who will pick me are those who have no choices — therefore, I will fight against the movement that gives other people choices!”
The mistake that men sometimes make is to refuse to become worthier of being chosen , and instead direct their frustration at a system that no longer rewards them for just “being what they are.” That worthiness is less about looks but about growing and transforming as a human being, about learning relationship and social skills, etcetera.
The resentment is rightly directed towards a culture with a narrow vision of what is sexy; men and women alike have much to critique about our narrow definitions of physical desirability. But the enemy is not feminism, but a media that offers so narrow a vision of human sexiness. Men are not wrong to be in pain, but when they blame feminism, they are entirely mistaken as to the cause of their suffering.
I can’t wait to see what Sam Seaborn will come up with in reply to what I can only regard as idealistic truisms. There are academies set up to enable men to become more conventionally attractive–wittier, socially braver, more discerning of women’s social mores, small signals, and rituals–but none that I know of that are training rapists. So even the reaction one step beyond the rage manages to accept female agency in its own weird way.
And again I note the irony in hearing this from the “Sexiest Prof in America.”
It wasn’t the “sexiest” anything.
And more importantly, what’s so idealistic about asking men not to be rage-filled at women and the women’s movement? Is the bar for our brothers so low?
“Hottest” professor at Rate My Professors. I stand corrected.
The dynamic is that ordinary women now feel empowered to expect extraordinary men, and ordinary men feel a bit put off by that. Again, I think you overestimate the agency involved in applying “social skills” to something as crude and innate as attraction, as well as the emotional resilience of the average man. For a brief, shining moment, a social contract of a certain type meant that men outside of Baumeister and Tice’s 40% Alpha Males could marry and raise a family, and that moment is now gone, by an alliance of capital, socialism, and feminism. Really, it might just be better to point out that rage isn’t a profitable use of one’s time.
Ooh, nice post.
Before I read what anybody else has to say I want to get my thought out uncontaminated, darn it…most anti-feminists actually go on at length about how feminism, especially the sex-positive variety, has made women far more sexually available outside of marriage and prostitutes. And yet they still absolutely hate it, because what it’s done has made women far less available as wives. Nobody wants to be married to the degree and with the passion that a classic anti-feminist “marriage striker” wants to be married, I’ve found. They really and clearly yearn for the state, which is usually what makes their lengthy dissertations on the (not debating its existence here or not, btw) male-driven “marriage strike” and how women are gonna be really, really sorry! so strange. Now, I can’t say that that’s not really at its core based on sexual availability, though–single women, even in the minds of anti-feminists, get to be much more picky about putting out on demand in terms of quantity than wives do.
Lisa, who has been fending off wannabe spouses with a pitchfork since she was 16
Hugo,
I do get your point, but I think it’s bad advice to Nice Guys to work on becoming “worthier of being chosen”, because that’s probably reinforcing what they already believe; that if only they become worthy enough then they’ll find a girlfriend, and that they’re worthless because of their singleness. Neither of which is helpful either to the Nice Guys or to those that have to deal with them.
Probably their lack of success with women has less to do with being unworthy — after all, both men and women span the full range of possibilities in conventional physical attractiveness, conversational abilities, financial resources, and so on — as it does with their inaccurate views of women and/or specific social disabilities.
I know when I was at my most Nice Guyish it wasn’t helpful to work more on my worthiness, which only made me feel more embittered, more worthless, more ashamed of having desires; rather it was helpful to learn to take off the pressure and to learn that relationships are more about mutual attraction than about male worthiness, female choice.
I certainly don’t think that it’s the responsibility of feminism in general or of the women they are attracted to to reform Nice Guys, or to help them find a date, or to think that their way of relating to women is acceptable (it’s not.) But seeing unworthiness as Nice Guys’ core problem is buying into their own unhelpful narrative.
Boris, I think that’s a fair criticism — I thought through the post more clearly than I did my own follow-up comments. You’re right, feminism is certainly not the problem, but positing “becoming worthy” as the solution is equally misguided.
“No wonder the rage boils up.”
Yes, and of course females never suffer from generalized rage.
Clearly in your world, Hugo, anger is only justified and seen as righteous when it is female anger directed at men. Females that feel lonely and bitter about their lives and the way that men have treated them can gain college credit for focusing that anger squarely on The Patriarchy.
I’m fairly certain that as a teacher you would never tell a female student that her disappointment with men flows from the plain fact that she has little of value to offer them in a relationship, while at the same time any male students would be told that his disappointments with women are just a manifestation of their own pathological sense of entitlement. So in short, female anger at men should be cultivated and generalized; men’s anger at women shows pathology.
When heterosexual females avoid marriage, it is seen as inspiring independence, and a wise choice against dependency on a partner that will invariably turn out to be demanding or dependent at best, and abusive at worst. When heterosexual men avoid marriage it is seen as a childish terror against the demands of a truely equal relationship. In your view, men always “marry up” emotionally, hitching their wagon to a more mature person, while women always “marry down” and take the very real risk of partnering with a child.
So here would be an interesting classroom discussion, Hugo: Is there a female equivalent to Nice Guy(TM)? Are there females who generalize a disappointing experience with one man into a general cynicism and bitterness about all men? Woman who have a misguided sense of what they have to offer in a relationship, and who grow angry and bitter at men who just aren’t interested?
And would such a woman be better off building an independent life for herself, rather than raging against The Patriarchy in the same way Nice Guys(TM) rage against feminism?
Firstly: I found your website recently, and I really appreciate the wealth of discussion and insight available in the articles you have written.
Secondly: After an unhappy but not unusual series of relationships, I had become a type of ‘nice guy martyr’ myself. I came to resent feminism and feminist politics, but not exactly in the way you describe. Due to my hang-ups and general lack of confidence, I always felt that, in my interactions with the opposite sex, “they” consistently held the upper hand. The way I put it to myself was this: “women have enough (emotional) power over me as it is, surely it’s unfair that they ask for more”? As is often the case, I took the path of least resistance – rather than look to myself for the source of the problem, it was easier to blame outside influence.
Thirdly: A bit tangential to the article itself, but do you think that in a relationship, both men and women don’t (at least, ultimately) “need to be needed”? I suppose this rests to some degree on the semantics of ‘need’ (and the fact that it has become something of a pejorative term) but if one partner is ultimately unnecesary to the other, what keeps their relationship together, other than mutual convenience?
It’s kind of funny (odd and sad) how the less scripted forms of meeting and mating these days have resulted in (among other more positive outcomes) anomic subsets of both men and women.
Steriotypically the bitter, mateless men rage and blame women, feminism, misandry, etc. for their plight.
Steriotypically the bitter, mateless women rage and blame men, peter pan syndrome, misogyny etc. for their plight.
Truth is, the dance is the dance and much of it is so innate (hard-wired for species survival if you will) that it will take place regardless of social and cultural background. Yet, there always were and always will be those who feel the playing field is tilted against them. Some of them will be right.
Mating “games” CAN now be more honest and less scripted than ever before and that may work to the advantage of those who are open and forthright about their emotional and physical desires and don’t harbour unrealistic expectations about their potential partners.
The latter part is the crux, I think, of why so many relationships fail — what we have learned to expect of others is often wrong. Maybe Toffler was right that as a society we suffer future shock since we are socialized to norms that have passed into history before we got a chance to live them. I think maybe some people just find that they aren’t flexible enough to comfortably keep up.
Many live with anger born of frustration and confusion about why they can’t find a date or spouse or otherwise fill whatever role/hole it is in their life that they hope and wish and expect that others would fill.
I think you can blame feminism for the change in society, but I would not call it the problem. I also think not all people are worthy to be in relationships let alone to be parents, some people are better off alone… and society will be better off if they do not reproduce.
With the advent of the sexual revolution the rules changed for dating and the bar has been raised for those who can or should participate in a ‘Westernized, post feminist relationship’. In this era of independence, not all women will aspire to marry, because they no longer have too, women and men can survive let alone flourish as successful independent people, independently contributing to society.
This could be Darwinism at its most provocative…. Not all human beings should reproduce. The bar has been raised by the sexual revolution, and this could be Mother Nature’s way of getting a few sets of genes out of the gene pool for good.
Like all points in evolution, those who adapt their gene’s survive and live on. Those who don’t adapt to the new required behavior… well just don’t survive nor should they.
Let those who whine, whine… those who adapt and are worthy of reproduction will reproduce and teach their offspring what worked for them. The whining will become fainter and fainter over time, the time it takes for two generations to come and go I think… but this is just my humble opinion, I could be wrong.
What keeps the relationship together, once need is dispensed with, are things like love, the sense that the other person is a catalyst for one’s growth, and the shared commitments to others who might benefit from one’s shared strengths.
See this old post: http://hugoschwyzer.net/2007/06/14/a-son-not-a-husband-some-very-long-thoughts-about-marriage-in-a-roundabout-response-to-jill/
The problem is that in a purely Darwinian sense, rape and other thuggishness are adaptive in systems with an overall diminishment in mating and mating opportunities, as commentators in the Anglosphere’s more advanced social welfare states such as Theodore Dalrymple have already noted. When men don’t get what they want, they take it out on women quite effectively, although the USA’s sturdier social contract and armed populacee may retard this effect somewhat.
Never. As you know, all feminist blogs (and especially Hugo’s) insist that women are perfect in all ways and never do anything wrong. Railing about it is pointless. You’re probably better off sticking to MRA sites.
Gonz, you are about the only person I have ever heard saying that women are more sexually available now than in the Seventies. Seriously.
And Boris makes a good point. “Worthy” still buys into the idea that women are sort of like the prizes at a game arcade; if you get the right number of points, you’re entitled to a goodie. It’s more the other way around – women aren’t stuck choosing a man for their economic and social future. Their choice is relationship vs. no relationship, rather than relationship vs. poverty and ostracism.
STF, you’ve read my stuff, so surely you read this: http://hugoschwyzer.net/2009/03/24/men-women-and-our-common-capacity-for-all-that-is-human/. Quoting myself:
No feminist I know believes that women are “sugar and spice and everything nice†while men are “snips and snails and puppy dog tails.†We are human beings whose capacity for love and rage, desire and empathy are in no way circumscribed by our hormones, our genitalia, or our chromosonal structure. The feminist project is about identifying the ways in which kyriarchical structures have deprived men and women of the full range of their humanity, forcing us to be “half people†looking desperately for completion in heterosexual relationships. The feminist project acknowledges the male capacity to nurture — and the female capacity to embrace darkness.
What’s next, calling me emasculated and filled with self-loathing, longing to please my matriarchal overlordesses?
“(Ass)tounding entitlement” is right. These “nice guys” are every bit as misogynistic, sexist, elitist, and lookist as their more honest counterparts — they just try to hide it because they don’t consider themselves attractive enough for women to ignore those traits in them. But rather than actually attempting to become better human beings, they put on a nice front and then get angry that their subterfuge does not yield results. It falls right in with the concept that women are objects to be bought — these “nice guys” are trying to use a different kind of currency and are pissed that all their currency isn’t purchasing them what they want. How dare women decide whom they will allow to buy them! I mean, if you had plenty of money to buy a TV and the owner of the store irrationally decided not to sell to you because of your looks, wouldn’t you be pissed? That is how these “nice guys” see it when they are not “chosen” — anger at not getting what you want from a human being means that you do not see that human being as equal to you and having the right to zir own preferences.
And let’s not forget that while they expect women to overlook their ‘deficiencies,’ they absolutely don’t think that they should have to ‘slum it’ with a woman who doesn’t match their ideal. There are probably plenty of women who WOULD be with them, but they don’t count because they are not ‘attractive’ enough. They think that being “nice” should make women want them even though they sure as hell aren’t going to be with a “nice” woman for the sake of zir personality.
Hugo – it’s called making a point via a little hyperbole.
Mytago – yeah, I am saying that. Generally because the only guys I ever hear bitching about women being “unavailable” couldn’t get laid in a whorehouse with a bouquet of hundred dollar bills and a bottle of Viagra.
Of course, it could be that the “hook up culture” and “pick-up artists” who take advantage of it are mere myths. Not sure I could convince myself of that, though.
let me edit a phrase:
*anger at not being desired by a human being means that you do not see that human being as equal to you and having the right to zir own preferences.
Hugo,
Yes, I read that piece, and I commented extensively on it when you wrote it. Despite what you said, I stand by what I said, because you never criticize the way any woman treats any man The evidence of all of your writing is conclusive: you believe that women are a morally superior model of humanity.
Mythago,
“Never. As you know, all feminist blogs (and especially Hugo’s) insist that women are perfect in all ways and never do anything wrong.”
I’m glad you took the bait with your sarcasm
I challenge you to find a major feminist blog post (Feministe, Pandagon, Echidne, Hugo, etc) that highlights a specific example of a woman doing something to a man and concluding :”You know what – all gender loyalty aside – the way this woman treated this man is just plain wrong. There’s just no excuse for it.”
Sweating Through Fog:
“I challenge you to find a major feminist blog post that highlights a specific example of a woman doing something to a man and concluding :’the way this woman treated this man is just plain wrong. There’s just no excuse for it.’”
The reason you won’t find that (hopefully) is because it is sexist. Instead of presenting the matter as it actually is — one person doing another person wrong — to specifically mention the sex of a person when the behavior has nothing to do with sex is as prejudiced as specifically mentioning the race of a person when the behavior has nothing to do with race. And to simply speak about one person doing another wrong has nothing to do with feminism and therefore would be off-topic.
All people do other people wrong. Feminism is about looking at these wrongs to see a pattern and then to try and understand how that pattern could be broken. Living in a patriarchy means that there aren’t patterns of women oppressing men. There are patterns of patriarchy that harm men as well as women, but women do not have the power to oppress men. Individuals have the power to harm each other, but that’s irrelevant to the power of oppression and therefore off-topic in a feminist blog.
“The reason you won’t find that (hopefully) is because it is sexist. Instead of presenting the matter as it actually is — one person doing another person wrong — to specifically mention the sex of a person when the behavior has nothing to do with sex is as prejudiced as specifically mentioning the race of a person when the behavior has nothing to do with race. And to simply speak about one person doing another wrong has nothing to do with feminism and therefore would be off-topic.”
We’ll they have no problem at all cataloging example after example of particular men doing bad things to particular women, and drawing conclusions about men in general from the acts of these particular men. Note that I am not expecting them to draw sweeping conclusions about women from the acts of particular women. All I’m looking for is a simple human acknowledgment that somewhere, sometime, some woman has done something wrong to some man. The fact that I can find no such example is, to me, a pretty clear mark of fanaticism. Never, ever, show any sympathy for the other team in a dispute with someone on your side.
So yeah, individuals have the power to harm each other, and that’s irrelevant to feminist blogs. Unless the individuals doing the harming happen to be men. Then it’s a different story. That’s something that has to be picked over, again and again.
Sweating Through Fog:
“All I’m looking for is a simple human acknowledgment that somewhere, sometime, some woman has done something wrong to some man.”
That is a given — all people hurt others. The difference between the individual wrongs done by men or by women is that the system makes an individual man’s actions into more than what they are. For instance, one man may rape; this is an individual wrong. It becomes a feminist issue when one looks at society as a whole and sees a pattern of rape and rape tolerance. Thus the individual wrong becomes a social equality issue. There is no pattern of women oppressing men in our society (because they do not have that power, not because they are inherently more kind), therefore the individual actions of women do not become a social equality issue.
Lots of things to talk about here but no time. And I still owe La Lubu a reply in the last thread.
Just briefly, feminism has not only a problem of perception when it comes to sexuality – the term “sex-positive” exists because it’s (certainly WAS) not the mainstream. It’s probably not a coincidence that the second wave happened during a general process of social liberalization aided by economic factors, but it certainly wasn’t the cause of any liberalisation that freed women’s sexuality. I’m saying that despite my belief that Hugo thinks Andrea Dworkin wasn’t a toned down version of Valerie Solanas and simply not able to get her real progressive and sexually open message through
.
Be that as it may, I think, socially, the problem of female pickyness *as such* is no problem *as such*. A problem will occur only if the “market equilibrium” changes as a result thereof – that is, if freed sexuality will lead to something like a Pareto distribution of sexuality, where few people (men…) have most and most people have very few sex (sexual partners). This would, I would say, be a potentially problematic and socially unstable sitution. And male fear of such a situation itself may be sufficient to cause resistance to further changes.
Hugo, as I said in the other thread, this is probably as much about perception as it is abuot fact. And a lot of men are feeling increasingly weak particularly with respect to women. Ignoring that feeling of impotence is a) unfair, and b) socially problematic.
Apart from that I do believe that teaching men sexual confidence (and part of the movement Eurosabra describes can probably be classified as such a men’s self-help movement) will help a lot along the way.
Possibly more later…
Hi Hugo,
First time post, just to let you know that I am new to your site in May. I found you after a twitter search for masculinity and someone had linked here. Maybe that’s part of the reason you’ve had your traffic bump.
I’m very much enjoying your thought-provoking posts!
Hi Hugo and thanks for the insights again!
I wrote about feminist issues on my Finnish blog Aaltopahvia and linked here in more than one occasion in hopes of showing a different angle, one that supports the statement I’m making – which is the obvious one: feminism is much needed by the society and by both females and males. Patriarchy’s spell is strong on men too; and I really appreciate what you write about men not getting to feel wanted and men having to face the suspicion and resentfulness of women that they don’t deserve as individuals. I do also appreciate this particular post because there’s been a whole meddling media shebang-debate going on about Nice Guys and Subordinate Guys and whatnot because a book one of the less entitled guys wrote about women not wanting him and that it is womens (and ofcourse the womens movement’s) fault that he is alone and unsatied.
Seems that the discussion in Finland is at a stand still precisely because no one will recognize that there is something for the men to gain from feminism as well. A freer world, where suspicion and fear wouldn’t be the most useful emotions. Where the rules of conduct wouldn’t be so different for the sexes. Where men would feel wanted, really desired, and not only useful or skilful enough, because we women could openly and without fear show the desire we have for them. I also speak of the female desire, its mere (forceful!) existence, which still seems to baffle most of the people, and state that *it* is not a part of the problem.
But thanks again, Hugo, and hope to read a new bloggery of yours real soon.
