My friend Bill asked me to post about 84 year-old Hugh Hefner’s announcement this week that he’s engaged to be married again, this time to a former Playmate exactly sixty years his junior. Knowing my many problems with age-disparate relationships, he wondered if I had a comment about the perpetually be-robed octogenarian’s latest assay into wedlock.
Still on vacation in Placer County, I’ll keep this short. It’s easy to see Hef as a caricature, and a rather sad one to boot. But more than one young man has looked at this aging cultural icon and said to himself, “Damn, I’d like to be like him when I’m old.” Some find instruction in what others of us find ridiculous. It’s important to remember that.
The tragedy of Playboy is, as I’ve said before, that it focuses on “everlasting novelty.” (The phrase is my father’s, but the point was originally made by Barbara Ehrenreich in a book I highly recommend, The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment .) Men wanting to look at beautiful women isn’t the problem — it’s the need to always see new beautiful women that is so troubling. Playboy wouldn’t have made money with one issue a year, after all. A new issue every four weeks guaranteed variety — or more accurately, encouraged a mindset that was only aroused by variety. It is Hefner who is widely credited (though it may be apocryphal) with the devastating line “Show me a beautiful woman, and I’ll show you the man who’s tired of fucking her.” It is trendy to accept that fascination with everlasting novelty as rooted in our biology, but the weight of the evidence suggests that pornographers like Hef are more creators than reinforcers.
And of course, Playboy Playmates — like the most successful and celebrated of porn actresses — are overwhelmingly young, 18-24 at the time they break into the industry. With a tiny handful of exceptions, few work successfully in the business after 30. This focus on youth suggests that women over 25 have passed their “sell-by” date; Hef has done more than his share to contribute to the sexual invisibility of older women. (The occasional issue focusing on an over-40 hottie is the classic example of the exception proving the rule.) It’s little wonder, then, that Hef has spent six decades chasing women in their early twenties. He’s sold himself on his own narrow vision of what is and isn’t desirable, and as a consequence has become incapable of experiencing sexual interest in any woman past the age of his Playmates. It’s one thing for nineteen year-olds to be drawn sexually to their peers, another thing for their grandfathers to lust after the same barely post-pubescent women.
This isn’t about the porn wars; I recognize the potential for liberation in visual depictions of the erotic. This is about the Playboy ethos. (As Ehrenreich suggested and as I always tell my students, it’s better to write it as “Play, boy!”, driving home the point that the opposite of a “playboy” is a “working man” who accepts responsibility and is capable of constancy.) The Playboy ethos is almost puritanical in its distaste for bodies that deviate from a narrow standard, and contemptuous(as well as fearful) of the sexual potential of women over 25. Above all, the Playboy ethos insists on the necessity of endless variety. Familiarity breeds contempt and aging breeds disgust, or so Hef’s world view holds.
It would be pathetic if it didn’t resonate so loudly with so many. We can do better.
Thank you for writing this about a force in the culture that adds so much stress to many women’s lives. Any maybe many men’s as well.
I was interested especially in the sentence: “It is trendy to accept that fascination with everlasting novelty as rooted in our biology, but the weight of the evidence suggests that pornographers like Hef are more creators than reinforcers.”
I would love to know what evidence there is that this desire for variety is a socialized phenomenon.
It does seem that this idea that “the man, he likes variety” does seem to get trotted out a lot. I’ve heard everyone from Drew Pinsky (who acknowledged that women also like variety, and that there is not as much difference in male and female interest in variety “as you might think”) to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (in his book, Kosher Sutra, he says exactly this line in support of getting wives to be varied in their dress, etc.).
I have also read in Dr. David Schnarch’s book that for fully emotionally available people (which he calls “differentiated”), every sexual encounter (even in a monogamous relationship) is varied. In fact it is that variety that is threatening to people who lack emotional availability; this is the classic “fear of intimacy”).
He’s old enough to be her great-grandfather. NO, NO visuals..!!! dammit, too late. I need to go wash my brain out with soap now.
Well, in the vaunted feminist tradition of complaining about when something is represented as standard that isn’t our experience, let me complain.
I don’t like variety. My physical attraction to a woman is a monotonically increasing function of time in our relationship, during which time my physical attraction to other women is a decreasing function of time (though maybe not quite monotonic). Though I’ve never had a relationship go more than four years, so maybe I’m just a wiseass whippersnapper.
That said, it’s kind of weird to portray Playboy’s eternal search for a single, unchanging appearance as a need for endless variety. It seems almost like the extreme limit of the opposite, the quest for no variety whatsoever. (Which Observer also touches on.) ‘course, now I feel self-conscious.
You know the, “show me a beautiful woman……” line isn’t only used to make the point of everlasting novelty. Most of the time I’ve heard it used it is to make the opposite point. That being that the constant chase for newer and younger is a bottomless pit and the hole it’s designed to fill never does get filled that way.
That said, it’s kind of weird to portray Playboy’s eternal search for a single, unchanging appearance as a need for endless variety. It seems almost like the extreme limit of the opposite, the quest for no variety whatsoever.
Brian is correct — each woman Hef hooks up with is, almost comically, a younger version of the woman he just left or was left by.
My boyfriend and I were just talking about the desire for variety, and we both concluded that for us, variety isn’t necessarily about physicality but about differences in behavior. Both of us have had lovers whose physical characteristics are all over the map. The real draw is in the chase, the seduction, of a particular “thou.” That, to me, is more dangerous, but also easier to regulate; at our age, we both realize the end point of a chase and it’s not somewhere we care to go.
The definitions of variety are many, but in this case I meant it not as diversity in type but multiplicity in number. (Variety as assortment.)
