After years of hemming and hawing about it, I’ve made the decision to bring advertising to this site, using the feminist-themed media company BlogHer and their BlogHerAds program used on many of the most respected sites in the feminist blogosphere.
If you see something that interests you, please do click on it. Thanks so much. All of the regular material on my sidebar is where it’s always been, below the adverts.
Do feel free to contact me with any concerns you may have.
I’m not interested in blogging the particulars of the Tiger Woods story; countless folks are already doing just that. We have a fondness for Tiger in my family, mind you; my late grandmother, who died in 1998, sometimes enjoyed watching golf on television in her final years. Woods was just emerging as a major star as she declined into her final illness, and she often mentioned to the family the pleasure she got watching him play. And so since her death eleven years ago, we’ve all had a bit of a sentimental attachment to the fellow. The only thing I’ve ever held against him is his refusal to use his considerable heft to nudge the Augusta National Golf club to admit women as members; Woods is, to my eye, excessively reluctant to advocate for social change. (And as a Cal alum, I note that Tiger is a passionate supporter of his alma mater, Stanford — and thus a fair target for derision during Big Game week.)
The issue that I’m interested in is infidelity, particularly those that come about following the arrival of a new child. We don’t know how far back Woods’ “transgressions” date (he and his wife, Elin, were married in 2004 — and their first child born in 2007), the evidence seems to be that they either began or increased in frequency after he became a Dad. Certainly, it’s a familiar story in heterosexual marriages: the husband is discombobulated by his wife’s response to the birth of a child. Suddenly, he perceives that which was rightly his has been withdrawn, transferred to someone else whose demands trump his own. Even the wealthy change diapers and nurse (the issue of breast-feeding and class has been a hot one in the feminist blogosphere); a great many women, in the first year or two following the birth of a baby, experience an understandably diminished libido.
If a man has been inculcated with the unfortunate notion that it is his wife’s job (a la the execrable Laura Schlessinger) to take care of him, he may imagine himself neglected once the child appears. That sense of neglect is rooted in a false sense of entitlement, and that latter sense can often act to justify an “affair”. Of course, it’s the myth of male weakness again — the notion that men have irrepressible needs that can only be met through sexual relationships with women. If a wife or a girlfriend (even for the excellent reason of having just become a mother) reduces her attentiveness to those supposedly overpowering needs, than the myth suggests that a “normal, red-blooded guy” is at least somewhat justified in seeking sexual satisfaction (and soothing) elsewhere.
When a Roman general was given a “Triumph” following a victory, he would be paraded through the streets, feted by the magistrates and worshipped by adoring citizens. It could, of course, all go to his head. During the parade, a slave would famously stand just behind the general, whispering in his ear memento mori – “Remember that you are mortal.” In the face of the temptations that come with fame and wealth, it may be necessary to outsource one’s conscience to trusted professionals. If I were Tiger, I’d use some of my wealth to assemble a team with whom I traveled everywhere — bodyguards whose job is as much to protect Woods from his impulses as it is to protect his person from those of others. I’d let trusted family members (including Elin, his wife) select the “accountability team”. And they’d be empowered to escort the superstar back to his hotel room lickety-split if he starts canoodling with a cocktail waitress. “Remember your vows”, these bodyguards might murmur with polite but forceful tones. If one’s own moral voice is too still and too small to be heard in the face of temptation, why not hire one or several such voices to be with you at all times? There’s no shame in acknowledging one’s vulnerabilities — just in refusing to take reasonable measures to protect oneself and one’s family from the harm those vulnerabilities can bring. Continue reading
This is one of those classic feminist poems (it was written in 1969) that wears better than some might think. For a certain kind of student — the sort who was labeled “slut” early and often, learning to wear it with a kind of bittersweet defiance — this Marge Piercy piece still resonates. Of all the great Second Wave feminist poets, I’m fondest of Adrienne Rich — but Piercy comes not far behind.
Always Unsuitable
She wore little teeth of pearls around her neck.
They were grinning politely and evenly at me.