Hannikainen has a rather sharp, nasty point: sex is the ONLY thing Finland hasn’t socialised in the name of equal access for all. Of course, Michel Housllebecque called romantic competition the last totally liberal, i.e. totally unrestrained capitalist, element of French society. so it’s nice to see that committed Eurosocialists subscribe to equality of opportunity in place of equality of results in SOMETHING, however much that omission makes men suffer. Oddly, truly abundant sex for EVERYONE is used by European authors (Huxley, Zamyatin) as a shorthand for dystopia as often as sexual repression is (Orwell, Houellebecque).
There seems to be something, in women and men both, that struggles against giving up personal autonomy to a relationship.
Randomizer, I agree with this somewhat…I think a good part of that resistance stems from how relationships are formed, nurtured, not-nurtured, and how isolating some relationships end up being (not necessarily through any “fault” of either party—I’m not thinking here of the deliberate isolation of abusers, but the de-facto isolation that can happen because of…everyday life). (For lack of a better term) “romantic” relationships used to be just one relationship among many that people had on a daily basis. Now, with the trend of longer working hours, frequent moves to different cities, changing jobs or even careers, living far away from one’s family of origin and friends they’ve made over the years…a romantic relationship can become the overriding relationship. Most folks will react to this by holding back or pulling back, whether consciously or subconsciously. It’s not so much a fear of giving up personal autonomy (which let’s face it—if you have a mutually-agreed upon, committed, monogamous relationship, you’ve already agreed to giving up a certain amount of autonomy) but more a…not wanting to poison the well, if it’s the only well you’re drinking out of on a regular basis.
Or the shorter version: people who have many types of good relationships with others tend to feel the freedom to develop good romantic relationships also. There’s no “all or nothing” burden.
On the other thread, there were comments along the lines of ‘why are men’s social difficulties an issue for feminism?’ I thank mythago for pointing out how that also impacts women. But besides that—while my feminism is for-damn-sure about the obvious (end to sexual/domestic violence, reproductive justice, equal opportunity, etc.), it’s also about a changed world for men. Men are also constrained under essentialist myths, social strictures, the anomie of modern life, false images, unemployment or the fear thereof, bills to pay, obligations to others, violence by others, arbitrary authority, threats to health and personal safety—-feminism is about changing the world for everyone’s benefit, not about how to make sure (some) women get the perks of (some) men. So I think this is our collective conversation, since this world belongs to all of us. I think we have lessons we can teach one another.
With that said, this:
For a brief, shining moment, a social contract of a certain type meant that men outside of Baumeister and Tice’s 40% Alpha Males could marry and raise a family, and that moment is now gone, by an alliance of capital, socialism, and feminism.
is just begging for an explanation. First, a definition of “alpha male”, and why Baumeister and Tice (whoever they are) claim only 40% exist. They can’t seriously be claiming that only 4 out of 10 men can marry and raise a family now, because that isn’t what we’re seeing in say, the U.S. Census. I’m not aware of any alliance between capitalism, socialism and feminism—perhaps you meant “confluence”. Then again, I also don’t think a man needs to be either well-off financially or particularly good-looking to be sexy, so what do I know?
Sam, you used this term—“market equilibriumâ€. I think part of this disconnect is the lack of a “marketplace“—meaning, the agreed-upon social institutions (both formal and informal) where/when potential partners meet (hence, the tremendous rise in internet dating). I think that’s part of the perception of “lack”. It’s not a lack of potentially available partners, but the lack of ability to meet these potential partners.
So, combine a certain amount of shyness, quietude or lesser ability to start/maintain conversations with strangers; add in a certain inability to interpret body language; mix with pre-existing myths about the opposite sex along with a lack of experience (not just sexual experience) with the opposite sex; top off with few opportunities to engage with members of the opposite sex—-and there’s the problem. It happens for both men and women, but I agree with Sam’s assessment that it is more likely to happen to men (and gave reasons for why I think that is in the last post).
What I don’t agree with is blaming feminism as either creating or contributing to this problem. Feminism can offer solutions, though.
I’m glad you took the bait with your sarcasm
I challenge you to find a major feminist blog post (Feministe, Pandagon, Echidne, Hugo, etc) that highlights a specific example of a woman doing something to a man and concluding :â€You know what – all gender loyalty aside – the way this woman treated this man is just plain wrong. There’s just no excuse for it.â€
Only tangentially about the woman doing wrong to the guy, but definitely blames the woman for the bad behavior. Here: http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/05/child-rape-hilarious.html
I’m sure you can find others too, if you bothered to look.
And my condemnation of Mary Kay Letourneau here:
http://hugoschwyzer.net/2005/05/26/some-quick-thoughts-on-mary-kay-and-vili/
Baumeister and Tice are psychologists who calculated (www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm) that historically only 40% of men reproduced, versus 80% of women. “We’re descended from men who took the risky voyage and came back rich.” In other words, men are subject to a ruthless selection pressure that the American social contract of the era of prosperity successfully hid with its message that all men should find mates, when, historically and anthropologically speaking, almost all women but only a tiny minority of men do. The relevant conclusions are politically incorrect, and are probably not to be posted here.
Oh, and I do mean alliance–if feminism hadn’t served the needs of capital, it would’ve been quashed in the USA as real socialism was, while welfare-state socialism (AFDC, WIC) also feeds into rendering the most potentially-dependent women (single mothers) as independent as their educated, earning sisters. Only men have to earn their keep and prove themselves in society and please the arbitrary standards of the opposite sex (which in some cases means being the biggest, meanest thug).
ks, Hugo,
The “guy” she did wrong to was 12 years old at the time – a child. What I asked for was I’ve feminist examples of moral condemnation of a woman for the way she treated a man.
I’d been reading feminist blogs for years and have never seen one.
arrgh! I wish you could edit comments for typos here!
Should read: “What I asked for was one example of feminist moral condemnation of a woman for the way she treated a man.”
Eurosabra, I clicked on the link you left and—-yowza! I have never seen a larger collection of unproven sexist assertions posing as “facts”. I loved the ‘women perpetrate more acts of domestic violence; everything from a slap in the face to pulling a knife.’ There were of course, no citations or links to research in this collection.
So color me completely unconvinced that only 4 out of 10 men reproduce. I’m also unconvinced that a $400 TANF benefit (AFDC doesn’t exist anymore) and $200 of WIC tickets make a mother (single, childless women don’t qualify) as financially independent as employed women (and most especially educated employed women. I’ve been unemployed and on WIC, and trust me, it wasn’t anywhere near as good as having a job (and unemployment benefits are significantly higher than TANF).
Women as well as men have to earn their keep and prove themselves in society. Women who don’t are thought of as being just as worthless as men who don’t. As for arbitrary standards, those fall on both men and women—and both sexes can choose to just what extent they want to jump through hoops. Men do still hold the advantage there, as there are fewer contradictory standards for men than there are for women (I will hold that men have fewer choices in terms of masculinity constructs, but again—those constructs aren’t conflicting the way women’s choices are. And frankly, what choices women have—we have because we carved them out and insisted on them. Men can easily do the same!).
La Lubu,
“Sam, you used this term—“market equilibriumâ€. I think part of this disconnect is the lack of a “marketplace“—meaning, the agreed-upon social institutions (both formal and informal) where/when potential partners meet (hence, the tremendous rise in internet dating). I think that’s part of the perception of “lackâ€. It’s not a lack of potentially available partners, but the lack of ability to meet these potential partners.”
It’s an interesting question to wonder whether the marketplace has disappeared or whether it has simply become too big. I pre-urbanized times dating and mating hierarchies were clearer and easiert to organize. Now the market is a lot bigger, and social mediation of the process is almost non-existent. That puts a lot of stress on individuals of either gender, as you noted and with which I completely agree, and I also agree that much of today’s arrangements for dating is dysfunctional. That said, I also think that issues like polygyny in reproduction *is* an issue for social stability – I do believe that disaffected men could become a social problem in the longer run. And of course, if they do – Hugo’s “male weakness” scenario is a possibility. The question will indeed be, in my opinion, if we can find a way to lastingly combine individual freedom with social coherence. And part, an important part, in my opinion, is to empower more men to thrive in this world – women, too, by the way – if Sex and the City is any indication, they have some way ahead of tehm as well. I do believe that man can change, in fact, as you mentioned, they alsways have.
But I think women in particular are making the change even harder than it would have to be, because they can at this point demand to be both independent, sexually picky, and, certainly as mothers, be economically be taken care of. And they can decide at any point (in their fertile years) to go one way or another, while a man can’t. For that, of course, he gets a couple more years to deal with the problem. This is a big problem, one at roots social and economic organisation, yet it is also one which is profoundly ignored by most of the scholars in that area – partly because feminism/sociology has been monopolizing the subject with its fact and institution-void value discourse.
“What I don’t agree with is blaming feminism as either creating or contributing to this problem. Feminism can offer solutions, though.”
Feminism is a part of a modernizing force and as such it has both positive and negative aspects, even disregarding the Dworkins and Solanas. Even though I agree that men would benefit from a world in which (some) feminist (which one?) ideals were more implemented than they are today, I think it is not unfair to point out that there has also been collateral damage. Feminism and feminists shouldn’t have a problem to admit that…
La Lubu,
“Men can easily do the same!”
Have you seen “The Wrestler”? It’s a bleak vision of MANkind, but it’s not entirely unrealistic, I’d say. He’s so scared of loneliness he jumps at the first option to have sex and confirmation of his manhood that he looses the chance to reconcile with his daughter. Maybe men can live without a social system of affirmative action (patriarchy), but in my opinion, in order to do so, most will need a different kind of sexual confidence/ masculinity, and I’m not quite sure how to get to that point.
As I said, I’m in a strange position in much of this discourse, having been scared of sexuality for most of my life and having become, while still scared, rather successful at attracting women. So, personally, I know that it’s possible to change and create awareness and confidence of oneself and enjoy the result. But at the same time, I’m seeing how a lot other men, friends, aren’t able to do that, even after having consumed some of the self-help pickup material Eurosabra discusses above.
Sex and the City is any indication…
C’mon, Sam. Gimme a break here. I’m giving you a break!
Bringing up “Sex and the City” as a model of everyday male/female relations from the female side makes as much sense as if I brought up “The Godfather” as exemplary of male/female relations from the male side.
But it’s your next paragraph that I don’t understand. How does this:
But I think women in particular are making the change even harder than it would have to be, because they can at this point demand to be both independent, sexually picky, and, certainly as mothers, be economically be taken care of. And they can decide at any point (in their fertile years) to go one way or another, while a man can’t.
work? What does it mean? Because while I consider myself to be independent, I don’t consider this a “demand”; I do consider it a necessity—probably in the exact same way a man considers it a necessity. In other words, I start from the same assumption a man does—no one else is going to take care of me; I have to do it myself. For you to tell me that I have being “taken care of” as an option is rather presumptuous and somewhat insulting. Sexually picky? Geez, can you use a less loaded word than “picky”? After all, if a woman isn’t “sexually picky”, what is the common name for her, hmmm? How about sexually selective? Yeah, I’m that—and so is just about everyone else who has sex. But the kicker here for me is—mothers being economically taken care of. Please. You’re conversing online with a single mother. I have yet to be “economically taken care of.” That’s—patronizing, at best.
The last sentence I simply don’t understand. What is the going-one-way-or-the-other? Having a relationship? Having children? What? And why can women go “one way or the other”, but men can’t? I don’t know at this point whether I would agree or disagree with you, or if the “can’t” on the part of men relates to an actual “can’t” or a choice to “not.”
Also, I think it’s worth mention (again) that feminism isn’t a monolithic entity. “Feminisms” is the term most often used to describe this; what it means is that women don’t have a universal experience (although we do universally experience being women and what that means within where-we-are). So many other identity modifiers are going on simultaneously with our status as “women”, while (what I like to call) “mainstream” feminism tends to posit the white/middle-class/heterosexual/able-bodied/college-educated/etc. as the norm. If you’re outside this norm, then you have to seek out sources of feminism to relate to.
So…any “monopolizing” of the subject is (again) a matter of perception, because not all voices within feminism have been granted the same weight, or even given the same opportunity to be heard at all. (Note: mainstream feminist history completely ignores the contributions of women in the labor movement—including those who were organizing on the jobsite prior to Seneca Falls. just sayin’.) It’s also worth mentioning that the ongoing (collective)silence of men does not constitute a need for women to (collectively) step back and wait for the catch-up. Why are the only men speaking to the topic whose who want to turn back the clock? Where are the men who want to join hands and set the time?
Sam, haven’t seen The Wrestler yet (just heard Bruce Springsteen’s song!), but I’ve been meaning to. Sounds like a must-see.
But at the same time, I’m seeing how a lot other men, friends, aren’t able to do that,
What do you attribute to that? What do you see as possible solutions? Because from what you’ve written here, it sounds as if you were behind the eight-ball moreso than average in that regard, so what were your advantages in overcoming that (if you don’t mind my asking)?
4 in 10 is about right across countries and times. It’s a bit higher some times/places/groups, a bit lower in others. The figure is about twice that for women.
It’s about 80% here in the USA in the modern era, btw. (87% for women.) 40% is the rough figure back in the olden days. Should have made that more clear.
La Lubu,
the “picky” was a reference to Hugo’s original post, apart from that, sorry if that sounded patronizing, what I tried to explain was that I know a couple of women, some of them good friends, who, in their 20s, weren’t really concerned with the financial status of their respective partners, their job prospects or other status issues, until they decided that they wanted to get married with kids, dumped their old boyfriends and economic independence and started hunting for Mr Big, usually successfully. The late 20s “you’re-not-achieving-as-much-as-I-think-is-necessary-for-my-idea-of-a-life-with-a-family-after-I-stop-working” is actually a rather common occurrence in my environment – but I suppose it’s difficult to generalize… as for the rest, more tomorrow.
STF: http://thecurvature.com/2009/05/18/on-gender-and-sexual-insults/
Thanks for the explanation, Sam.
In my world, not only do women not stop working for any length of time after having children, but we don’t assume we can. Ever. Well, maybe if we win the lottery. My little slice of the world consists mostly of unionized people in working class/lower middle class jobs. So, there’s the realization that the only thing keeping you in that economic category (can pay bills and still have money left over) would instantly evaporate upon the loss of a job. That’s a pretty big motivator to stay employed!
One of the assertions I see in these conversations is the idea that women have access to men from a variety of economic strata, but that men only have access to women from their own economic strata or lower. I agree that men have a harder time attracting women who earn more money. I attribute this to the social stigma given to men who date “above” them (“above” in quotes because that doesn’t always translate into any significant change in class status—-for example, the unwillingness of male Laborers or Carpenters to date female Plumbers, Fitters, Tinners, or Electricians because we’re “high rollers”), along with the male fear of transgressing that social stigma and/or not knowing how to negotiate a relationship where his dominant position is not automatically implied (“he who has the gold, makes the rules”).
What I strongly disagree with is the idea that men form relationships with women who are of a lower socioeconomic class. The dynamic you’re describing is actually reflects a statistically small subculture—what is known colloquially in my world as “people with more money than God”. My contact with that slice of the world is pretty much limited to film/television characters, and the occasional PAC committee forays into their natural habitat during fundraisers (where I smile, introduce myself, shake hands—and am greeted but not really “seen”—I don’t represent myself per se, but am seen as “the woman IBEW member….isn’t that interesting?!”…*sigh*).
With that said, I can’t say I see class boundaries being crossed very often on either side; what I do see is that men have a narrower view of what a “class boundary” is than women do (see my Laborers, etc. example above).
In my late teens/early twenties, I wasn’t concerned about having a Mr. Big either (caveat—I married at 19 and divorced right before turning 26). After experiencing the distinct put-upon feeling of being the only one who would get up to go to work in the morning (for years), who still couldn’t do anything right, while Mr. Not-So-Big had Big Plans to be a Great Artist and Write the Great American Novel, and what-the-hell-would-I-understand-about-that-anyway, since I’m so bourgeois to worry about mundane things like the rent or the electric bill, because the Great Artists scraped their way up from Nothing (the Great Artists had their utilities shut off too!), and how-the-hell-can-I-write-anything-with-a-bitchy-wife-nagging-me-to-get-a-job WHY CANT YOU BE SUPPORTIVE YOU BIIITCH!!…..
….let’s just say they don’t print enough money in the world to get me to take that on again. (and in case you were wondering, no, he wasn’t a spoiled privileged guy. Working class people can be pretentious, too. It was one of the bigger surprises to me along the way; that huge change…..but hey, long story.)
Still not interested in Mr. Big, but financial status does matter; I’m not going to be taken advantage of again. I can’t help but wonder if your friends has similar experiences. For me (and many women) it isn’t a status issue as much as it is (a)wanting to live within my means—supporting a nonworking partner isn’t feasible over the long term at my income level, especially since I’m already supporting a child singlehandedly, and (b)frankly, suspicion about anyone who hasn’t “found their way” by this age. It indicates a certain flakiness and willingness to take advantage of others, and a heaping helping of probable personality traits/disorders in addition that would make any “relationship” untenable regardless of who-lived-where or who-pays-for-what.
“4 in 10 is about right across countries and times. It’s a bit higher some times/places/groups, a bit lower in others. The figure is about twice that for women.”
Even if these number are anywhere near accurate (I don’t believe it for a moment), they would be evened out by two factors:
a) the fact that women have historically had little to no say in who we are partnered with. it doesn’t really mean much to have a partner if you don’t really want to be with that partner.
b) the fact that a significant portion of male partners will be – and are – abusive. it doesn’t mean much to have a partner if that partner isn’t going to do anything but make you miserable.
Women are too picky now? I’m twenty and at university – in the prime of my man-hunting years, supposedly – and three men have shown an interest in me. One of them was just trying to get me drunk so he could cheat on his girlfriend. One lost interest in me over the summer, and one is my boyfriend.
When you next get to complaining that women can have any man they want, think of me. And then start talking sense.
Eurosabra: I guess your right about Timo Hännikäinen, even though I’m a little on guard as to how necessities of life (food, shelter, health) can be brought to the same level of discussion as sex. Clearly sex is communication between people and thus by definition not something someone could demand for him/herself. It’s part of being a human, for sure, but a part of being a Feeling and Desiring person – A Person, not a resource. Somehow I do believe no one would really want a person (just) for sex unless they wanted it too. But that’s something you can’t ask for, and it demands work on both ends, which, as I understand it, is not enough for the “suppressed†who use terms like sexual market value.