“And of course, Playboy Playmates — like the most successful and celebrated of porn actresses — are overwhelmingly young, 18-24 at the time they break into the industry. With a tiny handful of exceptions, few work successfully after 30. ”
If by work, you mean ‘model’. You speak as if women stop existing the moment they stop posing for you.
The Playboy ethos is almost puritanical in its distaste for bodies that deviate from a narrow standard, and contemptuous(as well as fearful) of the sexual potential of women over 25.
He’s old enough to be her great-grandfather. NO, NO visuals..!!! dammit, too late. I need to go wash my brain out with soap now.
Wow, that was quick. Well, so much for showing respect for the sexuality of older persons…
On the issue of “everlasting novelty”, the polyamory community has terms to distinguish the experiences of older and newer relationships: “Old Relationship Energy” (ORE) and “New Relationship Energy” (NRE). The idea is that these types of “relationship energy” are qualitatively different, not replacements for each other, and are both desirable and deserving of pursuit (within a framework, culture and set of norms rather different than the ones you are critiquing Hef for embodying and promoting).
“[T]he weight of the evidence suggests that pornographers like Hef are more creators than reinforcers.”
The weight of what evidence? This seems to be a perennial “chicken or egg” debate. Does reproducing an idealized human form entrench particular tastes in the population at large? Perhaps it does, but we’ve been doing that as a species at least since the Greeks and Romans cast anthropomorphic statues. I’m not a particular devoted nor particularly “well-read” consumer of pornography, but my understanding is that, especially with the Internet, there is these days a varied “market” of sorts catering to voyeuristic tastes of every regard, including with performers/models that vary in age (a quick Google search turns up pornography websites captioned with “mature”, “MILF”, “hot mom” and the like). Perhaps Playboy is just another small niche in a big wall at this point, but, in any case, given such a vast and varied “supply” in the market (a lot of which is free today over the Internet in some form or another), can we really say that tastes in pornography are not largely demand-driven?
Playboy also seems to come from a mass-market era in which the ideal was to appeal to the broadest possible consumer base (call it the “Budweiser” of pornography/erotica). As opposed to more varied modern distribution modes, it should be expected that they would present what would appeal to the broadest possible taste. Granted, there are people who look good at many ages, and even a minority who actually look better as they age. Most of us, however, seem to have an age window when we’re probably at our peak of sexual desirability, after shedding our baby fat, teenage gawkiness, acne, or whatever, and before gravity, slowing metabolisms, declining skin elasticity, receding hairlines and the like work their magic. It’s not unreasonable to expect that mass-market porn would be focused on models that will generally be at or near that average age window.
Hugo, you’ve perhaps read Sex At Dawn which discusses this at depth. The argument for sexual variety (or desire for non-monogamy) being based primarily in culture rather than biology has always seemed curious to me. Those who reproduce more widely and more often are more likely, genetically speaking, to thrive.
But I would think that those inclined towards monogamy would perhaps see a biological propensity towards “variety” as making monogamy all the more meaningful as a conscious choice to constrain one’s biological inclinations out of devotion to the other. If monogamy were easy, simply a matter of ignoring the dominant cultural script (although I would argue that the dominant cultural script is monogamy), then it wouldn’t be such a big commitment to make.
That’s not to make an excuse for Hefner. He’s always seemed a rather sad figure to me, increasingly so with each passing year. Not knowing much about him, I’ve always entertained the fantasy that he’s just playing a part, and doesn’t actually believe the crap he promulgates. Not that it would make him a more sympathetic figure; in fact he would be less so if he knew better but put out such bilge anyway.
Some may look at Hef with admiration. I see a pathetic insecurity.
That he only desires “girls” (as he calls them), he seems stuck in perpetual boyhood, incapable of relating to women in an adult way.
I’d like to respond to Cornwalker’s point that “the argument for sexual variety (or desire for non-monogamy) being based primarily in culture rather than biology has always seemed curious to me. Those who reproduce more widely and more often are more likely, genetically speaking, to thrive.
I would question this.
All other factors being equal, children whose fathers invest in them personally, who are regularly present for them, who show respect for the mother and who make their children feel loved do much better in school (and presumably in other parts of life) than children who don’t get this experience. See Lloyd DeMause, Psychohistory (especially the chapter “Why Males Are More Violent”
Until recently, genetic paternity could not be proven, however, so there was an incentive for both men and women to seek other partners. But there were still a lot of societal mechanisms for children to get the experience of a loving, present, father who invested in them. Everything from male teachers and coaches, to retired grandfathers who take care of grandchildren, to clergy. You can argue that even the male monotheisms of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, are designed to give the population at large this feeling (especially for those who did not get it in their childhoods) and encourage this behavior in men.
So the concept of monogamous paternal investment in children has always been recognized as valuable, but the biology which prevented proving paternity created some room for people to try to game the system. I suspect this “gaming” more often than not actually traumatizes children and makes them less successful in life, including in reproducing themselves.
@Observer:
The only criterion that at base determines genetic fitness is a gene’s ability to reproduce itself as widely as possible. (See, e.g.: Richard Dawkins, “The Selfish Gene”). That sort of “success” shouldn’t be conflated or confused with what we characterize as “success” in social or cultural terms. You can see that fact in the relatively late age and fewer numbers of children that the highly-educated tend to have by comparison to other segments of the population (a background fact in the current social discussion on different family and child-bearing patterns across class and region in the United States that has emerged in public discussion this year).
Genetics and evolution act on their own logic and aren’t concerned with our definitions of success. That doesn’t, and never should, mean that we should accept biological realities as determining our normative goals. “Is” doesn’t not imply “ought”, and “natural” does not mean “good”. But biology is and always will be the most basic substratum that determines any human characteristic, and always has to be considered on its own terms as a starting point, if not an end point, in any question concerning human affairs.