Unsuitable they smirked. It is true
I look a stuffed turkey in a suit. Breasts
too big for the silhouette. She knew
at once that we had sex, lots of it
as if I had strolled into her diningroom
in a dirty negligee smelling gamy
smelling fishy and sporting a strawberry
on my neck. I could never charm
the mothers, although the fathers ogled
me. I was exactly what mothers had warned
their sons against. I was quicksand
I was trouble in the afternoon. I was
the alley cat you don’t bring home.
I was the dirty book you don’t leave out
for your mother to see. I was the center-
fold you masturbate with then discard.
Where I came from, the nights I had wandered
and survived, scared them, and where
I would go they never imagined.
Ah, what you wanted for your sons
were little ladies hatched from the eggs
of pearls like pink and silver lizards
cool, well behaved and impervious
to desire and weather alike. Mostly
that’s who they married and left.
Oh, mamas, I would have been your friend.
I would have cooked for you and held you.
I might have rattled the windows
of your sorry marriages, but I would
have loved you better than you know
how to love yourselves, bitter sisters.
This post first appeared in March, 2006.
In a comment below last Friday’s post on student crushes, Ryan writes:
There is, also, a reciprocal phenomenon that few of us talk about: the crush on the student. Let me first explain what I mean by crush, here, because it’s almost explicitly not sexual. Lord knows that my sex life was awkward enough at that age–I certainly wouldn’t want to revisit it with a 15 years older body. But there are students with whom I become temporarily fascinated. Just as students find that there can be something intoxicating about the presence, the experience, the passion of someone at the front of the classroom, there is something similarly invigorating about the potential, the excitement, the newness of a really compelling student. I regularly develop these crushes. They’ve never grown into anything more than an occasional email correspondence after the student has gone, but the crushes do go both ways, and they more we try to divorce them from taboo sexuality (which seems to have little to do with it at all), the more we can address what they are, which is excitement about the very act of teaching and learning, personified in teachers and students who seem to embody those ideals.
An excellent idea for a follow-up post!
Like Ryan, I scrupulously avoid sexualizing my students. (Frankly, at this point in my life, that’s not difficult to do.) But like Ryan, I get an occasional crush on a young (or not so young) student. Not only are these crushes not sexual or romantic, they also aren’t primarily about my ego, either.
I mentioned this topic to a colleague yesterday (I’d sent her the first post on student crushes), and she laughed at me. "Hugo, you just like the students who soak up your every word. You get crushes on your proteges as extensions of yourself. You’re such a narcissist!" I was hurt, and I told her so. Lord knows, I am relentless in my self-criticism — but after reflecting for some time on what she said, I’m convinced my colleague got it wrong.
What I mean by a crush on a student is this: every once in a while, no more than once or twice a year, I will have a young man or a young woman in one of my classes whose life and ideas and personal growth becoming powerfully interesting to me. I can’t always tell who it’s going to be, mind you! It’s not automatically the "best and the brightest", and it certainly (I can’t stress this enough these days) has damn all to do with physical attractiveness. It can happen equally often with men or women. But suddenly, often out of the blue, I will find myself caring desperately about that one particular student’s development. I daydream about that student, and look forward eagerly to their office visits and to their emailed questions and the stories they tell about their lives.
I know lots of my students read this blog, so let me be clear about something: you are all precious to me. I rejoice when you do well, I agonize when you don’t (and I wonder what I can do to help you do better.) I think about you more than you realize, and even though you surely imagine that you are just a sea of faces and names to me, please know that you are far more than that. I take seriously my obligation to teach all of you, to challenge you, to stimulate you. And I worry, more often than you know, that I am failing you.
A reader named Sarah recently wrote in about a conversation she had with her husband about strip clubs:
My husband today mentioned the time he took his younger brother to a strip club when the brother turned 21. I laughed a bit, and said, “wow! i never heard that story before!” A few more teasing words were said between the 3 of us, and Imentioned that if he ever took our (still non-existent) son to a strip club i’d be furious. I assumed no more needed to be said, as the whole idea of it was so ludicrous and that my husband wouldn’t do something so creepy and so anti-women with a son of ours.