The thing is, when you start to talk about sex, sexuality and gender in terms of capitalism or market value, the metaphors you use shut down a whole lot of meanings that are essential to the humanity, warmth and communication aspects of it all. Sex is somehow connected to the need to be loved and there is no theory that can safely take that into account. Even Hännikäinen states that the dream of free sexuality is merely a dream, because sex without any emotion is not that desirable after all.
So, in conclusion, the short stick drawers, men who put the weight of responsibility for unintentional celibacy solely on female shoulders, should consider if they would then take what ever is offered as they are offering it as a choice for women. (Some choice!) Hännikäinen has his taste in women as we all do within our sexual appetite, and wouldn’t take just whatever he can have but clearly just what he wants.
Indeed, if it is only sexual gratification you are after, you don’t need another person for it. So the need must be something else, something only precious for human beings, something no market value theory takes into account. The need to be loved. And that is something that can only be given with free will and by the freedom of choice. Everybody deserves to be loved, but everybody doesn’t deserve to have sex with whomever they find attractive. Sex is not something you can separate from the thinking, feeling, wanting person and the other person who also is whole and complicated with their own fear, anxieties, quirks, loves, wants etc. To speak about sex as something you either give out (or up) or withhold (in pittance!) is really a violent act in itself.
Sex and love are a liittle bit more profound and complex than that.
I do believe there’s a point in Timo Hännikäinen’s book Ilman (‘Without’ from Savukeidas Publishing 2009) but I don’t believe it’s in the feminism-needs-to-get-over-itself-and-stop-making-women-so-picky but in the how-could-we-fix-the-huge-marginalised-group-of-men-who-don’t-feel-loved-or-wanted part. How could we?
Hugo has said it but I’ll say it again. Feminism is the tool. Use it.
La Lubu,
I don’t think that’s the case at all. One of my otherwise most conservative friends just married and he completely understood and supported his fiancees whish to keep her birthname. And he did so with an explicitly egalitarian language. One small example. I just think that the male perception and experience is different, and almost automatically less valued in feminist discourse (for it’s privileged, obviously, so it cannot possibly have merit unless the author completely ignores male perspectives and problems and agrees that patriarchy is a matrix (have a look, there are a number of those in the feministing forum, for example; Hugo’s similar, but his intelligence and willingness to question himself and even his feminist convictions make him special and interesting in this respect, but I’m still often enough pissed how he can never, ever write a post without accepting at least a certain female responsibility for male problems, we’re interdependent, after all – so what results is a feeling that my opinion is usually seen as an intrusion or a defence mechanism, not a contribution… and in the end, non-monolithic or not, when men do contribute and share their opinions, they will be charged with monopolizing, derailing, or simply silenced with a “WHAT ABOUT ZE MENZ?”. So, while I think feminism is an important modernizing force, I don’t think of it as sufficiently inclusive. Can you imagine a man being the most important feminist? I don’t. So while feminism is raising important issues, it is mostly about women. If we want to take the stuff that is important for all humans and talk about it in an egalitarian way we need to find something that’s more inclusive.
I don’t mind, I brought it up, after all. I’d say my biggest asset was my will to end my suffering from inner conflicts about sexuality that were the result of Christian and feminist educations/indoctrination. I didn’t do it before I felt that my future depended on my actually doing things. I was disheartened by the hopelessness I had seen in forum of involuntary celibates. And at some point, the psychological strain and the physical desire was so big I needed to work this out. And while I was working through my psychological issues with a therapist, I was devoted to improving my “social” skills, or my ability to flirt – I was always rethorically talented, but I didn’t have any “game” – I was too afraid to communicate physical interest and my psychology made me run away whenever a woman actually expressed physical interest in me. So I forced myself to try out stuff, to lower my fear of rejection, to talk to women, to express interest when I was interested, into not completely hiding my sexual side anymore. I studied active and passive body language and read much of the world’s literature on male and female interaction (from feminist classics to evolutionary psychlogy treatments and dating self-help books). It did take time. And in a way, this actually meant treating women as equals… in a battle for happiness. And I was willing to make this work. I didn’t blame myself for mistakes I made I applauded myself for every little risk I took. And slowly it started working , and when it worked, it was intoxicating: I could actually walk up to a woman, have a fun conversation and she would be interested in some form of continued contact 8-9 out of 10 times. I am still too often afraid to “close the deal” as I have been later told by some women, but I have accepted this as a part of me, and it’s getting better slowly, and with the increasing experience, and I occasionally even use it as a conversational tool in what is, in a way, a “tough but tender” discourse
. Doesn’t always work, but I’m getting better at identifying the women with which it will 
So change can happen – and men can get more sexual confidence. It’s not easy, and it’s painful, it means questioning yourself at every step along the way and it takes time and devotion. So that’s probably why not more men do this? I suppose most don’t have the psychological strain/pain yet to do it. Maybe that’s the sad part, we must feel like there’s no way out before we will feel the pressure to act.
That’s interesting, because I have the opposite perception in my academic/professional environment. Of course, class homogamy rules, but at the same time, it seems to me that it’s more women who are looking up than men looking down.
One case sounds remarkably similar, but that’s only one of them. In the other cases I think it would have been perfectly feasable to stay with the former boyfriends in an economic sense…
Well, alas, that seems to be rather common, and with exceptions, I would class myself in that category. Just read what I wrote above. I’m probably still in puberty
It’s a fair suspicion with a biological clock ticking louder and I think it may have played a role in most of those decisions – but – to be honest – I think these days it’s not too uncommon for women, too, to not have found their way by this age. And remember Baz Lurman – some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t (know what to do with their lives 
)
Essi,
interesting take,
I agree with you – but I can’t help but wonder about this, I think contradictory statment If love is free then it is the point that NOT everybody deserves to be loved (and use love/attraction as currency for physical contact). And it doesn’t mean that other currencies (like money) cannot be used as a replacement for love/attraction as a means of value exchange. And that love is free certainly doesn’t mean that sexual access cannot be commodified (oldest trade of the world…) and even 2socialised” at least to some degree, as, I think, Denmark is attempting by giving prostitution vouchers to disabled people. It’s not giving out love, it’s giving out physical therapy – after all, masturbation isn’t exactly the same. Those benefitting from such a programme will not get sex in/with/for love, but they will have physical contact with another person and/or sex with another person who does it – voluntarily – for money.
Essi,
It’s interesting because the only blogger farther out on the “feral Libertarian” spectrum is also a Scandinavian. Hänaikkainen, who wants a re-sexualization of the public sphere, roughly “proposition anyone anywhere anytime”, which is not going to be acceptable to Scandinavian women anytime soon. And men with more radical gripes are under the radar, like Eivind Berge, (eivindberge.wordpress.com), who can currently articulate his anger (from Bergen) but doesn’t have a programmatic intervention planned like H. Berge blogs in English, however, and his links are to Baumeister, Tice, and Devlin, which means his articulation of the problem is through the American paleo-conservative Right’s worldview (cf. Devlin).
Unlike Sam Seaborn, I have always been an extrovert, and I never needed too much training in being SOCIAL, what I needed was enough self-esteem to be non-needy and enough acuity in reading social cues to realize when a woman was attracted. Unlike Sam, I find a woman interested in “continued contact” only about 1 out of every 10 times, and I wind up with a new partner about 1 out of every 250 initiated contacts. This leads to my sneaking suspicion that Sam is a naturally attractive person whose body, presentation, and demeanor would draw women to him, and that what he trained himself to do was simply remove the actions and tics that got in the way of that natural attraction.
I am a bit of an odd duck, as a somewhat disabled person who has had both able-bodied and disabled partners, and I can assure you that “take what you can get” is one of the common memes around disabled sexualities, and telling someone about the diversity of people you would have sex with isn’t the most progressive move. In my experience, what has mattered most has been women’s (exceedingly rare) interest in me.
This topic recently came up in my socialist online community. Being socialists, or generally non-aggressive types (in matters of economics and otherwise), we feel that feminism has taken a sort of capitalistic bent. This means that the law of the jungle (social Darwinism) just comes back into play. The reason many men are going unselected is because they may not have (or want) the money to compete. I’m in no way saying that the situation of economic dependency (whatever the means the breadwinner had) before was justifiable. It wasn’t. I’m just pointing out a current trend. Economic aggressiveness is rewarded and so often these guys getting “unselected” (how ironic is that word?) ARE good guys. The entitlement they feel is because of their feeling like aggressiveness shouldn’t be rewarded, which is true; it shouldn’t be. That’s what we’re all taught from Kindergarten on right?
Socialists face a crisis in women. I can’t think of anything more painful than not feeling like a man. Especially when you go out of your way to be the best one you can possibly be.
That’s what we’re all taught from Kindergarten on right?
Nope! We’re not all taught that in Kindergarten. I was given all the “play nice & share” advice as well, but I was also taught to stand up vigorously against aggressors, or they would walk all over me like a doormat—wiping their feet every chance they got. And that was said in any number of ways, with the “doormat” analogy being the most frequent.
I can’t think of anything more painful than not feeling like a man.
Ohhh….I can. But then again, I’m a woman. I don’t really mean that to sound as snarky as it does, but really….can you repeat that out loud and think about how that sounds to a woman? Especially to a woman who doesn’t get the advantages of “womanhood” that you seem to attribute to the “woman class”? As a socialist of all things, can you at least recognize that women come in more than one social class?! *sigh*
(I’m also kinda giggling at the idea of socialists being nonaggressive. I remember all the socialist meetings my old man had with all his socialist friends, and they were quite…animated.)
Women can’t magically opt-out of any of the capitalist tropes dished out to men either, Goodkind. We have to eat too. I’m sure if there’s much U.S. participation on your online group, the Horatio Alger myth has been discussed. Well, Cinderella is a myth also—y’know, poor, nice girl swept off her feet by the Prince. And that happens in real life almost exactly never. In real life, poor nice girls have to get their hustle on and get up off their rear ends the same way poor nice guys do.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go chase away all those investment bankers, venture capitalists and high-powered attorneys banging down my front door trying to get in—I need to get my paper off the porch, and they’re probably stepping on it.
Sam, I found your story fascinating…and complicated! It sounded as if you were learning a different culture, not just a different language (way of communicating).
Which makes me wonder just what part culture plays to either enhance or detract from communication between the sexes. (I’m also wondering how many gay/lesbian people are following this thread and thinking to themselves, “geez louise, am I glad I’m not straight!”) I mean, I think my own cultural/class background enhanced my ability to communicate with men and be understood—how well that works in the dating/romance sphere varies according to how much an individual man finds me physically attractive though. Generally speaking, if he finds mediterranean looks attractive, I’m in! If the gentleman prefers blondes, I’m out! LOL!!
Which is a factor a lot of men discount in these discussions—the great advantage they have in not having to jump through the same physical hoops women have to jump through. Women are more likely to stretch our personal boundaries of what we find attractive physically, upon discovery of other aspects. A man who was originally so-so at first sight becomes Hawt with the way he moves, the way he speaks, his talents, his compassion, his humor, his…you get the picture. Whereas a woman’s only avenue to Hawtness is the physical one.
I think that men have greater parameters to work within in order to make themselves more attractive to the opposite sex than women do. (and can I say how much I hate the term “opposite sex?” We’re not “opposites”, for crying out loud!)
And a side note that I think is worth mention: femininity and atractiveness in women is “blondified”—light skin/light hair/light eyes are seen as more feminine, which puts me at a disadvantage. As much a disadvantage as a man with “no game”, as you put it. Just sayin’. I can stay home and let that stop me, or, I can make the best of it and pay attention to the men who are attracted to “my type”. So, that’s where a part of my “c’mon guys, butch up!” attitude is coming from. It isn’t easy for many of us (women) either, and we have less to work with than the fellas.
La Lubu,
in a way, you’re right about the learning of another culture, or, to some degree, unlearning of culture. What I had been socialised into at some point felt like a prison (part of which caused by feminist indoctrination), so unlearning socialised habits and trusting myself to not be inherenty dangerous was an important part to being able to express myself fully. Of course that is both anecdotal proof that culture/”nurture” is very important and that culture that is fundamentally at odds with “nature” can be very problematic.
I am now fascinated by the intricacies of communication between the sexes – and what it teaches us about human communication in general. Your observations about what men and women find attractive, particularly the ability of men to offset a lack in visual attractivity with other qualities are probably correct – at least that’s what most studies I have read about the subject are explaining. That said, I think one problem for most of these studies is lack of intertemporal observation: The above attraction structure is certainly true in the short term – say, in a club, I’d even say over some days. But in the medium term, I would say that women can offset lack of visual attractivity as well: Visual attractivity is just something that works best for attraction, as soon as there is some sort of “relationship”/extensive contact, it looses some (probably not all) of its importance, it just becomes one feature of a person. In my perception, that means that women with a relative lack of conventional beauty will do a lot better in environments that allow some sort of continued contact without having to directly communicate physical interest, like associations, or charities, or the like.
I’m not sure femininity is blondified, but that is probably because I do prefer brunettes… and about the “opposites”. I think we want to be opposites – and I think that’s part of what we talked about in the other thread, that men are afraid to embrace things that become identified with “femininity” because it makes it harder for them to stay “masculine”. So now that most of the occupational realm has been taken out of the range of possibilities to differentiate and become secure in our identification, how do we achieve that? I mean, it’s hard to know about the largely performative nature of these artefacts and *still* be attracted to them and still use them as a reason to not continure an interaction with someone. But that’s what preferences are. And we’re attracted to these differences as much as we are to being equal (homogamy rules mating), and what we really want in a relationship is the thrill of difference coupled with the familiarity that comes with being equal in most respects. And that’s such a complicated thing to do when we don’t have at least assumed cultural fundamentals that we can mentally couple with this desire to be either masculine or feminine, when everything is open to negotiation, we don’t know what to hold on to, or even what to do. That’s a real challenge in modern gender relations, in my opinion – what to do when a female friend tells me she deplores the lack of “man”-men? Knowing what kind of guy she usually goes for, I think what she really means is that she’s missing that difference element, masculinity, and potentially more guys pushing her against a wall when they’re trying to kiss her (easily the most common female “sexual” desire in clubs, I’m actually asking about this now
).
In a way, it’s probably part of what you refer to as “butching up”. And not doing what women are increasingly doing (like being successful in school) is probably an attempt, though a failing attempt, to butch up. I don’t know, I don’t have too many overly visible testosterone markers, and I’m not looking like Brad Pitt when I undress, and I’d even say tha my recent success is based on the seductive use of conversational skills, in new-found sexual confidence that transmits a sexual subtext that women do pick up on. It’s more of a vibe than it is masculine in the butch sense, as I mentioned, that’s something even some of the women who clearly like me tell me to do more decidedly.
Yes, culture plays a role. The Mediterranean socializes men and women to communicate, to linger, gaze, and stare, to appreciate the opposite sex, to boldly make contact. It also socializes men to harass, whistle, touch random women’s erogenous zones in public places without their consent. The socialization to harass is part of virtually every culture, so perhaps we can look at what a few cultures do right. I would argue that it’s a process of learning a new (mainly body) language, unless you want to argue that women (of any culture) are a separate culture within.
The male counter-view of the appearance issue is that most men’s minimum appearance requirements are within the reach of the average woman, whereas the average woman’s success/dominance requirements are, thanks to feminism, no longer within the reach of the average man. Baumeister & Tice’s 80/40 split would bear that out. And of course, thanks to the media, women are become more physically discerning–read “picky”–themselves.
La Lubu, if you DO have a fitter’s or carpenter’s physique, something that marked you as “unfeminine”, THAT would still not put you in the realm of a man with “no game” at all, as that would reduce your potential dating pool only to the men who were attracted to Mediterranean-looking women with work-toned bodies, which is still a large number. And I would say that such a physique would make you like almost EVERYONE’S ancestors, the women who carried water on the farms and homesteads of the world, who were certainly considered attractive enough, if not valued enough as humans. A man with “no game” cannot make himself a credible partner for any woman, because the process itself is a tautology, being male-initiated. If a man fails the social signaling at any step, he has no partner. Of course each sex feels that straight people of the other sex have it easier.
Eurosabra,
“whereas the average woman’s success/dominance requirements are, thanks to feminism, no longer within the reach of the average man.”
For all the problems we’re talking about, I think the problem is definitely more about difficulty to express what we expect from the other than about the other’s fundamental inability to fulfill each other’s requirements. Lonely women on the top (thinking here of Maureen Dowd’s complaints from a while ago) will have to adjust as well if they don’t want to settle for a vibrator and a sperm bank.
I do think (second wave/radical) feminism has had an effect in this discourse, mostly in the sense of tainting male sexuality as inherently dangerous (and partly, I’d say by making it harder for women who identify with feminist ideals to verbally own their physical desire to be “feminine” (and, possibly, want a guy who pushes them against the wall for kissing)).
Of course, this stuff has nothing to do with equality of the sexes, just with *how we fit the differences in desire that *hetero*sexuality logically brings with it, into a framework of equality. I mean, just as an example, a famous German second wave feminist once called women looking for a man to lead the mating dance “collaborators” in patriarchy.
I think it is obvious that feminism has caused some collateral damage in this discourse and in the way we talk about sexuality (male in particular, as, say, Naomi Wolf noted in the 1990s), but I don’t think it’s impossible to modernize the feminist discourse, even though even assumed sex-positive third-wavers still don’t seem to think that male sexuality is an issue for feminism (except for a critique of “rape culture”, privilege, or entitlement, and, again, without having much interest or – because of the handily constructed framework of privilege and entitlement – need to actually listen to male experiences.)
To not even exaggerate a lot: if you’re white and male, the basic assumption is that you cannot possibly have a valid perspective… or real issues to talk about, and the standard assumption is you’re only complaining because you can’t get laid which, for some reason, seems to be a relevant criterium. I wonder what would happen in a blog discussion if someone told a feminist she’s only angry at men because she can’t get laid…
La Lubu,
found something on the interwebs that may be interesting in the current context. Here’s a woman who is apparently coaching men in dating questions explaining how to be “tough but tender” (in a way). She’s really breaking it down as much as she can, and she’s trying to be very helpful, but you’ll probably notice the complexity of the communicative requirements for such a discourse even in her attempts to explain in detail. That’s possibly what Eurosabra refers to when he’s suggesting that women have it easier since men are (allegedly) only looking for visual beauty.
http://blog.authenticmanprogram.com/2009/05/27/being-vulnerable
Sam,
Maureen Dowd wants to have rapport with a man who is a “success object” equivalent to herself, a high-status intellectual, not simply an intelligent man with whom she can develop rapport, whose “personality benefits” match her own. At least the “sperm bank and vibrator” option thanks to feminism is better than pre-modern Europe’s “burned as a witch” option.