Tom-
You say “The only criterion that at base determines genetic fitness is a gene’s ability to reproduce itself as widely as possible. (See, e.g.: Richard Dawkins, “The Selfish Geneâ€). That sort of “success†shouldn’t be conflated or confused with what we characterize as “success†in social or cultural terms.”
Genes exist in an organism that must survive long enough for it to reproduce. In a primitive sense this is adolescence for both boys and girls. Even getting to adolescence requires a lot of years that that organism has to be kept alive (many of which are years when the child can do little on his/her own) and helped in developing autonomy by his/her parents. And even getting to adolescence is not really sufficient; a child needs really to get to age 24 or 25 before he/she can successfully parent and not just perform the basic sex act (either alone, or, more successfully, in a relationship). Those extra years are needed both in terms of brain development and in getting access to resources needed for real autonomy and responsibility for a child.
I’m not talking about “success” in social or cultural terms except to the extent that keeping the organism (aka the child) alive long enough to reproduce successfully requires the parents functioning in the context of the political economy, society, culture for enough years that the child also has enough years to develop enough to do so him/herself.
Tom -
Here’s another way to look at this. Heffner has had sex with thousands of woman of fertile age. His genes have been very successful at getting out there, by your definition and the definition of “The Selfish Gene.”
But lets look a little more closely:
He’s had 4 children. The oldest, Christie, has had no children, so the genes stopped with her. The second oldest, David, is now 55. I don’t know if David has children: I gather not in that I don’t see any reporting on them; there are rumors that he is gay. The other two are 20 and 19, respectively.
So at least 2 of his 4 sets of genes will not survive at all into a grandchild level. And maybe not the other 2 either. If Hugh Heffner were my father, there are a lot of reasons I would be a poor quality mother.
Part of this requires understanding of abuse and neglect in child development (which has little if anything to do directly with genes) and how these compromise reproductive success.
From a male biologist’s point of view, it may seem that this doesn’t matter because theoretically as long as a man gets to reproductive age and has sex a bunch of times, he’s gotten his genes out there. He can dump the women with the children and just move on.
Getting the organism(s) (aka children) containing those genes to survive and thrive long enough to engage in reproductive success themselves is another whole story, however. But the man who leaves doesn’t see this. He doesn’t realize how he’s compromising his genetic success.
The connection between abuse/neglect and genes is not direct. I suspect there is no gene that causes people to abuse/neglect children because some people recover from this and don’t abuse/neglect their children, while others repeat the cycle. Abuse/neglect is a matter of conditioning that either gets repaired through counseling or other outside help or which gets repeated, usually subconsciously.
In fact, some people would argue that for anyone to even think that he could game the biology shows that person has the unclear thinking that is often the result of abuse/neglect/trauma.
The biology that is that requires a human child to be wanted, protected, provided for, nurtured/supported, loved by both parents, for 23 years in order for that child to reproduce successfully,
@Observer: it’s not controversial to assert that concern for one’s children’s reproductive fitness has some impact and using Hef as an example is problematic in a few respects (I don’t think that there were pornographers ten thousand years ago and, if he’s only had 4 children out of the many women he’s probably slept with, obviously someone is interfering in natural conception in the process). The counter-example is Genghis Khan (direct male ancestor of one out of every twelve men alive today). Hef’s likely choice of mothers is also probably a confounding factor.
I didn’t say that working to ensure the survival to reproduction of one’s offspring plays no role but you did concede “all else being equal”. A man who can both reproduce widely as well as ensuring the survival to reproduction of as many offspring as possible would be in the best position. Other than that… the tradeoff between those two strategies (extensive vs. intensive parenting) depends on the relative tradeoff in numbers of offspring versus how much attention each gets. The fact that men’s contribution to the reproductive process in its most basic form has always been relatively simple compared to women’s, and particularly compared to the investment of time and effort required for involved parenting, would tend to bias towards the extensive, high-volume end of that trade-off (sleep with enough women often enough and the absolute “yield” of resulting fit offspring will outweigh the impact of poor parenting of each).
There is probably in practice some balance between the two: the ideal reproductive strategy for a man in practice would be to have children with as many women as he can and still provide sufficient parenting to see as many as possible survive to reproduce themselves, thus suggesting a curve that has a peak. (Keep in mind also that prime reproductive years are probably between 14 and 25, meaning that if every child one doesn’t live to be 30, it doesn’t affect reproductive fitness, which is why we still have genetic diseases like Huntington’s). I don’t know that anyone (i.e.: an ev-biologist or anthropologist) has done any work on what the ideal average number might be (of women a man can reproduce with on an ongoing basis while investing enough in each child to not prejudice their chances of reproducing themselves), but work on the human genome as shown that 80% of our genes come from women and only 20% from men, or thereabouts, suggesting that that number is about 4.
“The biology that is that requires a human child to be wanted, protected, provided for, nurtured/supported, loved by both parents, for 23 years in order for that child to reproduce successfully.”
23 years is unrealistically long. I noted above that prime reproductive years are probably between about 14 and 25.
“In fact, some people (Who?) would argue that for anyone to even think that he could game the biology shows that person has the unclear thinking that is often the result of abuse/neglect/trauma.”
I’m not sure that anyone was talking about “gaming” the biology. We’re discussing here whether there might be an evolutionary reason for seeking sexual novelty. That usually doesn’t have, I would think, the deliberate motivation suggested by the term “gaming”.
Tom – “23 years is unrealistically long. I noted above that prime reproductive years are probably between about 14 and 25.”
I don’t see you saying that above? And I’m not sure why you’re saying it would make it true?
I suspect that on average teenage parents (either male or female) in our society are more likely than not to produce unsuccessful children, particularly when traced through to grandchildren. “Success” meaning surviving to successful reproduction themselves.
I would say that 20-24 year olds may do slightly better but on average probably do not produce successful children, particularly when traced through to grandchildren.