My husband shocked me by saying that yes, he would take our kid to a strip club and he doesn’t see why it would matter to me if “our son is getting married, and we all go to a titty bar for the bachelor party. it’s not like i’d encourage him to cheat!” I was left sputtering and a little disturbed, and totally unsure on how to proceed with this conversation as my husband is a man who’s always respected women and agreed on these matters. (or I obviously wouldn’t have married him!)
I’m no fan of strip clubs for a host of reasons. But Sarah’s email isn’t really about strip clubs — it’s about the problem of homosociality, a topic I’ve written about many times before. (Homosociality is the notion that for American men in particular, the approval of other males is of paramount concern, even more sought after than validation from women.) One of the most odious features of homosociality is the way in which it employs women’s bodies as devices for bonding men together. For example, many women are perplexed (as well as infuriated) by the habit young (and not-so-young) men have of cat-calling female pedestrians from passing cars. “Why do they slow down and whistle at me, making those comments?” a young woman asks; “Do they really think I’m going to get in the car with them?” The answer, of course, is that the fellas in the car are far less interested in the woman they’re harassing than in bonding with each other. They demonstrate their heterosexual bona fides to each other, and in the process of humiliating women on the street, forge a closer homosocial relationship. (It’s more than anecdotal to point out that groups of men, having just harassed a woman sexually, will high-five each other; one of the most devastating depictions of this comes in the rape scene from “Boys Don’t Cry”.)
Going to a strip club, of course, isn’t necessarily analogous to participating in a gang rape. But fathers and older brothers have been taking their sons and younger brothers to “titty bars” and brothels for a long time; in parts of Latin America, the practice is particularly common. The stated purpose may be an “initation into manhood” for a teen boy, or a bacchanalian farewell to bachelorhood for a man about to be wed. But there’s invariably more to it than that. Wives and girlfriends, not unreasonably, suspect that the motive is sexual: fathers and brothers may claim to be doing it as a favor for a son or a sibling, but in reality they’re just looking for an opportunity for “justified infidelity” of one kind or another. That may be true, but there’s a deeper and more common reason: a longing for homosocial intimacy.
Going to a baseball game is the paradigmatic “father-son” bonding activity. But for many men, sporting events are less effective than strip clubs as homosocial strategies. Women haven’t been excluded as spectator from ball parks for generations; very few wives and mothers actively disapprove of sports. (They may find watching sports dull, but that’s hardly the same.) Men in our society, as countless scholars of gender have pointed out, are socialized to find particular delight and meaning in activities from which women are excluded, or which most women find repugnant and objectionable. American boys prove their manhood, after all, through their rejection of their mothers’ values; to care too deeply about what mom thinks is to be a sissy, a mama’s boy. And need I point out how many American men have relationships with wives and girlfriends that closely resemble the mother-son dynamic? Mama might not object to taking little brother to the Yankees game — but she’s likely to be less pleased with a sojourn to the titty bar down the block.
The effectiveness of strip clubs as a homosocial bonding strategy is thus linked to two things: the shared sense the male patrons have that their wives and mothers disapprove of their being there, and the opportunity to establish their credentials as “red-blooded, straight American guys” by sharing the experience of objectifying women’s bodies. A single man in a strip club, nursing a beer, is seen as a vaguely pathetic — or perhaps threatening — figure; a group of men on a “stag night” in that same club are anything but. What is unacceptable in solitude is admirable and manly when done in solidarity with other males.
For men who, perhaps like Sarah’s husband, who have not yet done the vital work of learning how to establish intimate relationships with other men which do not require the objectification of women as “bonding glue”, the homosocial appeal of the strip club experience is tremendous. But women aren’t cement to hold together that which can’t otherwise be joined. Emotionally competent adult males don’t use either women’s revulsion or women’s bodies in order to establish closeness and cameraderie with each other. And men’s universal capacity to become emotionally competent — at a relatively young age — is very real. The fact that so many choose not to exercise that capacity is not evidence that they lack it.