Sure, feminism demonized male sexuality, but “No means No” also desexualized elements of the public sphere that were part of mating. A woman dancing at a club generally thinks her behavior means “Look at me, admire me, desire me, don’t touch me” and one of the things you see in the “No means No” West is the so-called “Line of Death”, men clutching drinks who don’t try to dance with any women. This is a learned helplessness response to rejection, since it’s unbelievably hard to initiate anything sexual when the woman believes (thanks to feminism) that her behavior is non-sexual, and she rebuffs sexual advances in the context of an activity that EVERY OTHER culture regards as a pre-mating display of sexuality.
I read the video as “be sensitive, but not so sensitive that I ever get the slightest hint that you could lose control of the situation and fail to protect me, and of course demonstrate your total control of any situation and total dominance, as usual.” They want the sensitive side of the biggest Mammoth Killer, not the deep inner thoughts of the Flint Knapper.
Eurosabra,
I believe that there’s also a fundamental problem with respect to the interpretation of – obviously correct! – behavioral standards like “no means no”. I mean, I grew up with the belief that I had to internally censor my desire so I don’t become a sexual predator – and in my case that was (partly) feminist indoctrination. That said, in my experience most women don’t think “don’t touch me”, but “don’t touch me the wrong way”. And clearly, some forms of sexualised touch that were previously common are now rightly seen as “the wrong way”. Of course, sometimes there will be misunderstandings, but as I said, all I’ve come across is women who complain about guys being less assertive and less sexual than the women would like them to be. Women in a club certainly don’t believe that dancing is entirely non-sexual, and yes, some like to tease for a thrill of power, but that doesn’t mean it’s an invitation or ok to grope randomly – I mean, c’mon. You don’t need to read Kant in the original to understand that much about the categorical imperative. And if I’ve learned something, it is that it’s possible to step out of that “line of death”, to unlearn that helplessness, if you will, and to learn how to “touch the right way”. Part of that is possibly that I don’t approach on the dance floor, ever. If we go dancing *after* having talked a while and developed some kind of rapport, and after I had a chance to get some “come on signs”, then it’s something entirely different.
I do think that approach anxiety is a huge problem, I mean, I’ve been there, but I’d also say that much of it is assumed rejection – we’re usually rejecting ourselves before she even gets a chance to do that. Sure approaching means taking a risk, and, moreover, one that you will, if it goes wrong, almost certainly, if often wrongly, take personally. But at the end of the day, you gotta do what you gotta do, and even if you’re not Brad Pitt, being “man enough” to say “hello” and look her in the eyes is usually already a big plus compared to a good looking dude who’s just staring at her while holding his drink…
I’d tend to assume that, if I were dancing in a club (and hypothesizing away for the moment the fact that in real life I’m already married and thus sexually unavailable to most men), my behavior would mean: I’m available for approaches, but still get to turn some of them down. It’s not “look, but don’t touch,” it’s more “don’t touch in too sexual a way before the right signals have been exchanged.” After all, just because I’m dancing, doesn’t mean I’ll find all comers attractive, and some of them, even if they were sufficiently attractive in a sober state, would be bound to be too drunk for my taste (if it’s me, personally, in the club, I’m drinking something non-alcoholic and not interested in socializing with people who are visibly tipsy). So, absolutely “No Means No,” and that’s not at all the same thing as saying dancing’s not at all sexual. Broadcast signals of availability for approach communicate a different level of permission than personal signals; before you push me against a wall as you’re kissing me, you’d better have gotten some of the more personal cues.
As for the pushing against a wall while kissing thing – not actually my personal fantasy, but if you’re sexy enough, and I’ve already shown enough enthusiasm for kissing you, not a “shut down the proceedings right now because you’re being way too aggressive” thing.
Lynn,
complete agreement. Again, I don’t think there’s much (if any) disagreement as to the ideals, but much confusion about the language and way to get there. I do think that, taking the touching as an example, many men do need to have this broken down on a different level of detail until they get the intuition (think user’s manual: a) safe body areas to touch a woman socially b) “accidentally” letting your hand rest on her upper arm for 20 milliseconds too long after you leaned in to tell her about something to make her wonder if you’re not just touching her socially, c) etc… ) while women seem to be more intuitive with their physical presence. Interestingly, according to a phd thesis by a Dr. Perper from the 80s, women generally believe men understand them while only one in 31 of the men who were confronted with what the women actually believed they communicated had understood what she wanted to say…
“I wonder what would happen in a blog discussion if someone told a feminist she’s only angry at men because she can’t get laid”
I think that discussions of male perspective break down because men are often COMPLAINING ABOUT NOT GETTING LAID. You bring up MoDo columns, and I think some of them could really easily be subjected to the criticism that she’s only angry at men because she can’t get laid.
Yes, having less rigid gender roles and expectations means you have to have the communication, social, and observation skills to pay attention to and understand the individual person that you are interacting with. You can’t just follow a script and assume that every woman will react the same way. Boo fricken hoo.
If a woman likes to be pushed up against a wall to be kissed, then she can damn well say so. But men assuming that women like such thing, and doing it in a bar (presumably with someone they didn’t come there with?) IS creepy and dangerous. What I might find sexy and passionate if my boyfriend/husband does, I would find to be sexual assault if a stranger does.
I agree that men who value equality may feel inhibited to be sexually aggressive even in the context of a committed relationship. But in my experience it’s feminism and feminists that are out there telling women that it’s OK to ask for what they want and give explicit verbal permission and/or encouragement for such things. (Surely there are other strands of feminism that argue that such sexual practices are just acting out patriarchy, etc., but this is an active debate within feminism, and it would be inappropriate to ascribe only one opinion to “feminism”). The explicitness is necessary, to ensure that it really is equal, respectful, and mutual. To ensure that it’s what these two particular individuals want, and not assaultive. You can learn via social and communication skills to guess well and explore in baby steps, but that to me seems like a very dangerous slope. I think there’s a lot of value to the (feminist) discussions going on about explicit consent and discussion/negotiation of preferences, desires and boundaries.
Again, I think you’re dealing with a privileged subset of people, the ones who have the wherewithal to participate in the normal mating game, that is, to elicit attraction in other people with innate behaviors (or learned behavioral cues) and to detect attraction. So it’s a combination of “Yes, but not YOU” and “I’m just here to dance.” And all of it instinctual and non-verbal, according to unwritten rules. One of the things about the “never being hot” paradigm is the idea of never being allowed one’s active desire, and to a certain extent, as an Aspergery-type, I get people telling me that the DENOTATION of an activity is its sole social meaning for me, at least as far as they are concerned, connotation no longer exists. “As far as YOU are concerned, I’m just here to dance.” I suppose we can’t legislate desire, but at the extremes we wind up with Hännikäinen and Eivind Berge. One of the weirdest patterns in my actual relationships is a one-sided sexuality, where women desire their pleasure and want me to provide it but don’t desire ME, and a lesser pattern where they are doing the minimum. I think it might just be bad luck or a lack of confidence of one younger partner, but I suspect that there is something about autism that causes women to read me as a “machine/robot” service provider and interferes with their ahem reciprocity and empathy. I’ll probably puzzle it out in the two years or so it’ll take me to find my next partner.
Emily,
“Boo fricken hoo.”
Fine. But let me repeat what Stephen Colbert told Greenday the other day: I like punk music. they’re not offering solutions, but screaming the problems as loud as possible…
“If a woman likes to be pushed up against a wall to be kissed, then she can damn well say so.”
She could, sure. But she probably won’t if that’s her fantasy, because if that’s what she wants she probably also wants someone who understands that she doesn’t want to ask for it. If she had to ask, it wouldn’t be the same…
“I think there’s a lot of value to the (feminist) discussions going on about explicit consent and discussion/negotiation of preferences, desires and boundaries.”
I agree, I just wish it were a discussion in which male opinions weren’t marginalized, in fact, as long as they are, I don’t see how this is going anywhere. That said, as much as I think explicitness is great, I do also believe that most people prefer some ambiguity, and that’s both men AND women. They do like some “wiggle room” because explicitness is explicit and most people can’t deal with it, precisely because it is explicit.
I mean I may know that I’d like to go home with you the moment I see you, but if we don’t go through all the steps necessary, my telling you right away “I find you very attractive, would you like to go to bed with me” won’t help a lot. But if we do go through all the steps the level of explicitness has to be adjusted to not seem inappropriate itself. I’m not saying explicitness isn’t a good thing, I’m saying it’s a complicated thing, and the people arguing for it usually discuss this in a way that I often feel has nothing at all to do with the reality of male-female interactions “on the ground” but a lot with the requirements of a sociology seminar.
The more I watch this conversation, the more confused I get. How do you people expect to develop a solid relationship if you’re starting from drunken manipulation?
I met a guy. Four months later, having seen each other twice a week for a shared hobby, we stayed up late watching Doctor Who and had a very long conversation, culminating in a decision to be together. Around here, that’s how it’s done. How is it done in your world?
I think Hugo misinterprets these guys. There can’t be that many men at so low an ebb that to have a women use them for their money is one of their aspirations, and that they’re driven to such anger at women not treating them like this that they blame feminism.
My interpretation is this is people straightforwardly expressing their economic interests. People who are in couples have different economic interests to singletons – especially single men. If you’re part of a couple, academic, market or political institutions which encourage female independence are a good thing for you. I mean this directly, a strong welfare state for families and female participation in the workforce translates to money in your pocket if your a man in a relationship. For example: if your wife has subsidised childcare while she works – that’s money feminism is putting in your households bank account, and so on.
If you’re a single man you’ll pay for these institutions, but get no benefit from them. They’re just a cost. That’s a straightfoward reason for these guys to oppose them. I don’t think we need to imagine men as being so twisted that they do this out of a desire to get involved in meretricious relationships. Single men just have a obvious financial interest in opposing these institutions. You don’t need to bring sexual entitlement into the equation.
Sam, I’m going to pretend I didn’t read anything up above about “feminist indoctrination”, seeing as you were already candid about perception vs. reality and opportunities for misinterpretations. I could easily get sidetracked on (1)what constitutes “indoctrination”, and (2)it’s feminisms, and whose message is getting out matters also—not just what is being heard and who is hearing it.
Way back when, I attended community college and took a class in ethics. The instructor brought up Bertrand Russell’s views on the rise of divorce (which was oh, written back in the 1920s or something); one of the thing he attributed this to was the increasing heterogeneity of society. The “grass is always greener” effect. I think that’s salient to this discussion, too.
See, a modern society does create new rules for getting along as it gets more heterogeneous—but the same broad standards people adopt for communication at work or keeping the peace in the neighborhood don’t trickle down to how to attract the opposite sex. Those rules are still governed by the smaller sub-population—the ethnic group, the regional group, the class station, the religious group. Or the shorter version: there’s more ways to get the communication wrong in that arena.
Interesting that you bring up the way occupational status used to indicate masculinity—I credit my occupation as the reason I have fewer men to select from. Some of them get really freaked out by the idea of a woman with a “man’s job”—a man’s job that still represents masculinity in popular imagery. Not to mention that it puts me with other men for eight or more hours a day.
But the thing is….I don’t….and I’m not hearing from other women, that…..oh, what am I trying to say. This: what men think (in this half-changed world) constitutes a good masculine image is different from what women think constitutes a good masculine image. Men seem to think we want them “harder” than we do. And it’s been my observation that too many guys who don’t have that automatic maasculine signifier from their employment—waaaayyyyy overcompensate by trying to assert themselves as…..well, I interpret it as “domineering”. And that’s sends me so far, so fast in the opposite direction you can see the breeze I create. Why is that? I mean, I don’t assume any given man’s masculinity from how he makes his money, and neither do any of the women I know. This is an internal man-to-man thing. But, it’s not just an issue for white-collar men. I see this in the trades, also—especially at mid-life. Mostly, more visual signifiers of masculinity (Harleys, tattoos, etc.). Even from men who probably started shaving when they were eight years old.
And that is something I’m curious about, because I don’t think it has a female counterpart. I mean, anything I’ve ever done in life—I don’t think detracts or adds to my perception of myself as a woman. Full stop. Including motherhood. I don’t feel any more “female” after giving birth and breastfeeding than I did before. Stronger as a person for being a parent? More patient? Mature? Empathetic? Sure. But not more of a woman. I don’t feel that my “masculine” job or “masculine” interests detract from my womanhood (though some people do….that’s their ish).
I guess my question is: why are men so seemingly anxious about masculinity? How they are perceived as men by others? Why don’t they have an intrinsic confidence about being men? I don’t get that. I mean, on some level I suppose its about not wanting to get one’s ass kicked, either literally or metaphorically. But…the anxiety that I perceive so many men to display seems to go beyond that explanation. I can’t help but interpret it as masking a great pain.
whereas the average woman’s success/dominance requirements are, thanks to feminism, no longer within the reach of the average man.
Ok, Eurosabra. That statement is completely ridiculous. Perhaps you’d like to explain.
With that said, I will admit to looking like I work out—but that serves to counteract the blonde deficiency. (and for what it’s worth, I credit feminism with changing the minds of men when it comes to female appearance. Forty years ago I would have had the same physique and been considered “mannish”; now I’m considered “healthy”. Some men find it off-putting. Not very many.) If you’ve never been to the blonder part of the midwest, I don’t know if I can explain it to you—but no, it most certainly does put me in the realm of the men with no game.
I also disagree with the process being “male-initiated”. Most of the time, the process is “female-initiated”, albeit nonverbally. Having “game”, for the most part, is merely paying attention.
@La Lubu
I was given all the “play nice & share†advice as well, but I was also taught to stand up vigorously against aggressors, or they would walk all over me like a doormat—wiping their feet every chance they got.
Right, and the capitalist system itself with all of the tyrants it enables is itself an aggressor. They walking all over us like a doormat—wiping their feet every chance they got. Are they not?
Ohhh….I can. But then again, I’m a woman. I don’t really mean that to sound as snarky as it does, but really….can you repeat that out loud and think about how that sounds to a woman?
Right. You probably can’t think of anything more painful than not feeling like a woman, with all that that entails. I can understand that may sound different to a woman, but it wasn’t meant the way you probably hear it. Your conception of manhood is probably different from mine. My conception is free from all oppressiveness. It’s not manly to be an oppressor, IMO.
As a socialist of all things, can you at least recognize that women come in more than one social class?!
What makes you think I don’t recognize that? Class has little to do with whether or not a person is a capitalist or not. There are cripplingly poor people who are strong proponents of the capitalist system. In fact, I would say a majority of capitalists are working class or middle class, not insanely rich or even moderately rich.
We have to eat too … In real life, poor nice girls have to get their hustle on and get up off their rear ends the same way poor nice guys do.
Without addressing beauty as a commodity in an unforgiving capitalist economy, I would say that it’s not about “getting your hustle on”. It’s about what you do when you’re not. When I’m not I’m trying to organize myself with my comrades in an effort to co-opt this exploitation. Instead of worrying yourselves with smoothing away the prejudices of life in a capitalist system (which is the enabler of much of many of these prejudices) feminists should be trying to do away with this corrupt, aggression-rewarding, patriarchal economic system.
As a feminist of all things, can you at least recognize the value of equality over a system prone to the exploitation of class differences.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go chase away all those investment bankers, venture capitalists and high-powered attorneys banging down my front door trying to get in…
I went out on my porch and I didn’t see any of that either. Maybe instead you should stop looking at them as something to aspire to be.
Froth,
“How do you people expect to develop a solid relationship if you’re starting from drunken manipulation?”
Who has said anything about drunken manipulation?
“Around here, that’s how it’s done. How is it done in your world?”
Do I get this correctly? You decided you’re together after a talk and *without* any prior physical intimacy (not necessarily sex, but something that *tangibly* indicated physical interest, say, kissing, making out)? Interesting.
Around here (my here
), people usually meet, whether in a club or in a social circle or for a shared hobby, and they develop some kind of emotional or physical attraction for each other, which can happen fast (club) or not so fast (social circle, additional social risks), and after some conversation and physical escalation they will usually kiss, possibly make out. Depending on the people in question they will then either have sex directly or spend some more time before they have sex, usually on a different day, or a couple of days/dates. I have yet to hear of a (Western! – people from other cultural backgrounds are different, of course) couple that did not have sex prior to the decision to become a couple. Actually, usually the latter doesn’t seem like much of a conscious decision, more like a realization along the way, like “I think we’re a couple now”…
La Lubu,
“feminist indoctrination”
need to run, just briefly – I thought it was evident from what I wrote that I talked about how I perceived what I experienced as feminist education as feminist indoctrination. For me, that was, certainly with hindsight, feminist indoctrination. I’m not saying that this is a feature inherent to feminism, or all feminisms, but that what I experienced as education is probably fairly described as indoctrination and, in conjunction with Catholic education/indoctrination and my psychological structure, led to the sever problems I mentioned above. I do not blame feminism/s as such but I am aware that every (even otherwise positive) social force can have problematic collateral damage.
You once again raise interesting points in your reply, which I will address tomorrow!
And we’re attracted to these differences as much as we are to being equal (homogamy rules mating), and what we really want in a relationship is the thrill of difference coupled with the familiarity that comes with being equal in most respects.
Well, yes. I think people in general are attracted to a certain mix of difference vs. familiarity….but I think the same holds true for LGBT people who aren’t dealing with the same baggage heterosexual people are.
I think most men I know would interpret your friend’s fantasy about the man who pushes her up against the wall and kisses her the same way you did—as wanting aggressive sexuality. I interpret that a little differently. I think for one, she doesn’t want any random man to just come up and do that—-even if she finds him attractive (that’s the thing about fantasy—in fantasy, you’re always in control, and everything works out the way you want it to!). She’d probably only enjoy it if she knew the man already. (unless her self-defensive boundaries are much lower than average—for most women, that sort of thing would be triggering).
I don’t see that fantasy as seeking aggression so much as seeking both a positive, unmistakable display of strong desire, and….touching. Firm, sensual touch. God, some guys act as if they’re afraid they’re going to break you if they touch you like they mean it, LOL!!