The preverbal years (up to age 2) are especially vulnerable to trauma from abuse and neglect. From an economic standpoint, in our society it is very difficult for a couple under the age of 24 to have enough economic stability to prevent abuse and neglect deriving from economic instability. From an emotional & secure bonding standpoint, the brain is not fully developed until age 23-24 (in both boys and girls), especially as regards judgment, emotional regulation, and autonomy. Parents under that age would not be able to attune to their children’s needs well enough to prevent emotional abuse and neglect. They may not even have the capacity yet to set aside their own needs to attend to the child.
so much for showing respect for the sexuality of older persons
Ahem, it’s not the sexuality of older people, it’s the image of a person sleeping with someone young enough to be zir grandchild or great-grandchild. If Hefner were with a woman in her 70s, or even 60s, I doubt people would bat an eye. Rather, probably the readers of this blog would say “good for them!” The problem is the massive age difference and power difference in his relationships. That’s what’s disturbing.
And I guess I wonder whether it ultimately matters whether men are “programmed” by biology or by culture to always seek a multitude of younger women. Because surely they can move beyond that “programming,” wherever it comes from?
No, the “gaming” is subconscious, not consciously intended. It’s very primitive and probably not motivated by spreading genes but by other causes.
Here is where I think your thinking is distorted: “The fact that men’s contribution to the reproductive process in its most basic form has always been relatively simple compared to women’s, and particularly compared to the investment of time and effort required for involved parenting.”
Psychologically, every child needs a daily father, and he needs a father who is in successful relationship with the mother. Some would say whether we develop successful concepts of choice & spirtuality & interaction with others, our emotional range, our complex cognitive brains, and our sense of agency and autonomy in the world, all derive from whether there are two parents operating in successful relationship with each other and whether the child is emotionally bonded to both of them.
This is NOT simple. Many men have tried to get away with less. Many women have tried to be “fathers” to children themselves or provide substitutes in clergy, etc., but these are substitutes that don’t really work.
As a result the norm is deficient parenting, especially due to this lacuna in fathering.
Some 85% of adults in the US are thought to have suffered abuse/neglect of varying degrees in their families of origin.
This is in part because historically genetic paternity could not be proven, which made men less certain about investing personally in children, Then you add to that the political-economic system of patriarchy, which overrides the biological imperative by depriving women of economic and political autonomy. People focus on bare survival rather than actually successfully reproducing.
@Observer: without some sort of primary data (of the sort that would come from a longitudinal study across generation), we’re both just trading dueling just-so stories, assumptions, and suppositions. If you know of any that address these questions, let me know.
Again, the question here is reproductive capability. We’ve had, as one example (that I chose simply because it’s been relatively well-studied for this purpose and on-point to the topic), at least two generations of the African-American community since Moynihan’s report in the 1960s in which single-parenthood has been the norm. I don’t see some epidemic of the African-American community dying out.
Tom –
Yes, I’d like to do a longitudinal study to study success down the genetic line. It is pretty interesting the neither of Hefner’s adult children had children, though.
Here is a recent CDC report concluding 60% of adults in the US had dysfunctional childhoods. This is thought to be unreported because emotional dysfunction is “invisible” and not as readily reported.
At the risk of becoming to personal about this, I want to mention that that Genghis Khan statistic (which I’ve never seen supported, although I have heard it once or twice before so I know it is floating around out there) is awfully similar to the psychological phenomenon where a traumatized person subconsciously “seeks merger into something more powerful.” It is similar to the phenomenon of men claiming to speak for “God.”
It is thought to derive from children being abandoned/neglected/abused by fathers but having to live in a world dominated by men.
I do have support: Lloyd deMause, Psychohistory; Allan Johnson, The Gender Knot; Terry Real, “I Don’t Want to Talk About It;” Kyle Pruett “FatherNeed.”
These require understanding of subjective experience, however, and not simply objectivism. I get the sense you’re may be not as respectful of your own subjective experience, including your emotions, and consciously mostly rely on logic or rationality (some people call this “objective” experience)? To understand how abuse/neglect & patriarchy are distorting things, you have be able to understand how the subconscious works, particularly buried emotions, to cause people to act out traumas and to see the world in ways that conform to their trauma. It’s very common, far too common, in our culture.
Sorry, accidentally forgot the link. http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/parenting-family/2010-12-17-adult-majority-troubled-childhood_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
Regarding the “African-American community,” I don’t think racially drawn lines have the right kind of meaning, particularly when economic status is not taken into account. But you could argue that the reason some poor men and women are having children that reach reproductive adulthood themselves is because the state subsidizes the women financially. This is an artificiality that may override what would happen in a system where people (both men and women) could not survive without having economic autonomy (i.e. earning their own money).
“…the psychological phenomenon where a traumatized person subconsciously “seeks merger into something more powerful.†It is similar to the phenomenon of men claiming to speak for ‘God.’”
*chuckles* Perhaps people do that as well by grounding their pronouncements in grand theories, like evolutionary biology or psychology.
“Perhaps people do that as well by grounding their pronouncements in grand theories, like evolutionary biology or psychology.”
Yes, although I would say that when people are open to their theories being refuted by empirical evidence this suggest they are operating from a healthier psychology than the self-righteous “I speak for God” or “My genes come from the violent and dominant Genghis Khan” so I am super-human in my power (especially above you lowly women, since Khan mysteriously and magically was an ancestor only of the men not the women).
No, and I didn’t claim that they did. For the sake of this discussion, though, that community provided a convenient modern sample for which we have, at least from the time Moynihan made his initial observations, more than 40 years of experience. The contemporary discussions this year concerning different family and sexual norms and demographic outcomes among different socioeconomic groups and classes in modern American society (looking at things from another angle than race) start to address the question from an economic standpoint.
(Links on the discussion I’m talking about:
http://hugoschwyzer.net/2010/05/10/virtue-coerced-or-virtue-chosen-on-abortion-contraception-happiness-and-ross-douthat/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/opinion/10douthat.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1273506590-B7isA8q0b89fPtY2w4D65Q
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=6762
“But you could argue that the reason some poor men and women are having children that reach reproductive adulthood themselves is because the state subsidizes the women financially.”
And that would get us into traditional familial structures (e.g.: extended families that provide inter-generational child support) as well as historic geographic influences on the food supply that could influence sexual selection and familial structure (e.g.: gathering or year-round agriculture potentially giving women the edge in providing dietary calories according to some theories, vs. more-intensive seasonal agriculture or longer-ranging hunting across taiga providing men the advantage) enough to affect the genome. We could put state subsidies into a similar exogenous category. Nevertheless, in dealing with the simpler issue of the reproductive fitness effects, ceteris paribus, of paternal promiscuity….
I actually need to stop talking about this because I find this kind of sexism really painful and very angering.
@Tom
“*chuckles*”?
You smarmy douche.
@Casey
You’ll note that I included myself in there:
“Perhaps people do that as well by grounding their pronouncements in grand theories, like evolutionary biology or psychology.”
Nevertheless, thanks for the sentiment.
IDK, I thought you were talking about Observer. O_oV
So true, Malienation. I have zero respect for the sexuality of older persons with persons young enough to be their great-grandchild. I freely admit, that pairing makes me wanna hurl. You like it..?
Observer:
“Yes, although I would say that when people are open to their theories being refuted by empirical evidence this suggest they are operating from a healthier psychology than the self-righteous “I speak for God†or “My genes come from the violent and dominant Genghis Khan†so I am super-human in my power (especially above you lowly women, since Khan mysteriously and magically was an ancestor only of the men not the women).”
It involves using Y chromosome DNA to trace patrilineal descent.
I know quite a few lesbian parents who would disagree with you. Positive older male role models are not the same as “fathers.â€
@Observer, your time scale is all wrong. Biology doesn’t act in the same timeframe that you and I can readily observe. We don’t wipe out two hundred thousand years of evolutionary biology with a few centuries of societal preference for different family arrangements. Not only this, but based on what you’ve written, your critique is primarily rooted in modern western cultural norms of what it takes to successfully raise a child from infancy to reproductive age. Some other cultures do it differently, and their genes survive just as ours do.
You also ignore or are unaware of many different child-rearing structures a social group might adopt, one such being group rearing by the females. You also take today’s importance of establishing (or at least assuming) paternity for granted, without considering that paternity may not have been all that important in the distant past and in some groups today isn’t all that important.
Sex At Dawn attempts (whether it does so successfully or not I’ll leave you to judge) to dismantle our conceptions of sex, reproduction, and gender roles completely, drawing the conclusion that the current patriarchal structures we currently “enjoy” are in fact a result of our transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural cultivation. They conclude that in small foraging groups paternity doesn’t matter, as resources are shared among all group members (thus ensuring the survival of the group). Instead, they argue, the move to agriculture allowed for people to live in larger social groups and, with the advent of concepts like private property, brought about an importance of ensuring paternity.
A.Y. Siu
“I know quite a few lesbian parents who would disagree with you. Positive older male role models are not the same as ‘fathers.’”
I know they would. I think some lesbians may be able to accomplish much of the job by just having two of them in successful relationship who function as parents, though. The only parts missing are that the child does not know the person from whom 50% of his/her genes came (if one of the lesbians is his/her bio mother for example) and also he/she is missing a daily relationship with a actual man who has his best interests in mind. I imagine the latter could be accomplished if there is an uncle or grandfather or other adult man in frequent contact with the child, though, who relates to him well and provides a good role model for a boy and a good example of a man for a girl. The genetic part is tougher.
A recent study found that children of lesbian couples are better adjusted than those of hetero couples. This does not surprise me in our current society which still has so much patriarchal baggage and 85% of people had dysfunctional childhoods.
Re the silly Ghengis Khan thing:
“It involves using Y chromosome DNA to trace patrilineal descent.”
Yes but Ghengis must have created somewhere near as many female offspring as male and they and their lineage would have his genes as well.
I’d like to see the cite for this anyway. It tends to get quoted by the same men who say that (a) narcissistic is just the way men are, (b) paternal investment in children is irrelevant and (c) adult men should be able to have sex with teenage girls. In short, they are men who are completely indifferent to women and girls except as repositories for sperm.
Does anyone have the cite?
“An international group of geneticists studying Y-chromosome data have found that nearly 8 percent of the men living in the region of the former Mongol empire carry y-chromosomes that are nearly identical. That translates to 0.5 percent of the male population in the world, or roughly 16 million descendants living today.”
You said “one out of twelve men alive today.” LOL. Thanks for wasting our time. This is why this kind of stuff makes me so angry.
Here’s the full article. It does trace to Khan’s violence and ruthlessness, so I suspect it’s no coincidence that emotionally unavailable or affect intolerant men who are afraid of acknowledging the role of “dads” quote this.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html
@corn walker:
“Biology doesn’t act in the same timeframe that you and I can readily observe. We don’t wipe out two hundred thousand years of evolutionary biology with a few centuries of societal preference for different family arrangements.”
Not necessarily true. The theory of punctuated equilibrium holds that evolution can operate over much shorter time scales, with long periods of evolutionary stasis broken by short periods of rapid evolutionary change. (Eldredge and Gould, 1972). Moreover, the dawn of agriculture, a mere 12,000 years ago at most, very likely was (and probably continues to be) one such major event in the evolutionary history of H. sapiens (Cochran and Harpending, “The 10,000 Year Explosion”, 2009).