Goodkind, we are clearly talking past each other. I am pretty damn far from being a cheerleader for capitalism; I’m a trade unionist for crying out loud! While I agree that feminism needs to be part-and-parcel of demolishing the current exploitative economic structure, I’m also utilitarian enough to follow the old-school path of “by any means necessary”—-translation: I think the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Pregnancy Anti-Discrimination Act of 1978 and the like are practical steps that make a profound difference in the lives of many people (myself included), rather than the “sellout” of the revolution (which in case you ain’t looked lately—isn’t here yet). I’m also not deluded enough to think that a socialist revolution automatically is going to be any less sexist than the capitalist one. So, there’s that.
You strongly implied that women, as a class, seek out wealthy men to the exclusion of working class men. How you expect me to see that as anything other than an insult is beyond me. Here’s what you said: The reason many men are going unselected is because they may not have (or want) the money to compete. Read that again. Out loud. Doesn’t that sound remarkably similar to “women are gold-diggers”?
We can probably never agree on the relative benefits and deficits of aggression; it’s situational. Aggressiveness—in the form of fighting back—can literally save your life. While you think “agressiveness” and think of people dominating others, I think “aggressiveness” and think of preventing others from dominating me.
Maybe instead you should stop looking at them as something to aspire to be.
BWA hahahahaha!!!! *koff!* *choke* *wheeze!* Boy, that’s a good one!
La Lubu,
Women are not excited by equals, but by men who can give them access to surplus-value of some kind, whether it’s intellectual stimulation, financial, etc, and in our modern leisure/party culture, that means the most socially-dominant, exciting men. The modern science of Game arose because intelligent men who were 4s, 5s, 6s, and 7s noticed that there was NOTHING they could do to attract equally average women, and so they began duplicating the behavior patterns of socially-dominant men. Male desire without dominance is simply pathetic need, “You’re such a Nice Guy, perfect for some other girl.”
The other thing is that I apparently live in Froth’s world, which is disconcerting, or perhaps Froth (as a presumably neutotypical person) would be interested to learn that explicit negotiation following shared British Sci-Fi or Comedy viewing is apparently a mating strategem of American autistics.
Sam is still discussion communication strategies, while I thought I’d point out that I’m pretty much the opposite: refining my communication didn’t do squat, it just made my transition from rejection to the next attempt easier.
Women are not excited by equals, but by men who can give them access to surplus-value of some kind, whether it’s intellectual stimulation, financial, etc, and in our modern leisure/party culture, that means the most socially-dominant, exciting men.
Whaaaa? Women are excited by equals! Maybe because we find that a man who treats us as an equal is providing that “surplus-value” (as you say—-I’m not sure what you mean by that) of respect. But see, I don’t think of that as surplus value, but as “the basics”. Acknowledgement of my basic humanity isn’t “surplus”; it’s the foundation.
I am thoroughly confused by your use of the term “socially dominant”. What do you mean by that? In your first sentence, it almost seems as if you mean “extroverted and talkative”, but in other replies it seemed as if you meant “wealthy and powerful”. Later on in this reply, you seem to use it to mean “domineering and controlling”. What do you mean?
intelligent men who were 4s, 5s, 6s, and 7s noticed that there was NOTHING they could do to attract equally average women,
That is totally preposterous. Are you seriously trying to tell me that you don’t encounter regular-people (as opposed to movie stars and supermodels) couples on an everyday basis? And those few times you do encounter a couple, it’s invariably some woman rated on the magic “1-10″ scale between 4 and 7……with some 8, 9 or 10 male partner?
I would say it’s an amalgam of Alpha dominance, meaning respected because exciting, powerful, and domineering, as opposed to merely domineering. Wealth is not necessarily an ingredient, because some men use their wealth to hide need. A lot of the mortgage brokers are discovering that without bottle service, they’re just not that interesting to women.
I encounter plenty of regular-girl couples, but the men are always obviously superior in social class, appearance, education, or wealth. Or I see power couples of demi-gods and -goddesses. Whereas ordinary guys are pretty much screwed, and with my Ivy League education and various disabilities, the average of superhuman and sub-human (unless I can pass, which I do, sometimes) is “ordinary”, and the only reason I qualify as ordinary is I got rid of the chip on my shoulder that made me “creep crip.”
How is it done in your world?
Total connections from clubs of any kind: one single dinner date, nice dinner, nice conversation, absolutely no physical contact of any kind, no second date.
Otherwise …
#1: Ex-roommate’s ex-boy friend, hung out together for a while, then one day he invited me to go hot tubbing with him.
#2: Housemate in college, hung out together for a while, then I propositioned him in a kidding on the square way, and got lucky.
#3: Met in the computer center, after we’d talked a few times he invited me to the AI lab to see an AI program that simulated someone with paranoid schizophrenia, then we hung out some more, a few days later got physical.
#4: He read my postings on a student computer forum, found me and told me he liked them, we hung out repeatedly for months, and eventually kissed one night after staying up all night talking.
And, my husband: Met at the housewarming party of a mutual friend, talked with other friends about, among other things, death and AIDS, he invited me to the zoo, and we continued to see each other and soon moved in together and got engaged, at approximately the same time.
I do think that, taking the touching as an example, many men do need to have this broken down on a different level of detail
Yeah, I can believe that.
women generally believe men understand them while only one in 31 of the men who were confronted with what the women actually believed they communicated had understood what she wanted to say…
What happened from my side was that enough men figured out that I was approaching them and found a way to let me know they weren’t interested that I assumed it was generally obvious, and that the guys who simply weren’t making return approaches were also rejecting me in their fashion. (And I’m with La Lubu in thinking women actually do a lot of the initiating, just in less explicit ways.)
Also, being hit on by lots of guys was something I just took as the norm, in a sort of impersonal way, as a young woman, and didn’t get nearly the sexual confidence from it when it came to approaching guys I wanted as a man might think I would, if he imagined himself being hit on that many times (assuming he’s the sort of guy who doesn’t get hit on much).
She could, sure. But she probably won’t if that’s her fantasy, because if that’s what she wants she probably also wants someone who understands that she doesn’t want to ask for it. If she had to ask, it wouldn’t be the same…
Not so sure about that; some people do negotiate their fantasies very explicitly indeed.
Not that every step of every fantasy always needs to be explicitly said, as long as you’re doing some communicating, and as long as part of that communicating is that you stop at “no” (or clearly negotiate some other word to stop at if for whatever reason you mutually prefer to keep going at “no”).
Though, I’m with La Lubu about the “pushed against a wall” fantasy sounding like something where the fantasy guy would be someone you already know, that it sounds really triggering from a stranger. My first thought, actually, when I pictured it in a bar scene, was, I wouldn’t like that at all, but then I plugged in how I’d feel getting that approach from someone I’d already slept with, and it didn’t feel nearly so bad. A lot of come ons that I’ve gotten from my husband or exes, on a particular occasion after we were already together, would have felt entirely wrong if I’d gotten them outside an established relationship. But once it’s clear you both want each other, it can be appealing to be decisively wanted.
I mean I may know that I’d like to go home with you the moment I see you, but if we don’t go through all the steps necessary, my telling you right away “I find you very attractive, would you like to go to bed with me†won’t help a lot.
Well, yeah, for me even if I think you’re hot the moment I see you, I definitely don’t know that I want to go home with you that moment; knowing I want to go home with you would require that we have interacted enough for me to have some level of trust, as well as finding you hot. And getting “would you like to go to bed with me” right off the bat wouldn’t tend to get me to that point of being comfortable with you.
But if we do go through all the steps the level of explicitness has to be adjusted to not seem inappropriate itself. I’m not saying explicitness isn’t a good thing, I’m saying it’s a complicated thing, and the people arguing for it usually discuss this in a way that I often feel has nothing at all to do with the reality of male-female interactions “on the ground†but a lot with the requirements of a sociology seminar.
Sure, early stages of any approach would tend to be less explicit. Among other things, for more deniability; since I didn’t tend to meet people in clubs, but rather to turn friends to lovers, I tended to want to approach in such a way that I could back off and still be friends.
I don’t see anything wrong with a little ambiguity in the early stages of flirting; I see a lot wrong with inability to talk clearly to each other when you’ve gotten to the point of actually sleeping together, because at that point there are things you really do need to be able to say explicitly to each other and not guess at. Ranging from condom and birth control stuff to I really do or don’t like that stuff.
Male desire without dominance is simply pathetic need, “You’re such a Nice Guy, perfect for some other girl.â€
With me, “You’re such a Nice Guy, perfect for some other girl” was sometimes what I felt about genuinely nice guys, who nevertheless had some specific incompatibility with me. For instance, one of the guys who, for a longer time than most, liked me in a romantic way while I liked him back in a more platonic way was a really nice evangelical Christian who in most things was more Sojourners style evangelical Christian than Falwell-style. He was intelligent, fun to talk with, socially conscious, had a lot of values I respected – and believed in male headship in marriage. He would explain this in a way that made it sound as egalitarian as you can make male headship in marriage sound, but it still was not something I found compatible. I later found out, from a friend, what other women he’d been interested in, two of them, and neither of them was the sort who’d agree with male headship in marriage either; there was an incompatibility between who he found appealing and what his theology told him he should seek. He’d make a great guy for someone who shared his beliefs. Probably eventually he did make a great guy for someone (though whether that happened by his finding some other way to interpret the Bible or by his finding someone who shared his interpretation, I don’t know). Anyway, there wasn’t anything pathetic about him, or anything that was “Nice Guy(TM)” in the derogatory way, but we weren’t compatible.
Eurosabra,
home, drunk, and a thinking a woman tried to impress me by making out with someone who was not me. That’s a first I need to process…
So just one thing now, the rest tomorrow -
“I would say it’s an amalgam of Alpha dominance, meaning respected because exciting, powerful, and domineering, as opposed to merely domineering.”
I’m sorry, but to be honest, I find that to be a strange statement, and I really don’t know what it is supposed to mean. That kind of “alphaism” clearly doesn’t have anything to do with women at all. Quite the opposite, as Baudelaire (correctly, but with necessary qualifiers) noted: “Those men get along best with women who can get along best without them.”
Yeah I think I’m done here. I could make a good argument, but what’s the point?
Sam: Well, you’ve heard of a couple that didn’t have sex before considering themselves a couple now. And a Western one, too – unless Yorkshire is not western now?
In my social circles, kissing, making out, expecially having sex, are all things done only by people who are couples. If you are making out, your friends will thenceforth consider you to be a couple. Physical intimacy, unless you specifically went out to find a stranger to have sex with (it does happen, that’s what clubbing is for), simply doesn’t happen outside of relationships. You don’t have no-strings anything with people you know.
Disclaimer: My social circles are a subset of the University and associated population, characterised by geekiness, heavy dependence on doing concrete things as a group, and close-knit friendships. I believe the go-to-a-club, have-sex, maybe-get-in-contact-later approach exists around here, but I find it equally baffling as when it’s in America.
I encounter plenty of regular-girl couples, but the men are always obviously superior in social class, appearance, education, or wealth.
Wow. I have to say, that is the polar opposite of what I see where I live. Seldom do I see a male/female couple where the woman isn’t several degrees better-looking. I don’t see any class-crossing either, not really (unless, like those Laborers and Carpenters I mentioned earlier, your class boundaries are so narrow you consider different trades on the same jobsite to encompass an entirely different social class—something I find mind-boggling! Then again, I don’t consider schoolteachers or nurses to be of a different social class than tradespeople even though those are “white-collar” jobs, because we make nearly the same money, live in the same neighborhoods, grew up the same way, etc.). Well-to-do men never date outside their social class. You will never see an attorney dating a waitress, for example. I’ve had a lot of men chat me up, only to find their interest immediately fade when the “what do you do” or “where did you go to school” questions come up. That initial interest based on appearance, congeniality, good conversation—-it isn’t enough to overcome the fact I don’t have a degree or the type of employment a man in that world could feel proud, rather than ashamed of.
I’m with Sam on the “alphaness”—it has nothing to do with women. It’s a signal between men. Frankly, I think what is described as the stereotypical “alpha” man—those guys get dates in spite of that status, rather than because of it. Domineering is the anti-aphrodesiac (for most people, women included). Powerful? I can’t really interpret that any other way than going hand-in-hand with wealth. When I hear “power”, I think both “likely to corrupt” and “unwilling to share power, or be anything other than The Boss.” Again, very much the anti-aphrodesiac. Such people aren’t likely to want intimacy or vulnerability in a relationship—or to want it one-sided. Not what most people are looking for. Even if they’re not looking for a relationship, just looking to get laid—those are exactly the type of men who could care less if a woman has an orgasm. There’s a non-starter for you!
But exciting? Exciting, I’ll give you. Ask anyone what they’re looking for in a potential mate, and “exciting” is going to be on the list. No one is looking for boredom, right? But “exciting” is a broad category—no one has a lock on it, since different people have different definitions for what “exciting” is.
Lynn said something really interesting: Also, being hit on by lots of guys was something I just took as the norm, in a sort of impersonal way, as a young woman, and didn’t get nearly the sexual confidence from it when it came to approaching guys I wanted as a man might think I would, if he imagined himself being hit on that many times (assuming he’s the sort of guy who doesn’t get hit on much).
I’ll co-sign to that. I don’t think guys realize how many times the “being hit on” isn’t always a sign of interest, but more the type of aggressiveness that men show to other men when wanting to assert dominance—a snarling kind of hostility. Mostly, one-on-one incidents (you know, the “hey baby, nice tits! wanna gimme a blow job!” shouted from a car, or the masher that rubs up against you very non-accidently); sometimes a group thing where men bond with other men by harassing women (think: the gauntlet by the frat house or outside the bar). As a young woman, I conflated those incidents in my mind with any instance of a guy hitting on me solely because of appearance, y’know, before I even opened my mouth to prove I wasn’t dumber than a box of rocks. So no, that (being hit on) didn’t give me any social confidence when it came to approaching men. It’s probably also worth mentioning that women with my general appearance are typified as “exotic” or “spitfires” or whatever by certain men, and I’d had enough of that nonsense—they weren’t seeing me, but some anonymous ‘hot Italian chick—you know what they’re like!! *nudge, nudge, wink wink*.’ Just….yuck.
What did give me confidence, and made me willing to lower my Defcon 4 shields, was…working with men. Being with men in a nonsexual environment and developing deep friendships. The trades are an intimate world—you work with the same people over the course of your career, because of the Local system (Local hands go off the book first, then travelers—it encourages people to stay in the same region). I learned a lot from my union brothers about the male point of view. Still learning, in fact!
With me, “You’re such a Nice Guy, perfect for some other girl†was sometimes what I felt about genuinely nice guys, who nevertheless had some specific incompatibility with me.
Yes!! That’s exactly it! Being attracted to someone, and yet knowing them well enough that you know taking the relationship deeper would just ultimately be no good, yet not wanting the inevitable crashing of the friendship that would surely come after a post-sexual breakup. It’s that specific incompatibility. You know them well enough to know you don’t want the same thing—and well enough to know that eventually, you would hurt their feelings because of it.
Okay, I think part of the dynamic is that I live in LA-LA land, land of the Beautiful People. So my geography and education have given me contact with people who represent maybe 1 per cent of America. That said, I see men totally excluded from dating BECAUSE they are not AS exciting, wealthy, and glamorous as rock stars, because they are too young to be “established” in their professions, and because women OF THE SAME STATUS will NOT date them. 1st-year social workers are gunning for lawyers, not their male equivalents. I have a bee in my bonnet because I have challenges on top of the “hypergamy gap” happening here.
La Lubu,
“I guess my question is: why are men so seemingly anxious about masculinity? How they are perceived as men by others? Why don’t they have an intrinsic confidence about being men?”
This goes back to the question of what makes a man a man, in my opinion, and I think every one of us realized at some point in our lives that we can’t really answer that question anymore. I mean, we’ve addressed this question from numerous angles in this thread, the one before, and a couple of others, and the common initial reaction was mostly, “why do you even ask that question”, as if it were self-evident. But at closer inspection there was usually the same confusion and lack of answer you feel and I can actually only repeat: I don’t know what makes me a man. I’ve never felt confident as a man until I began having success with women – that’s why I identify my new/refound masculinity with this although I am aware that this is not really appropriate. But what else would there be? Again, I believe that masculinity is a relational concept and, in my opinion, mostly formed by female choice. I’d say that male ingroup behavior is largely a response to female choices, however much many men will do to pretend that’s not the case.
“I’m with Sam on the “alphanessâ€â€”it has nothing to do with women. It’s a signal between men.”
And I still don’t know what that means. I think this is mostly about confidence that comes from self-awareness. That’s why I think the Baudelaire quote is only part of the truth. I think it captures the kind of things Eurosabra mentioned – they’re life-purpose issues that will give you a firmer grip on who you are and what you are in this world. But of course, the ability to do that, to be able to be independently happy, *can* and usually will be influenced by a man’s success with woman, by his sexual confidence. And again, if there’s one thing very few men have, it’s sexual confidence.
“Well-to-do men never date outside their social class. You will never see an attorney dating a waitress, for example.”
Statistically, that’s not true, and even personally, I’d say the opposite is more common – doctors and nurses, pilots and air-hostesses, etc. (I actually know from a friend who’s an air hostess that some of her female colleagues got into the job to get pregnant from and then marry a pilot. No idea how common this is.)
La Lubu, Lynn,
“I don’t see that fantasy as seeking aggression so much as seeking both a positive, unmistakable display of strong desire, and….touching. Firm, sensual touch. God, some guys act as if they’re afraid they’re going to break you if they touch you like they mean it, LOL!!”
I find it interesting that you say my friend wasn’t looking for aggressive sexuality but something else, as I think I said exactly that in my statement about her looking for “man”-men. She actually goes for a different set of men, but she’s apparently missing something, and that may well be the kind of firm touch you mention, La Lubu. It’s difficult to know exactly what we actually mean when we’re using certain terms, but I think we’re getting closer to a point where we’re actually talking about the same thing. As for the pushed against the wall thing, I wonder what kind of relationship you’re thinking of when you’re saying “stranger” – of course the women who say that don’t want to be pushed against the wall if they don’t want the man to kiss them in the first place. It’s more of a *how* to kiss thing, than an *if* question. And I think it has something to do with being able to relax into the moment because there’s a wall behind you so you don’t have to watch your back. It’s not so much about the pushing than about the wall, in my opinion, if that makes any sense to you.
Lynn,
“I don’t see anything wrong with a little ambiguity in the early stages of flirting; I see a lot wrong with inability to talk clearly to each other when you’ve gotten to the point of actually sleeping together, because at that point there are things you really do need to be able to say explicitly to each other and not guess at. Ranging from condom and birth control stuff to I really do or don’t like that stuff.”
Then we’re in complete agreement here.
Eurosabra,
“Okay, I think part of the dynamic is that I live in LA-LA land, land of the Beautiful People.”
I don’t, but I recently met a decently looking woman from LA-LA land who complained about the exact same thing. She was soaking in the attention she got from guys claiming that guys in LA-LA land would never even talk to her because she’s not a model or something. So, I’m not sure what amount of variance is explained by the LA-LA variable…
Glad this discussion is proceeeding in such an interesting and civil manner. This may win the “best thread of 2009″ award.
Perhaps a post about the wall-pushing, performative aggression, and the like ought to be in the hopper…
And I’ve lived in Los Angeles for twenty years (Westside, two valleys, Mid-City, etc.) and it can certainly be the sort of place where one feels comparatively less attractive.
It’s difficult to know exactly what we actually mean when we’re using certain terms,
Tell me about it. Trying to get the nuances and flavor of what I’m trying to say without the requisite hand gestures, head nods, shoulder rolls, eye cuts, vocal timbre-changes, pitch-changes on certain words….not to mention a serious reduction in slang/”in-house” terms or analogies that probably won’t make sense here (because I’m talking mostly to people from a different background)…that, in and of itself makes communication difficult for me.
You’d have to show me the statistical proof that men are willing to date outside their social class. That may be true for my parents generation (pre-Boomers), but not for mine (older Gen X). Take a look at most dating websites; you’ll notice a heavy use of the term “professional”—that’s code for “blue-collar need not apply.” But if you’ve got a link, I’m open to having my mind changed.
Male desire without dominance is simply pathetic need
Jesus. You don’t just have a bee in your bonnet, you’re practically a spitting cobra. Women just want to use men as a ladder up, men who don’t dominate their female partners are pathetic – think maybe it’s not just that you life in La-La Land but that the chip on your shoulder isn’t quite as invisible as you think?
Like Lynn, I’ve told guys “you’re a great guy – just not for me”. That doesn’t mean they’re pathetic. It means I don’t want to have a relationship with them.
La Lubu,
I’ll try to dig out some study to that effect on my hard drive.
mythago,
rejection always sucks. And I think part of the problem is that the euphemism-coded LJBF speech (“you’re a great guy” meaning “you’re actually not such a great guy and I’m really not interested”) and the sincere “you’re a great guy, just not for me/my type” often sound exactly the same. Well intended euphemisms are getting in the way of honest communication here. It’s like men saying “she’s got a great personality”. Without additional knowledge of the person/situation I wouldn’t know if they mean she actually has a great personality or if it means that they think she’s not particularly attractive. Thing is though, women will rarely hear the latter while the structure of the “game” as male-driven and female-mediated implies that men will hear this kind of euphemism more often, and will thus be sceptical about the statement’s honesty if they don’t have additional clues.
I mean, again, rejection always sucks, and there is no easy way around this, but what I’d suggest – as a result of the thread about men never feeling hot – why not use “I think you’re hot (or something else that is a physical compliment), but…” for the LJBF euphemism-speech instead of focusing on his “niceness”/”greatness”, if the situation permits. Given that this would be rather uncommon, it would be more credible, ego-preserving, and may, over time, help to give the “great, not for me”-speech it’s initial meaning back…
Well intended euphemisms are getting in the way of honest communication here.
Oh, I agree. But you do know that women don’t turn to those euphemisms because we like torturing you guys? Usually it’s because we’ve been taught to “be nice” and “let him down gently” and for god’s sake “don’t be a bitch”.
“I think you’re hot but” is really a bad idea, sorry. It’s a mixed message. If I think you’re hot, why am I turning you down? How does this preserve your ego? Yes, you’re hot, but something is awfully wrong with you because even a woman who thinks you’re hot won’t go out with you.
Gavin deBecker talks about this much more clearly than I could in his books. “No” is a complete sentence. Mixed message about how he’s nice, hot, etc. just create false hope.
mythago,
know what? I realized you’d say that when I pushed the submit button. I generally don’t think that it’s a good idea to be rude, particularly not when it comes to rejection. I mean, I hate doing that, and when I do it, I want to do it in a way that protects her ego as much as possible – that’s just normal decency. And yeah, it’s tricky to make this work without mixed signals. Sometimes it just doesn’t work. You’re right about that.
I generally don’t think that it’s a good idea to be rude
Well, I hope we all agree that rudeness and cruelty is uncalled-for. But as has been pointed out by smarter people than me, you’re going to make the other person feel rejected – you are, after all, rejecting them. The problem with trying to protect the other person’s ego is that you run the risk of giving them false hope. (Especially if they don’t *want* to hear ‘no’.)
And in any case not many people want to hear the truth, if the truth is something like, you have a great personality but you’re physically unattractive, or, you’re the kind of person who is a great friend but a basket case of a boy/girlfriend.
One of the more perceptive bloggers, Roissy in DC, noted that the mating dance isn’t going to be a fun-filled escapade for a man who has to talk to 1000 women to get a positive response, while a man who gets the same results from 1 in 10 is going to have a radically different perception and orientation towards the whole endeavor. It’s HARD to keep going–and most “pick-up” counselors consider 50 new contacts a week a MINIMUM, and argue that the average man will get some form of continued interest from 1 in 50. So the bitterness is a result of the average man’s capacity to meet women’s preferences, not some sort of arbitrary freakishness.
The other item is that I read DeBecker carefully from the perspective of an EMT, in a nation with a great deal of domestic violence, “honor killings”, etc, and from the point of view of a terror survivor, so I can see the HOW of the sort of predation he describes. Men are really, really not socialized to take rejection well, and even the cultures that somehow DO get everyone to flirt in a playful fashion are also machismo-laden disasters from the point of view of stalking, crimes of passion, femicide etc. So there’s no clear line–some cultures are sensual, all are sexist (except perhaps Scandinavia, but Scandinavian men are in free-fall and grousing about “going Galt”).
@SamSeaborn
To not even exaggerate a lot: if you’re white and male, the basic assumption is that you cannot possibly have a valid perspective… or real issues to talk about, and the standard assumption is you’re only complaining because you can’t get laid which, for some reason, seems to be a relevant criterium. I wonder what would happen in a blog discussion if someone told a feminist she’s only angry at men because she can’t get laid…
That (by which I mean the “you’re complaining because you can’t get laid”)’s not limited to being white and/or male. Insults relating to genitalia also amount to a lot of the same thing, too.
@Froth
I met a guy. Four months later, having seen each other twice a week for a shared hobby, we stayed up late watching Doctor Who and had a very long conversation, culminating in a decision to be together. Around here, that’s how it’s done. How is it done in your world?
I know some of my friends have successfully done this. It works best in a shared hobby with a good gender mix, which not all hobbies (or for that matter, cities) have.
I don’t think this has ever worked for me. Every time it’s been intensely physical after a very short amount of time, either through mutual friends, clubs, etc. It almost always burns out soon after that, though, so it’s not really something to envy.
In my social circles, kissing, making out, expecially having sex, are all things done only by people who are couples.
Hm, interesting. That’s not the type of culture I went to college in, at least the people I chose to hang out with. The thing is, it doesn’t even necessarily have to happen in a club – I think it’s called “hookup culture”.
The thing is, as Engineers, we were still really geeky.
@La Lubu
Frankly, I think what is described as the stereotypical “alpha†man—those guys get dates in spite of that status, rather than because of it. Domineering is the anti-aphrodesiac (for most people, women included).
So you’re saying that “alphas” only get dates because they’ve managed to scare the other guys into giving up? Interesting.
So you’re saying that “alphas†only get dates because they’ve managed to scare the other guys into giving up? Interesting.
Huh? How did you get that? No, what I am saying is that most people find domineering behavior obnoxious and a turn-off. And this includes women. I emphasized that point because during these conversations, some men take it as a given that women (in general) prefer bossy men. Not hardly. (Mind you, when I hear the word “alpha”, I think “arrogant, cocky, pompous ass”. Your mileage may vary. I prefer “friendly, laid-back, congenial, easygoing”—which never gets typed a “alpha” in these conversations, even though in my observation, these are the guys I see having the most success.
La Lubu, Eurosabra,
two links that may help, or further complicate the definitional issues -
Stripped the http so it won’t get stuck in the WP-spam queue.
Britain’s F-Word on “Do you love a bad boy?”
thefword.org.uk/blog/2008/06/do_you_love_a_b
and
The history of nice guys
kugelmass.wordpress.com/2007/06/20/absolutely-fun-and-true-fact-4-the-history-of-nice-guys/
I would say Eurosabra’s “domineering” my have to be translated as “decisive”/”sexually assertive” to make sense for most women – my take, of course. Would be interesting to analyse specific behaviour to adjust our terminoloy, I suppose.
La Lubu, Eurosabra, how would you call this guy’s behaviour (rate it on a alpha/domineering/assertiveness scale)? It’s apparently one of some pick-up-coaching company’s “proof-clip” from youtube – if you don’t watch all of it (6:30), I’ve just watched it, he gets her phone number in the end
youtube.com/watch?v=p-MIKGyhwKQ
“Perhaps a post about the wall-pushing, performative aggression, and the like ought to be in the hopper…”
Looking forward to that, Hugo.
Will watch more later when I have the time, but my initial thought is that he’s good-looking enough to open with a question asking for permission, which one almost NEVER does. “Do you guys mind if I ask you a question?” The first girl (facing the camera) is finishing a thought to the other “…go home…?” (in German) and you can see she’s visibly THRILLED from the initial instant of the approach. The one who explains “We’re actually waiting for a friend” MUST be smiling when she says it, although you can’t see her face.
Most PUAs would counsel an opener like, “Hey, guys, I have a dispute with a friend you can help me with…” simply because if Average Joe leads with “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” the answer will often be “Yes, we mind, go away.” You want to start yes-chains and all that good “Win Friends and Influence People Stuff.”
I can say that the dominance/assertiveness stuff comes in, sure, he ASSUMES the SALE, etc, but you can see that they’re visibly charmed from the instant he shows up. If I got a reception like that before I even opened my mouth, I could do that as easily too. But yes, that’s how it’s SUPPOSED to be done, performative masculinity in the Game at its best.
I apologize, La Lubu – I read too much into your “alphaness is a signal between men” statement.
That being said, I think you’re defining “domineering” as controlling – but I think there’s a difference between that and leadership.
Sam, I was interrupted while watching the clip; fwiw, here’s my opinion:
The good: he talked to the women. And he pushed his luck a little bit—when the one woman said, “actually, we’re waiting for someone…” he said something along the lines of “oh, this will only take a minute…” and sat down. Pretty bold. I wouldn’t have liked the sitting down bit—that would have been a deal killer for me, but I’m willing to concede that as a cultural/regional thing….others have different ideas about negotiated space. I do think it was a smart move to give the opportunity for a definitive rejection, rather than assuming rejection outright.
The bad: like I said, I was interrupted while watching, but it seemed to me like an inordinate amount of time passed before giving his name. Did he ever get around to giving his name? “Oh, by the way, I’m so-and-so?” Did he ask for their names? Also, he kept using pickup-type tactics long after the opener. That seemed kinda used-car-salesmanish to me. I expected him to open up his jacket and show them a really good deal on mildly used (read: hot) watches. I mean—-the conversation seemed really stilted. It didn’t seem like the flow of a regular conversation. If a guy isn’t using regular conversation after the initial “pickup” type opener, I read it as “not really interested.”
But the striking thing to me was (and read this fwiw ‘cuz I already mentioned cultural/regional differences)….at no time did he step back a little and give the women the opportunity to move in. See, where I’m from, the pickup dance is more like a tango—the man has to show some boldness, but then he has to let the woman show her boldness, too. It’s a give-and-take. I was really shocked that neither of the women asked him who he was or what he was doing that day—where I’m from, that’s a strong (albeit unspoken) sign of disinterest.
So, I take all that pickup artist stuff with a grain of salt. The good part is the emphasis on saying something, and tips on conversational openers (which some people aren’t good at—it’s good to have some instruction to lean back on). But if the initial engagement works (she’s smiling, showing curiousity, talking to you) for the love of God, dump the rest of the phony-baloney, cheesy, “canned” stuff and talk about something real!
I went back and looked at the clip for a moment—four minutes in, and this guy is still using canned conversation. That isn’t how you get people to open up where I’m from. Sounds like a salesman, which is pretty much the kiss of death.
Jay, I do define domineering as controlling, and that’s a deal killer for me. What do you define as “leadership”, and why do you think it differs from being controlling?
Hit “reply” too soon! Eurosabra, your take on that was interesting; I saw the guy as the Average Joe. I saw him as having an average level of attractiveness, and I thought the hat was a deliberate attempt at appearing nerdy/geeky….and hence, approachable.
La Lubu,
Giving your name too early is a sign of excessive interest. You give your name when it is *asked for.* Also, if that man is “average”, you must live in a place blessed by male and female beauty. Hats serve mainly to “lock in” an interaction in case of an interruption, which I don’t really know how to do–basically, she can’t walk away without handing you your cool hat.
The main complaint about pick-up is generally lack of “authenticity”, while most people believe the canned stuff “works” because random women seem happy to have a really hawt guy prattle random stuff at them. Alternatively, their long silence and lack of interest are a decision to prolong the audition, their basic stance is that THEY have the power position and they are constantly evaluating, until the guy reaches “hook point” and they show SOME interest, by intervening in the conversation, beyond the “pleasant hawt guy talking to me” flirt vibes. Most men can’t talk that long and I can’t tell you how many times rapport questions come too early, as filler, and BORE women. The answer is they don’t ask “Who are you?” or “What are you up to?” early because THEY DON’T CARE until he’s demonstrated enough value to them, men are a dime a dozen for early 20s straight women, and the diffident “We’re waiting for someone” is a signal to plow straight ahead with canned material (“potted”, since he’s Australian) until they accept you or their eyes glaze over.
Great looking guy, with the moxie to talk to them because they seemed like pleasant people, and they still couldn’t give him a chance without it being a dominance test, which, fortunately, he passed.
“Giving your name too early is a sign of excessive interest. You give your name when it is *asked for.*”
Where I come from, giving your name is just good manners and common sense. It’s usually the first thing that is offered when in a conversation.
And on a personal note, since you guys are have mentioned PUA and the seduction community:
I would not ever date or have sex with a man whom I knew was involved in the seduction community. Ever. Not even if it was just a matter of reading the books and trying the tactics. PUA and the seduction community are nothing but a bunch of misogynists as far as I can tell. Being involved with them is a automatic strike-out in my book.
That “this will take just a minute” is exactly the kind of red flag deBecker warns about. And what Faith said; there does seem to be an awful lot of misogyny and perceiving a ‘pick-up’ as some kind of scoring points off women.
I think the objection was pretty much “pro forma” since by 0:19 she’s already smoothing her hair in an unconscious preening gesture which is flirting behavior. They’re obviously really into him and interested in rewarding his little bit of assertiveness, which is why he could basically have read the phone book–they don’t care that he doesn’t seem interested in them AS PEOPLE for the duration of the first conversation–even to ask in passing, “So, how do you come to speak German?”–it’s pleasing attention from a hawt guy. On top of that, he’s just making a sales pitch for continued contact. The brunette’s later “Our friend really is going to arrive any minute” objection is intended to re-focus attention on her red-headed friend, who is–to judge by her reaction–”Oh, well, she’s running a bit late, isn’t she?”–is really, really into him.
Men look at what “works”, as opposed to pair-bonding based on shared rapport, common interests and values, and then the misogyny develops.
mythago,
as I said, I’ve studied a lot of material about male/female interaction, including the now famous book “the game” (and, also according to several female friends whom I’ve given it to later, fascinating glimpse into the male psyche) that details the journy of NYT writer Neil Strauss, who described himself as nerdy and clingy, and not able to attract any woman into becoming a man who gets Britney Spear’s number while interviewing her about a record.
There probably is the good, bad, and ugly in this community as everything that can be used to build trust and attract can also be used to deceive and get a tv-show, obviously – but, as Hugo mentioned this term above, the idea to focus on “performative” rather than perceived essential masculinity as such seems quite compatbile with much of feminism, in my opinion.
Moreover, “the comunity” seems to be as diverse in outlook and approach as feminism/s, as explained in the only academic analysis of “the community” I have come across – written by a gender student, Elana Clift, at the Universtiy of Texas at Austin, called “Picking up and acting out – politics of masculinity in the seduction community”(her master thesis, pdf, again no http) -
webspace.utexas.edu/ejc329/ElanaCliftThesis.pdf?uniq=-wk7fye
It’s quite an interesting read (even only the introduction), particularly the bits about her brother and the cultural analysis linking earlier men’s movements to this one – globalization and the internet being obvious differences.
La Lubu,
I basically agree with your assessment of his approach, but you didn’t quite say how you would rate his behaviour on the domineering scale?
“rather than assuming rejection outright.”
I think that’s a really important point most men have trouble believing. That’s what I mentioned in one of my replies to Eurosabra that we’re usually rejecting ourselves before she gets a chance to do so. In this case, I think the “we’re actually waiting for a friend” part may have been true or not, but since the friend hasn’t arrived at the end of the clip I’d say her mentioning this was both protective and a test for his willingness to invest (by still approaching).
“I was really shocked that neither of the women asked him who he was or what he was doing that day—where I’m from, that’s a strong (albeit unspoken) sign of disinterest.”
Interesting. Actually I think not asking or being asked for the name for some time means it’s a great rather than an average conversation. Of course, at some point you’ll exchange names, but if that’s done after five minutes rather than right away, that’s probably been five minutes of interesting conversation in which you didn’t even think about asking the other’s name. Good sign, in my book.
“But if the initial engagement works (she’s smiling, showing curiousity, talking to you) for the love of God, dump the rest of the phony-baloney, cheesy, “canned†stuff and talk about something real!”