@ Observer: so I had the number wrong. I had just gotten out of the shower when I was typing it. Thanks for finding the article and the correction. Interesting find on the role of culture, and in this case, culture did lead to greater evolutionary “success” for Khan & kin.
cornwalker-
I haven’t read Sex At Dawn but I have read a number of the author’s articles.
I am not trying to override anything about history or biology. I am just saying culture in many cases overrides biological imperatives as it tries to cope with them. (See Ghengis Khan – ironically – in the Nat’l Geographic article). Raising a human child takes a long, long time. We are very vulnerable and dependent for many years and we require a lot of investment. This is a biological imperative.
In Sex At Dawn, from what I understand they don’t take the next step to examining what will happen now that genetic paternity can be proven. Much of these historical civilizations were attempts to cope with the inability to prove paternity with certainty. For example, patriarchy tried to use control of women to establish, within a reasonable certainty, paternity, so that the father would invest. Other island cultures were egalitarian and did community type parenting. Places like Nepal placed all property in women’s hands to avoid the violence and destruction to the people, including possibly the survival of their genes, when men pulled a Ghengis Khan.
I think you are confusing “evolutionary psychology” and “evolutionary biology.” I would consider the former to be context-dependent (i.e. whether it is adaptive for fathers to invest in their offspring personally) and the latter to be simply the genetic issue.
For example, older men have higher rates of birth defects in their children. This I suspect is a phenomenon of evolutionary biology.
Older men also have higher rates of children with autism. It is not known whether this is genetic or the result of trauma in that older men are sometimes narcissistic themselves (perhaps the reason they were not able or interested in having children when younger) and are thus “bad dads.” Also, “bad dads” tend to mate with “bad moms” because the way people tend to attract others of the same emotional maturity/immaturity. So it would be a combination of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology.
Evolutionary psychology can change very fast, as we’ve seen in the last 40 years as women have gained economic autonomy. This changes the mating game so it matters what the woman does (as well as how young she is) and how emotionally available the man is (as well as what he does and how young he is, especially now that we know more about chromosonal deterioration in sperm and genetic problems that came from fathers are more understood). Women tend to want men the same age they are so they have less risk of spending older years alone, so this also makes it much harder for men who delay having children, particularly if there are emotionally available younger men around. I know a lot of these guys in their 40s and 50s who have really sort of missed out on what their lives were about, I’m afraid, because of this rapid change in evopsych.
Some people say “love conquered marriage.” And rightly so, as I believe that is how human beings develop best.
The fact that you’re married for the fourth time to a gorgeous former model who is several years younger than you (35? 36?) puts you in a difficult position to make this case, Huges. And now you’re working in the modeling industry!
Obviously, you’[re not in Hefner status,and I don’t infer that. But you’re also not exactly oblivious to beauty, judging by your choices.
Observer,
“You said “one out of twelve men alive today.†LOL. Thanks for wasting our time. This is why this kind of stuff makes me so angry.”
You’ve completely missed his point. Genghis Kahn was just an example of polygamy being highly a successful reproductive strategy. What percentage of the world’s population do you think a hypothetical monogamous Khan would have passed his genes to?
Also, if you get so frustrated at Tom and Corn Walker politely discussing an opinion and refusing to back down, perhaps you should reconsider the strength of your own argument.
You also seem to be confusing “is” and “ought”. Noting that humans/men may have evolved sexual preference for variety is not the same as saying polygamy is right. Commenters just took issue with Hugo’s throwaway assertion that “the weight of the evidence” disproved the point.
The problem I have with some of this discussion is the gender essentialism that assumes that a father or a mother is necessary because men and women are so different that a parent of each gender identity is essential for proper development. Also, some of the assertions in this thread are pretty offensive to adoptive families, many of which raise well-adjusted, happy children.
To say that *some* children might have done better with dual-gender parenting or that for *some* children the presence of both genetic parents is beneficial — well, that’s probably true in some cases, so no argument there. But to assert that it’s an evolutionary and psychological necessity is making a big claim — and a claim that’s profoundly insulting to families who are doing everything they can to create loving, healthy relationships with and for their children (same-sex parents, adoptive parents, straight parents who used donor sperm or surrogacy, etc.)
Keep in mind that the topic of this thread is the idea of older male entitlement to much younger women. Whether or not this developed as an evolutionary strategy, is it a good idea? As Dom points out, the question is an “ought” question rather than as “is” question. It’s demonstrably true that many men seek out a variety of much younger partners. It’s interesting to explore why that might be, but that’s not the ultimate goal.
@Tom
Even punctuated equilibrium, which isn’t a theory so much as a hypothesis about why the fossil record presents as it does, does not purport to happen in observable (i.e. within the span of human history) time; this is one of the misconceptions Gould and Eldgredge tried to later clarify. Even in the most charitable light (and the hypothesis is not without its critics) it still purports to operate on the geological time scale.
@Observer
Not at all. Child-rearing does take a lot of time, but if you read back you’ll see the ages you suggested are relative to our particular culture, where nutrition affects sexual maturity and cultural proscriptions against teenage sex and parentage affects age at conception. Biologically speaking, sexual reproduction is what matters and the imperatives for sexual reproduction were laid long, long ago. There’s nothing to suggest that in the last 15,000 years our cultural pressures on selection have favored, in a genetic sense, paternal investment.
The reason I mentioned other social forms of child-rearing is to make the point that paternal investment is only one form of ensuring children reach reproductive age. With several models from which to choose, we can’t infer that a particular model is biologically selected for. What we do know, however, is that mutations within species have the best chance of survival if they are widespread. If I have a mutation that provides me with resistance to malaria, and I don’t reproduce, then that mutation is a dead end. On the other hand, if I have many children with many women, the chances of the gene being perpetuated is high. The whole of it is this: the fewer children I have, and the less genetically varied those children are, the lower the likelihood that any genes unique to me will be perpetuated. This is what I meant when I wrote, “Those who reproduce more widely and more often are more likely, genetically speaking, to thrive.” While culturally we might prescribe paternal investment and proscribe against non-monogamy, biologically speaking my genes will do best if I spread them among as many women of optimal reproductive age (i.e. 16-24) as possible. To the extent that the mechanisms biology uses to accomplish this end is a hormone regulated psychology, so be it.
What percentage of the world’s population do you think a hypothetical monogamous Khan would have passed his genes to?
The back of my envelope suggests ~25%, but I didn’t include a migration model, which is almost certainly the limiting factor. Kublai the dirtfarming peasant who died in 1227 probably has million+ descendants. The number is probably totally disinteresting and expected in context.
And for that matter, Y-chromosome Adam and Mitocondrial Eve have 100%; neither was probably all that special in their day. (And all their ancestors have 100% as well, obviously.)
Comrade Svilova:
“Keep in mind that the topic of this thread is the idea of older male entitlement to much younger women.”
If Ms. Harris seems to think so, does it matter what anyone else thinks?
As far as evolution is concerned, Hefner is fighting his biology as best he can, and no one here should fault him for it.
Dom:
“You’ve completely missed his point. Genghis Kahn was just an example of polygamy being highly a successful reproductive strategy. What percentage of the world’s population do you think a hypothetical monogamous Khan would have passed his genes to?”
The difference isn’t as great as one would think. The bulk of his descendants came from the four sons he had with Börte, his wife: Jochi, Ögedei, Chagatai, and Tolui.
Hefner is fighting his biology as best he can, and no one here should fault him for it.
For one thing, individual choices are individual choices; best wishes to Hefner and his newest Playmate wife. But I believe Hugo was addressing the broader societal implications of this isolated individual example. And the problem I see with the biological imperative argument (in this case and in so many others) is that it can be taken as a justification for cultural or social norms that are either (1) possibly not entirely biological or (2) even if they are biologically driven, that doesn’t make them desirable. As Hugo says, many men are examples that men are perfectly capable of respecting women as full human beings, capable of loving women as they age, and capable of commitment, and biological imperatives do not prevent those men from behaving in what (many would argue is) a more mature and socially progressive manner.
@Brian: “Kublai the dirtfarming peasant who died in 1227 probably has million+ descendants.”
If I were going to design homo “built-to-lastiens”, disease resistance would probably be at the top of my list of traits. Where are Alexander’s millions of descendants? Genghis was a likely (but significant) fluke. I initially brought him up as a counterexample.
Back on topic: Hef has degenerated into something of a berobed caricature, but can anyone really say that the instinctive lust for a younger, more nubile partner, at any age, is all that artificial or alien? Time ravages everyone, eventually, and beyond the obvious physical charms, there’s something pretty blatantly symbolic about recapturing one’s better days through whom one can “land” as a sexual partner. Finally, people accumulate baggage as time goes on and it’s understandable if someone in their twilight years wants comfort not found in comparing scars with someone who has as many as they do.
Comrade Svilova:
“And the problem I see with the biological imperative argument (in this case and in so many others) is that it can be taken as a justification for cultural or social norms that are either (1) possibly not entirely biological or (2) even if they are biologically driven, that doesn’t make them desirable. As Hugo says, many men are examples that men are perfectly capable of respecting women as full human beings, capable of loving women as they age, and capable of commitment, and biological imperatives do not prevent those men from behaving in what (many would argue is) a more mature and socially progressive manner.”
The problem that I have with this line of thinking is that it removes women’s volition from the picture. It doesn’t make sense to consider Hugh Hefner’s desires without examining Crystal Harris’s.
Which is more adaptive for a man, putting a lot of parental investment into one child, or having several children by different women with a little parental investment, or having many children by different women with no parental investment?
The answer is “it depends on the environment”. In some ecologies with harsh conditions, a child may only be able to survive with investment from both parents. In other ecologies, single women may be able to raise viable children on their own. Even if those children aren’t getting ideal parental care, what matters is that they get enough care to survive and reproduce themselves.
Consequently, humans are wired with multiple mating strategies, and which ones come out depend on the environment.
The problem that I have with this line of thinking is that it removes women’s volition from the picture. It doesn’t make sense to consider Hugh Hefner’s desires without examining Crystal Harris’s.
I’m not examining Hefner’s desires. I don’t care why he wants to be with Harris. I don’t care if it’s because of biology or culture, and I don’t care about their relationship specifically.
The point is, is this model of relationships (the sugar daddy / sugar baby, vast age difference in which young women are the rewards for wealthy older men) symptomatic of how our society structures gender relations and is that a structure that we want or one we want to try to reject for something better?
I find it amusing that people here are wringing their hands and trying to come up with ways to describe Hefner’s life as one riddled by insecurity, and that the “Playboy” is the opposite of the “working man” who makes something of his life.
Hefner is in his 80′s and completely hale. He’s one of the most successful self-made tycoons in America’s history. His magazine took human sexuality out of the shame closet which the conservative culture of the 1950′s trapped it, and made it okay to be comfortable appreciating beauty and desire. And all the PC sex police get their knickers in a twist just because he hooks up with younger women, violating some feminist commandment apparently handed down on a tablet from Mount Sinai, that “Thou shalt only be turned on by people of your exact age!”
Let me say it loud and proud: I hope I can be like Hef when I’m old!
Martin, I’d then advise all women who are your age — or even only a decade younger — to give you a wide berth, given that you’ll toss them aside at the first chance.
Given your views, however, I suspect that most of them will have little trouble giving you that berth.
Hugo: It’s little wonder, then, that Hef has spent six decades chasing women in their early twenties. He’s sold himself on his own narrow vision of what is and isn’t desirable, and as a consequence has become incapable of experiencing sexual interest in any woman past the age of his Playmates.