Again, the problem seems to be that so many people seem to have trouble to keep a conversation flowing and interesting if they are only relying on their own conversational skills. They’re using lines not because they think that’s the best way to do it, but because they’re not sure they can do it without them. This was only six minutes, so, while I agree with your car-salesman-bit, and thought he could have been a bit more creative than reading cliff-notes from “The Game”, I think the women are thoroughly enjoying this interaction, even the dark haired woman on the left who early on realizes he’s more interested in her red-haired friend and then tries to interfere in their interaction at times.
“I think the objection was pretty much “pro forma†since by 0:19 she’s already smoothing her hair in an unconscious preening gesture which is flirting behavior.”
Or maybe she just had split ends and was trying to control her fly away hair. According to the seduction community, a woman can hardly move without indicating sexual interest. Even crossing her legs is viewed as a sign of sexual interest. There’s only one sure way to know if a woman is interested in you: Ask. Assuming that she’s interested because she gives subtle clues that can be easily misread or meaningless is highly insulting and likely to end up in serious miscommunication.
Faith,
“Assuming that she’s interested because she gives subtle clues that can be easily misread or meaningless is highly insulting and likely to end up in serious miscommunication.”
Sure. But you’re assuming a lot if you’re suggesting that explicit communication will always be a) more appropriate and b) more successful (see the brief explicitness exchange with Lynn above). Much of body language isn’t consciously accessible and can thus not be communicated, and even if it could, people wouldn’t necessarily do it. It’s probably not true that body language can’t lie because it’s unconscious, simply because the language isn’t mono-causal. But in a lot of instances the lack of clarity in non-verbal language is more than replicated by lack of clarity of verbal language. Just asking without any body language clues is usually as inappropriate as not adding verbal communication to the mix at all.
It’s ONE (important) element of human communication, and as all other forms of humans communication, unreliable – everyone has a brain of their own and usually uses it to interpret information in ways not necessarily intended by the sender of a message.
Eurosabra, having been on the receiving end of that “here’s what she REALLY means” stuff as a young woman: ugh. I mean, really. Ugh. There’s nothing quite like having somebody decide that what you’re ‘really’ thinking just so happens to mean what they would like it to mean, refusing to leave you alone unless you’re clear and direct that you’re not interested, and then calling you a bitch.
I can’t think of more obvious positive cues, EVER, either in video or real life. And the fact that her positive body language continued even though she intervened to re-focus attention on her friend while still being overwhelmingly positive towards him pretty much seals it. So, ugh. I’m sorry you had to deal with men who can’t read body language cues, didn’t want to hear “No”, and couldn’t be gracious about it at all.
“Domineering” definitely means “controlling” to me, and is a dealbreaker. “Leadership” is more multivalent in meaning for me; the guy who starts his own small company, the union organizer, the guy who facilitates a support group, are all showing various kinds of leadership. Since there are so many different kinds of leadership, the guy who tends to lead in group situations could either be attractive or not in dating situations; it’s not, at any rate, a dating drawback the way “domineering” is.
The guy in the clip reads to me as assertive, forward, even bold (and about average looking, but I can see where someone with a different physical “type” from me could find him more than average looking), but not domineering really. A large part of that is that the redhead is giving him positive signals right from the start (she’s indicating she’s happy to talk to him even as her friend’s delivering the “we’re actually waiting for a friend” line), and the darker haired woman’s line is delivered in a way that sounds like at most a mild possible brush off – with enough ambiguity that testing further rather than assuming rejection outright isn’t out of line.
On the other hand, the “this will only take a minute” while sitting down is rather bold, and, if the redhead weren’t already encouraging him at that point, if, say, it were just the darker haired woman, alone, who had just delivered the “waiting for a friend” line, could come off as more aggressive than assertive. In such a case, even if a guy tested a bit further after my initial possible rejection, I’d want that testing not to involve moving physically further into my space.
“men are a dime a dozen for early twenties straight women”
I want my passal of attentive young men, dammit!
It’s not “rather bold”. It’s saying, I heard that you wanted to brush me off, but I’m not going away, so too bad.
Froth,
wanna hear something funny? Sometimes women, even early twenties straight women, don’t seem to notice (or don’t want to notice) the amount of attention they get. I have a female friend (A) who recently confessed to me that she feels ugly because “no guys are ever looking at her”. I didn’t quite know what to say as she is actually quite attractive in my book and I know positively that men look at her all the time and a week or so before she told me about feeling ugly a mutual female friend of us (B) had even told me that she (B) regards our ugly feeling friend as the “perfect woman”… sometimes our self-perception doesn’t match that of other people.
mythago,
“It’s not “rather boldâ€. It’s saying, I heard that you wanted to brush me off, but I’m not going away, so too bad.”
That’s your interpretation. She said “we’re waiting for a friend” and he said, “that’s ok”. Sometimes explicit communication isn’t that simple to decipher either, apparently
Eurosabra:
Giving your name too early is a sign of excessive interest. You give your name when it is *asked for.*
See, this is exactly what I mean by cultural/regional differences. Where I live, most people give their names within 30 seconds. If it were me at that sidewalk cafe, and he hadn’t given his name within at least 60 seconds, I would have told him, not asked him, told him to leave; I would have assumed he was a con artist interested in my wallet. Not introducing yourself is considered rude in the midwest U.S., even in larger cities. (and in most places in the U.S., it would also be taken as a sign the guy was married—no wonder he doesn’t want to give his name! doesn’t want his wife to find out he’s trying to pick up other women!)
Also, if that man is “averageâ€, you must live in a place blessed by male and female beauty.
Not really. I thought he was average because he appeared kind of bland looking to me. I’m pretty flexible as far as what I think is attractive, but I like faces “with character”.
Hats serve mainly to “lock in†an interaction in case of an interruption,
Huh? You’re saying that’s a prop? I mean, an actual prop just-in-case, and not just a prop to make the guy look goofy enough to talk to? (yeah, it was a goofy hat. didn’t match his outfit either. I thought he was going for the nerd look.) Wow! Honestly, I didn’t know people did that. Guess I’ll have to read some of this pickup artist stuff!
Most men can’t talk that long and I can’t tell you how many times rapport questions come too early, as filler, and BORE women. The answer is they don’t ask “Who are you?†or “What are you up to?†early because THEY DON’T CARE until he’s demonstrated enough value to them,
Again, the polar opposite of what works in my cultural/regional milieu. Rapport questions indicate strong interest here, and I never find them boring. Here, if a woman hasn’t asked you who you are or what you’re doing, it’s the unspoken (read: polite) signal to “get lost”. I also assumed the women were in their early 30s, not early 20s (they weren’t dressed “trendy” enough for early 20s), but that’s hard to tell since the focus wasn’t sharp.
Men look at what “worksâ€, as opposed to pair-bonding based on shared rapport, common interests and values, and then the misogyny develops.
I don’t think I quite understood this. Are you saying that men look at what “works” as far as getting a woman they don’t know interested in them and possibly going to bed with them….but then develop a misogynistic attitude because they can’t find the shared rapport/interests/values? In other words, they’re “stuck” with only getting to sleep with women they have nothing else in common with, and are angry about it? (Again, this could be those “differences” again—here people bond over shared interests. for example, at the blues club: “have you ever heard this band before?” which is an opening to say yes, no, talk about what you’ve heard about them, previous concerts you’ve been to—-an entree into talking about music in general, assumed to be a shared interest since….well, you’re there instead of on the couch at home!
Sam:
I’d say “too domineering for me.” (I don’t use a scale for that aspect—-it’s not ABCDF, but “pass/fail”. He’s a “fail”.) The sit-down without asking permission was a red flag for me. That’s too much invasion of space without first giving one’s name and establishing a rapport (enough of a rapport for a “why don’t you sit down?” But I hate to make that a blanket statement for everyone, because midwesterners have a wider berth for personal space than a lot of regions on the coasts, let alone outside the U.S.). Like I said up above, I’d think the dude was trying to get close to my wallet, not me. I’d have had my purse in my lap and been ready for a fight, just-in-case. But I interpret that over-aggressiveness as incompatible with me. That’s the kind of guy who expects the woman to defer; the type that always sees any assertiveness on a woman’s part to be a challenge to his masculinity. Someone who finishes sentences for you (no matter how fast you talk), someone who talks for you rather than letting you speak for yourself, in short, someone to get in a lot of arguments with. No thanks! Been there, done that. Not doing it again.
five minutes of interesting conversation in which you didn’t even think about asking the other’s name
Are you kidding me? Five whole minutes?! DAmn! And nobody assumes you’re an undercover married guy?
They’re using lines not because they think that’s the best way to do it, but because they’re not sure they can do it without them.
I agree with you. Doesn’t make canned lines suck any less, though. I just think the main reason they work is because it provides enough of a crutch for someone to get that opening salvo in. After that, use context clues to ask questions and get the ball rolling. I dunno, though….hell, what are my credentials for talking about this stuff? I’m single! LOL! I’m not kidding when I compare it to the tango. Most of that PUA stuff operates on the basis of “steamroll the woman”, whereas tango-ing, assuming that interested women are going to be aggressive too (and giving us room to do that, works much better. It was my perception that the guy in the video did too much talking and not enough listening…which isn’t surprising, since he wasn’t asking questions he was interested in knowing the answer to.
Still trying to figure out what planet people show interest by not asking questions or saying too much is…..
It’s possible my perception’s skewed by the fact that I can see the redhead’s face and not the brunette’s, and the fact that the redhead cheerfully exchanges numbers with him at the end. If I were the brunette and had wanted to give him the polite brush off, I’d be pissed when he sat down. Even if I hadn’t wanted to give him the brush off (actually had a friend showing up soon and wasn’t sure I had time to talk), I still wouldn’t want him to actually sit down. The one is definitely more interested in talking with him than the other.
Well, clearly, Sam, I’m wrong, because women don’t know what the fuck they are thinking and it takes a PUA to tell us silly bitches what’s going on in our heads.
mythago,
[irony]yeah, because *that’s* clearly what I was saying…[/irony].
La Lubu,
“Are you kidding me? Five whole minutes?! DAmn! And nobody assumes you’re an undercover married guy?”
I’m sorry, but I don’t think I understand what you’re trying to say here.
“It was my perception that the guy in the video did too much talking and not enough listening…which isn’t surprising, since he wasn’t asking questions he was interested in knowing the answer to.”
True. On the other hand, you don’t want any awkward pauses in the first couple of minutes of meeting someone
Froth,
Well, I mean, Yorkshire. You’re competing with some *quite tasty* pudding there, innit? Bound to be distractions.
La Lubu,
I used to mess up situations like this all the time, by trying to build rapport based on–say, in this example, shared German culture, since you can overhear them speaking German right before the approach. Doesn’t work as well as content-free yapping while looking good. It seemed I couldn’t do a damn thing to build rapport based on common interest, while Joe Alpha Male could roll up and say anything, anything at all, like “Blue sky today, hmm…” and get numbers, dates, and sex, practically GIVEN to him.
I mean, I do my best to be an engaging extrovert, and I still can’t pull like that. Boy is Golden.
I don’t think I quite understood this. Are you saying that men look at what “works†as far as getting a woman they don’t know interested in them and possibly going to bed with them….but then develop a misogynistic attitude because they can’t find the shared rapport/interests/values?
I’m not going to speak for Euro, but I think his statement means that a misogynistic attitude is included in what “works”. Which seems like it’s just another way of saying “women like bad boys.”
But of course, in a misogynistic society, misogyny has to be rooted out, not the other way around. The guys see the misogyny elsewhere, but not within themselves.
Well, Sam, if I’m the target of a PUA looking to get laid and brag to his buddies about his ‘score’ later, then don’t you think my perception is important from the point of view of the PUA? As Lynn said: If I were the brunette and had wanted to give him the polite brush off, I’d be pissed when he sat down. So maybe the PUA who sits down thinks he’s being ‘assertive’ or ‘masterful’, but a lot of women are going to read him as ‘domineering asshole who doesn’t think that the word no and having a pussy can coexist’.
Eurosabra, it’s not really so much about being Alpha as about knowing how to be charming. Good looks don’t hurt, of course, but when you know how to manipulate people easily, you can breeze by a lot of the competition.
Five minutes is a long time not to get someone’s name. Someone who’s even already sat down at your table.
Doesn’t work as well as content-free yapping while looking good.
The “looking good” part is key, in that case. Men and women alike are far less demanding of actual evidence of common interest when encountering people they find particularly good looking. Not an especially feminine limitation, that, more of a human one
.
FWIW, if I were single and had a chance to date just one of the three people in the video, my order of preference would be: first the brunette, then the redhead, with the man as my last choice.
Why would I want to root out a system that leaves me my delicious, delicious anger? If you’re building rapport solely on common cultural themes, we’re talking 1 in 250. And by the 50th sidewalk café, you’re feeling pretty tired and put-upon and wondering when you’re going to be seeing some of the mythical “female sexual agency” directed at you. So it’s a cart-horse problem, compounded by the fact that (at least in college) everyone is always constantly meeting people, it’s just that some people get…no results. And straight women’s means of showing interest are so indirect, because of that whole slut-shaming thing. When I finally DID manage to get out of my own way, I was still going a year or more between relationships, just because of the physical-cultural marginalization of living here. (i.e. almost no one looks like me, cares about the same things as me, etc. Internet has been a godsend.)
It’s also a form of exaggerated male literalism, to reply to the letter-perfect meaning of what was stated instead of the implied meaning of an indirect, “female” communication. “We were just waiting for a friend.” “Oh, this’ll only take a minute.” (Sits). Demonstrating the refusal to accept an implied rejection. Why reject yourself when she’s not willing to do it for you?
For the rest, I really DO have a predatory bent, which I manage to quash and ignore, but it really makes me feel like I have to put myself out there and hope, hope to be chosen, while initiating everything.
mythago,
“So maybe the PUA who sits down thinks he’s being ‘assertive’ or ‘masterful’, but a lot of women are going to read him as ‘domineering asshole who doesn’t think that the word no and having a pussy can coexist’.”
No, I think “mastery” of human interaction is to *actually* understand the true intentions behing the words and gestures.
Is she just naturally defensive because she’s afraid of the intrusion, afraid of another dude boring her with a bad pickup story, literally annoyed because she’s waiting for her friend who’s late, or is it all of that, nothing of it, and/or a bit of testing if has the guts to withstand such intial adversity, or maybe she’s annoyed about her friend, not particularly hopeful this will turn out to be a good interaction, but still hopeful and willing to give the guy a chance to prove himself and his story, particularly since her friend seems to like him more? Maybe she wants to talk to him but feels that playing a little “hard-to-get” is the appropriate action? Who *really* knows? Do you? You seem to operate under the assumption that all women are always aware of all their preferences, are able to communicate them appropriately and directly, and will never lie about their real intentions – but women are people, too, right?
If a lot of women are reading this his behaviour as “domineering assholes” and consistently tell him to leave, that’s great. Then eventually, men will adjust to the consistent preferences of women. However, there’s a glitch in matrix if there’s a mismatch between the women’s communicated and revealed preferences, ie, if most women who are known to demonstrate such light initial disinterst will later become emotionally invested in the interaction and interpret it as pleasant assertiveness, then their revealed preferences will definitely dominate their communicated preferences in male perception.
Lynn,
“FWIW, if I were single and had a chance to date just one of the three people in the video, my order of preference would be: first the brunette, then the redhead, with the man as my last choice.”
Interesting. Assuming that their gender will then be irrelevant for you, what made the brunette so attractive for you? I usually prefer brunettes, but this one strikes me as the least friendly and least open person of the three.
Eurosabra (from a fair way upthread now): “The answer is they don’t ask “Who are you?†or “What are you up to?†early because THEY DON’T CARE until he’s demonstrated enough value to them, men are a dime a dozen for early 20s straight women, and the diffident “We’re waiting for someone†is a signal to plow straight ahead with canned material (â€pottedâ€, since he’s Australian) until they accept you or their eyes glaze over.
Great looking guy, with the moxie to talk to them because they seemed like pleasant people, and they still couldn’t give him a chance without it being a dominance test, which, fortunately, he passed.”
If Person A approaches Person B, and Person B takes a few minutes of conversation before deciding to reciprocate Preson A’s interest, Person B is not putting Person A through a ‘dominance test’. Person B is taking necessary time to find out if Person A is attractive to them. It’s entirely unfair to suggest that the women are being unfair to this guy by not falling in his arms the moment he speaks.
“They don’t care” because he’s a total stranger.
The other problem with this is “until they accept you or their eyes glaze over”. Bore them into bedding you? Tempt them to give in just to shut you up? Not an appealing attitude.
Sam: I’m sorry, but I don’t think I understand what you’re trying to say here.
Sam, married men are reluctant to give their names until they’ve established that the women they are talking to are good-to-go with having an affair. They don’t want to give their names out to some woman who isn’t down with that, because she might tell his wife. I always assume there’s something wrong with a man who hasn’t introduced himself after the opener—what’s he trying to hide?
Eurosabra: If you’re building rapport solely on common cultural themes, we’re talking 1 in 250.
What? Unless you have extraordinarily narrow interests, I’m finding it hard to believe this is true.
What Lynn says about the “looking good” is true—it’s just that I didn’t interpret the guy in the video as being particularly good-looking—on the bland side of average. (which of course, is what he was going for.) What I’m not getting—at all—is the idea of content-free chat working better than content-full. The opener can be content-free (have you got the time?), but after that….say something, and let the other person respond.
And straight women’s means of showing interest are so indirect, because of that whole slut-shaming thing.
That’s not the only reason. There’s also the “physical danger thing”. Remember that? The whole “might have to defend yourself against someone twice your size or more” thing?
mythago: So maybe the PUA who sits down thinks he’s being ‘assertive’ or ‘masterful’, but a lot of women are going to read him as ‘domineering asshole who doesn’t think that the word no and having a pussy can coexist’.
mythago, this needs to come with a coffee/monitor warning. Damn! I should know better after all this time to keep the paper towels by the computer, but still…;-)
Froth: If Person A approaches Person B, and Person B takes a few minutes of conversation before deciding to reciprocate Preson A’s interest, Person B is not putting Person A through a ‘dominance test’.
Bingo. A boxing match is a dominance test. An argument is a dominance test. Arm wrestling is a dominance test. Poker, chess, etc. can be a dominance test. But a conversation as a dominance test? Not seeing it. Conversation is supposed to be mutual, a give-and-take. What am I missing here? Conversation-as-dominance is a guaranteed shutdown—-at least, that’s what the women on this thread agree on. (why aren’t you listening to us?)
La Lubu,
“mythago, this needs to come with a coffee/monitor warning. Damn! I should know better after all this time to keep the paper towels by the computer, but still…;-)”
And another example of different takes on communication – I didn’t think of the statement as coffee/monitor funny but as intentionally provocative and unfair (particularly given the subject we’re talking about here) and I initially thought “ok, now the gloves have come off, but more than 100 comments of fair discussion aren’t that bad”. I still decided to reply seriously…
Assuming that their gender will then be irrelevant for you, what made the brunette so attractive for you?
Well, largely the fact that I prefer brunettes to redheads (though the redhead isn’t bad), and, since they’re strangers that I’ve only seen interact for a few minutes, looks count heavily. But also, I suppose if I imagine a first date with someone I’ve only met for a few minutes in a cafe, “won’t press me to go too fast physically” is more the thing I’m trying to avoid than “won’t be friendly and open enough.”
In other contexts, where I’ve been introduced in a situation that already provides a basis for rapport, friendliness and openness may be a stronger expectation, and lack of such more of a drawback.
(Of course, occasionally people I’m persuaded won’t press me too fast physically have their own drawbacks, like the time I accepted an invitation from a guy who indeed didn’t press me one bit physically, but was overly pushy about trying to get me to join his church
.)
This one interaction shows exactly HOW and WHY men learn to push through the initial objection, treating it as totally pro-forma, and plow. I mean, although you can’t see her face, the brunette is obviously attracted to him, turning to face him, leaning in, so obviously the “brush-off” was what pick-up artists call a “sh!t test” (As in “Why do women put us through this sh!t?”), a pure dominance test–”How badly do you want this, and more importantly, are you sure enough of yourself that your desire isn’t just whiny need?.” It’s not an evaluative pause, Froth, because it’s totally instantaneous, almost unthinking. I will even say that her later barbs “We really ARE waiting for a friend” are continued calls to order for her friend not to get too interested too fast, perhaps jealousy at not being the center of attention, and red-headed woman replies “Yeah, well, she really is running late, isn’t she?”, which is a prime example of indirect female communication…”I like this guy, let’s make time for him.”
“eyes glaze over” meaning that nothing you can say or do is producing any kind of rapport, and you just give up and go away.
“(why aren’t you listening to us?)”
Because then they’d have to admit that they are utterly clueless about women and our realities.
This one interaction shows exactly HOW and WHY men learn to push through the initial objection, treating it as totally pro-forma
This is exactly what I was trying to explain to Sam.
Treating the woman’s objection as ‘pro forma’ is not only what predators do, it’s a clear signal that the objection is going to be treated as pro forma, whether or not it is. It’s irrelevant whether the woman is playing hard to get or really wants you to go away; you want to fuck her – sorry, “pick her up” – and if that means treating a ‘no’ signal as if it didn’t exist, so be it. If she really wants to fend you off you’re going to make her jump through some hoops first.
de Becker discusses far more articulately than I could how our culture conflates assertiveness with aggression and discourages women from clearly saying ‘no’ or men from hearing it.
If straight culture didn’t have misogyny and slut-shaming and physical danger, perhaps we wouldn’t have PUA and we’d have cruising, which is a much more efficient and straightforward way of picking up strangers. Of course it also doesn’t encourage anyone to treat a potential sexual partner like an end boss to be defeated for an epic drop, so I imagine that would take the fun out of it for some.
I’m intrigued by the idea of a heterosexual cruising culture, because the title of Devlin’s inaugural essay was “Female Sexual Utopia In Power.” As an arch-conservative, Devlin argues that a heterosexual cruising subculture exists which favors ALL women, and the most physically-attractive, assertive, socially-dominant men, while Owen “Tyler Durden” Cooke argues the same in his essay “The Secret Society.” In fact, the argument tends to be a reinforcement of the misogyny, and Cooke ties women’s participation in “hook-up culture” to gay culture. The slut-shaming is the flip-side of sex as a party to which everyone is invited except physically-average straight men.
If straight men weren’t dependent on a masculinity that wants to short-circuit female desire, or didn’t short-circuit female desire, sure. The sensation, however, is one of “falling off the bottom of the world”, failing to pick up the positive signals directed at one, which translates to the assertion that women are always after some Other Guy, the Alpha. Straight men can’t cruise because we can’t get our heads around female agency enough to respect women’s choices, which means the response to “No” is to *push harder.* I dunno. I think you assume some baseline of attractiveness or success for “just being oneself” that is supposed to ensure that EVERYONE pairs up, when apparently 60% of men are spare protoplasm.
although you can’t see her face, the brunette is obviously attracted to him, turning to face him, leaning in,
Huh? Don’t you always turn to face someone who is speaking? And don’t you always lean in when they’re speaking rather softly (as he was) in order to better hear them (especially if the person is speaking with an accent you are unfamiliar with, as he was? I have good hearing, but I had to turn up the volume on my speakers so I could wade through his accent). The idea that looking at someone who is speaking to you indicates sexual attraction is a new one to me.
perhaps jealousy
More likely, not. I mean, this guy really made the pickup drag on a helluva lot longer than it had to. If I was the friend at the table, I would have said something about hey, maybe you two need to exchange phone numbers because this is a lunch date with a friend. I wouldn’t want to take up the limited amount of time I have to spend with my friend in real space (not on the phone) with some stranger’s pick-up—-even if I generally approve of the guy and hope her date with him goes well. Again (and again and again), it’s about boundaries, and having enough respect for other people to not rudely cross them.
Boundaries. What a concept!! And I’m trying really hard not to be nasty about it, but breaking boundaries of personal space, safety, politeness—is being disrespectful, and when you do so willfully (according to whatever program of PUA), you are in fact being an asshole. No, that’s not a nice word. But…it’s even more not-nice to have to negotiate one’s way around people who feel entitled to disrespect you, all the while giving you evo-psych nonsense about how essential it is for men to show disrespect to women as a sign of “dominance”. And then complain because more women aren’t responding positively to disrespect.
The real shit test? “How much of this shit is she willing to put up with?”
Really, they’re both thrilled with him from the get-go although the brunette is a little bit less so, he disrupts the negative vibe of the red-head’s “Eh, go home…” (in German, probably the narration of some displeasing incident). “We’re meeting a friend” is not “We don’t want to answer your stupid question, go away, @$$#07e.”
It doesn’t matter how respectful you are, only if you’re attractive.
Again, you get no argument from me on boundaries, because the last thing one should do is reinforce negativity by making the world a more difficult place for women. The point is, he’s still being invited in. There is nothing to push against, because, for whatever reason, the boundary is deliberately constructed as soft.
I read them as sort of like the scene in Thelma and Louise where Geena Davis is drooling over Brad Pitt, and her friend’s not so keen on Brad Pitt, but persuaded to let Geena Davis have her fun. I’m really not getting an attracted to him vibe from the brunette, but the redhead seems thrilled with the attention. I don’t think they’re imposing a dominance test, so much as the boundary’s soft because the two women are on different wave lengths but don’t particularly want to argue with each other. Probably the brunette’s happy to have the phone number exchange over with so she can get back to lunch with her friend, as La Lubu says.
I do think that the fact that women tend to get “be nice to him when you reject him” messages (and also of course “don’t be too forward if you are interested in him” messages) at the same time men get “take her no as pro forma” messages is one of the things that makes the straight pick up world less friendly to both sexes (and sometimes downright scary for women) than the gay men’s cruising world.
I have to say, that although intriguing, it is kind of odd for me as a Finnish woman to read all the comments here about the PUA and tactics, declining in a womanly reluctant way even when interested and whatnot. I thought Cosmo’s How to seduce a man, How to please a man and How to lose a man would’ve done the trick already… (Sarcasm alert here.)
I can honestly say that every man that has ever ‘tried’ to hit on me, has not succeeded. That said, I can also say, that when I have felt the interest, I’ve been quite frank about it and initiated conversation. (Even with strangers but in safe – I mean to say public – surroundings as in cafés and bars. And, well, buses, airplanes.) Sometimes I’ve got what I wanted, but usually not – and it still hasn’t made me think it’s never gonna work or that the problem is somehow in men in general. (Or my ‘tactics’ for crying out loud!) I don’t see how it’s acceptable to state that the same effect (being turned down quite a lot of times and more likely than not) when men are the initiators (is that a word?) would be women’s ‘fault’ in any intellectual, social or political way.
I was the one who saw first and initiated contact with my now fiancé. We both thought it normal and relaxed, but it still wasn’t given. He could’ve declined and I was totally prepared for it. I wouldn’t have continued to pursue the conversation if he hadn’t smiled and leaned closer. (That seems to be the new topic – the connotations behind ‘leaning’!) News flash: it’s the same for guys. Women aren’t mysterious games (or game players), even if they are more reserved in some situations. If they like someone, they let them know. Honesty is the best policy, as they say.
I wouldn’t give my number to a complete stranger but I might get a coffee with them and ponder it again after that. As a matter of fact, I did.
I have to say that after being in the US, New York, I’ve seen there are a great deal of differences to where I live (Helsinki) regarding the interaction between sexes. In Finland it’s not necessarily expected that the guy initiates, always pays, needs to protect or take care of the girl he’s out with or tries to woo. Even the sexual prospects or expectations of the (sometimes very near) future seem to be the same unchanged by the gender of the one who made the first move. Although some people, none of my friends or family, do still think that men are somehow obliged to act like wooden dolls (and lie!), I’ve never understood it. We are equal if we act like equals.
Men in Finland aren’t (well, in my generation and maybe the generation before us) seen as providers and it’s almost unheard of to retire from working life just because you marry. We have a government funded family leave which can stretch to even three years for child care (for either parent) but we also have social childcare (daycare, kindergarten) that’s considered as the usual route for children after the first (couple of) year(s). (Yeas, we do also have stay-at-home-moms – and dads! – but it’s hard to get by with just one persons salary even with the social benefits so nowadays it’s a lifestyle of the more fortuned if any.)
So, women here count in on themselves and don’t need a man for anything else but that thing, that thing, that thii-i-ing. I mean love.
That’s why the big media shebang on ‘are women (getting) too picky’ is going on here too. I have an Italian-British male friend who once said to me: “What I like about Finnish women is that they are so independent.” It took him by surprise when he came here and understood that he’s not ‘expected’ to do anything just because he’s a guy. It also takes me by surprise that the providing-for-the-family, initiator, tactic-playing man, an arcane portrait of manhood, is still alive and kicking in so many places. Why would anyone encourage it and all the stereotypically binding bogus that come with it?
Still, my stance is the same whether in Helsinki, Rome or NY, because people are the same. If someone would greet my initiative with a line like “I’m waiting for a friend” or looking the other way, I’d think it pointless to try to push it further. And I don’t see a reason for that kind of answer unless the person in question really isn’t interested. People usually want to find love/sex/attraction, not stay away from the prospects of it.
And, for the Hanged man I’d like to say, that I think a relationship must be based on mutual need – but the need(s) may vary. The roles in a relationship will shift and change if it is a lasting one. So it’s not about the other needing something (like, say, safety) and the other something else (say, sex) but the both needing different things at different times (and also providing all the different things) – the most important needs (in my opinion) being safety (also honesty, so emotional safety), emotional and intellectual understanding and validation and of course the physical: closeness and sexual needs. Maybe love’s just a name for the feeling you have when you find someone that you can and are willing to change places with, over and over again.
“In Finland it’s not necessarily expected that the guy initiates, always pays, needs to protect or take care of the girl he’s out with or tries to woo.”
It isn’t expected in the U.S. either. There are just apparently a lot of men who have yet to receive that particular memo, or stubbornly ignore it whenever they do encounter the concept.
Yeah, what Faith said. It’a also important to remember that those subtle, nonverbal signals spoken of earlier are not given:
solely by women;
and, can be misinterpreted (my leaning in to hear a heavy accent as opposed to “boy, she thinks I’m hot stuff!)
And not all of us (women) do what has been called on this thread the “nice girl” thing. I really do not wish to be rude, but I see rudeness as a two-way street—-without the need to be extra-accommodating because I’m female. Frankly, after a polite, “no thank you, we’re waiting for a friend”, I would have told the guy to leave if he sat down. Not all women were raised to be extra-accommodating (and mind you, I’m not passing any judgement call here–I just want to point out that it isn’t a universal standard).
Devlin argues that a heterosexual cruising subculture exists which favors ALL women
I’m guessing that’s because Devlin doesn’t understand how slut-shaming and rape culture makes male and female expressions of desire disproportionate, creating a larger number of men seeking a smaller number of women. That, or he’s got issues
I’m always baffled by the ‘spare protoplasm’ argument. It imagines a world where women get great sex with their preferred partners at will. (I guess this is the same world where we go to the ladies’ room in pairs because that’s where the lesbian orgies are being held.) The fact that in a sexist world, women may find it easier to locate a partner who wants to use them as a fucktoy is not quite the same as women being able to hook up as much as they like, or men being ‘spare protoplasm’. Believe me, unattractive women, fat women, women who don’t fit the Approved Norm, etc. find it hard to hook up, too.
I’m guessing that’s because Devlin doesn’t understand how slut-shaming and rape culture makes male and female expressions of desire disproportionate, creating a larger number of men seeking a smaller number of women.
Indeed, the simple fact that men get socially assigned to the pursuer role in itself has an effect on which sex is choosier. See, for instance, this article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090603101406.htm, on a speed dating study that suggests women may not be so much pickier than men after all.
Lots of interesting opinions, no time. One thing though – Finnish women and marriage.
Essi, I have a couple (about 10) Finnish female friends none of whom is married to a Finnish man. It’s obviously a biased sample, because we met when studying in the UK, so chances of meeting someone not Finnish in an international student community were high. But none of the Finnish guys I met married non-Finnish women, and the women are now married to mostly Germans and Americans. Not sure what that means, or if it means anything at all, but, in a way, in my experience, while they were verbally very much insisting on feminist standards (some were gender stundents), they seemed to pick men (for marriage, not just an affair) who were not particularly committed to their Skandinavian feminist culture or ideals. Again, I don’t want to suggest a trend, just something I noted in my personal environment which I find difficult to explain.
Devlin possibly has issues, also, he discounts slut-shaming because he’s looking at “the pornification of everyday life” or at least mating rituals, so he sees the women who are showing off their bodies and their sexualities (yes, sometimes the lesbian orgy in the bathroom gets dragged out into public) in the nightclubs, bars, etc. far more than others. Owen Cooke’s (under the pseudonym) “The Secret Society” makes that explicit, basically all women are bisexuals who are having sex with Alpha Males (the only straight-identified men who get sex), gay men (who are also all bi, as “hag” or “gal pal” bonding ritual), other bisexual women, or gay/lesbian-identified women. Thing is, I know women who live that lifestyle, including the porn, the polymory, the bisexuality, and the heterosexual sex with bisexual or gay-identified men, and they seemed to be just a magnified form of the greater opportunities extended to women in hook-up culture, once they leave a rural area where slut-shaming might have real social consequences. In NY or LA, slut-shaming is a pathetic joke, like mocking a fish living happily in its aquarium for not having a bicycle. Chastity can’t be enforced by male losers with no power, who cannot themselves attract partners with the promise of fidelity and a conventional, traditional monogamous relationship OR raw sexual attraction.
The rejoinder is “at least someone wants you as a f*ckdoll”, which is rather crude and probably reflects an abridgment of male sexuality in praxis, which the complainants would probably acknowledge if they had enough praxis to know the difference between f*ckdoll status and a richly-lived sexuality.
In case this thread isn’t quite dead yet, some statistics on childbearing that might be relevant to the discussion about hypergamy ‘spare protoplasm’ and the 40% of alphas that reproduce and so on:
http://tinyurl.com/qudbsw
Now a few things about this are immediately noticable:
§1 In all age, race, and socioeconomic groups, fewer men than women are parents.
§2 In all groups except for poor men, this difference is fairly small.
§3 for people over age 45 the sexual parenthood percentage gap is much smaller than for younger people.
As to §1, the report points out that fatherhood is likely to be underreported. I wouldn’t expect this to account for the entire difference, though?
§2 is relevant to the question of female partner preferences, which I guess is what this thread is about. An alternative to the ‘no scrubs’ interpretation of this would be that the surplus of women to men (about half again as many) in poverty, the resulting shortage of women in middle class (and up) income brackets, and the fact that raisng children costs money results in some middle-class men partnering with poor women instead of practicing serial polyandry within their own class.
Also, I don’t know how these statisics count housewives – is their income $0?.
Finally, most (all?) of the over 45′s came of age before the process toward greater female labour force participation and late marriage/childbearing was complete, so perhaps the difference in parenthood rates will be somewhat greater in the future, say 65-75 or so. Still, the vision of a large genetic underclass of hope- and dateless men seems unlikely to come to pass. None of this is a serous social problem.
Until it happens to you.
yes, sometimes the lesbian orgy in the bathroom gets dragged out into public
Dammit, who blabbed?
“At least someone wants you” is disingenuous. Anybody – male or female – can lower their standards enough to get something warm in their pants, if that’s all they want. Having somebody use you as an animated masturbation object is not, as you note, exactly the same as “having sex whenever you want”.
Sam, I think the UK thing pretty much explains your sample.
So, while I think feminism is an important modernizing force, I don’t think of it as sufficiently inclusive. Can you imagine a man being the most important feminist? I don’t.
Yeah, damn discrimination, anyway. I wanted to be president of the NAACP but I couldn’t because I’m white. How screwed up is that?
Sam, Sam. You’re a trophy, you know that?
/derail. It was just too ludicrous to let pass. Carry on.
“Yeah, damn discrimination, anyway. I wanted to be president of the NAACP but I couldn’t because I’m white. How screwed up is that?”
I had a similar reaction to that comment. While feminism is a movement to achieve gender equality, it is largely a movement that must be led by women seeing as we’re, you know, the oppressed party. Sam complaining about a man not being able to be a leader in feminism is like a straight person complaining about not being able to be a leader of the movement for gay rights. Or an able-bodied person complaining about not being able to be a leader in the movement for rights for the disabled. It also reminds me of an old article from the onion…
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/man_finally_put_in_charge_of
Faith, that *was* my point. Feminism is an important part of, but doesn’t *equal* gender justice. If it did, Hugo *could* become the most important feminist…
“If it did, Hugo *could* become the most important feminist…”
Oy.
It’s just not possible for you to miss the point that completely.
Oops. I guess it is.
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