Well, being Hef, he can obviously get the girls. So clearly this isn’t presenting him with a problem in life.
Obviously not all men have the options that Hef has. But I don’t think most men fail to understand that. If they fail to, it’s their problem. But if an 84 year old man has the choice between an 84 year old woman or a 24 year old woman, and the 24 year old is actually responding positively (due largely, one can admit, to the associated fame and wealth; I can understand the attraction to her of being left a mint in his will) — well, why not take the 24 year old?
Martin, I’d then advise all women who are your age — or even only a decade younger — to give you a wide berth, given that you’ll toss them aside at the first chance.
That’s a very large assumption to make about my own behavior, based on what I wrote, Hugo. I was just pointing out that I think it’s ridiculous to be so judgmental of Hef’s choices in life, particularly when the objection seems only to be that his choices don’t map to feminist or politically correct notions of what’s appropriate. No one is required to conduct their personal relationships only in ways that flatter anyone else’s ideology. The anti-gay marriage crowd has yet to learn that. And so, it seems, have you.
To be healthy, wealthy, and still sexually active in one’s 80′s — when most Americans don’t even live past 70-something — is indeed something I find admirable and worth aspiring to.
Ah, yes, this is all about one individual’s life choices (or maybe, the life choices of two individuals), and not at all representative of any kind of patriarchal social structure that grants beautiful young women as rewards to successful men.
Such a social structure would, perhaps, treat young women as objects and older women as invisible — simultaneously valuing men only by their wealth and external signifiers of success — and such a social structure would be pretty miserable for all of its inhabitants.
Thus, it can’t be real.
This must be all about Horrible (Shrill!) Feminazis Judging the Free Choices of Two Consenting Adults. How could it possibly be about systemic issues with our patriarchal culture? We’ve all drunk our kool-aid like good citizens of the megalocorpratheocratic nation state.
And now I will de-snark and wish every a happy new year’s eve. May the new year bring revolution and a bright new society of equality and humanity for us all!
Comrade Svilova:
“Such a social structure would, perhaps, treat young women as objects and older women as invisible”
I would agree that there are people who speak of women as passive, nameless, objects that are defined solely by their relationship to men.
Like this:
“My friend Bill asked me to post about 84 year-old Hugh Hefner’s announcement this week that he’s engaged to be married again, this time to a former Playmate exactly sixty years his junior.”
It would have been pretty unthinkable for him to say
“It was announced this week that Crystal Harris is engaged to be married for the first time to her former publisher who is eighty years her senior.”
Good point.
However, I hope that you don’t think that Hugo’s opening is the only example in society of treating women as passive, nameless objects. About 90% of mainstream movies made today not only function within this patriarchal paradigm — they embrace it and run with it. Playboy and that industry, ditto. Advertising, clothing manufacturers, etc. etc.
Basically, Hefner and Harris’ marriage isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s happening in a culture in which that kind of pairing is seen as perhaps a little extreme, but really only the realization of the system in which women are objects and men are valued by the number of woman-objects they can collect by leveraging their wealth and success.
As individuals, I wish them happiness. We all do what we can to get by and to survive in this culture. They’ve played the system more successfully than most, and I don’t doubt that they will probably do as well as they hoped to do as a married couple.
But the system in which this pairing is an extreme of an excepted and valued system (see Martin’s post about how he’d love to be in Hef’s position) — that system is fair game for criticism. I think we humans can do better than having one class of humans function as commodities and the other class valued based in part on how many commodity-humans they can collect.
Recall, there’s an easy explanation for that (and one I suspect you’re well aware of). Crystal Harris has practically no name recognition (or didn’t until now) whereas Hugh Hefner has nearly universal name recognition. Hugh Hefner is on his third marriage, but is more notable for his polyamorous (I’m sure the poly community would disallow him that title) lifestyle. The reason the story is notable is because it’s Hugh Hefner, not because it’s Crystal Harris.
Quick quiz: I’ll name the spouse, you name the celebrity. For bonus points, identify which were playboy playmates. (No cheating with Google) Go!
Freda Miller
Annette Kaye
Alene Akins
Micky Sutphin
Sharon Lepore
Julie Alexander
Shawn Southwick
Martin,
I think the intuition (correct or not) is that with such a large age-gap, it’s unlikely that Hefner and Harris have any true compatibility. As a result, it appears that Hef is marrying primarily on sex appeal rather than based on compatibility, and Harris is marrying primarily based on money and status rather than based on compatibility.
Since Hef has so many options, couldn’t he go for someone who he would be compatible with, even if it meant sacrificing some sex appeal? Can’t he find an attractive woman around 30-50 who would have a bit more life experience?
Hugo-
I understand what you are saying about the Playboy perspective on the world being negative, but you seem to assume some things about Hefner when you say that he has “sold himself on his own narrow vision of what is and isn’t desirable.”
I don’t actually know the man. Do you actually know him? Unless you actually know him you don’t really know why he seems to have the attractions that he does. It could be that he has “sold himself” on finding really young women attractive. It could also be that it happens to be his particular sexual orientation.
If it happens to be the way that he is oriented, he could probably overcome it and expand what he finds attractive with therapy. Whether he has a moral obligation to do so is between Hefner and God. It could also be that he seems to be interested in much younger women solely as a giant middle finger to society. I don’t know his motivations because I don’t actually know him.
“Assuming” is pitfall number one in any intellectual endeavor. I’ve been burned by it myself.
I remember reading that book while I was in college. At the time, I was active in the Democratic Socialists of America (which she co-chaired then and where she remains an honorary chair) and an enthusiastic gender egalitarian who was just beginning to stumble on the gender blind spots endemic to mainstream feminism. I looked forward to reading Barbara’s take on gender, given her generally insightful understanding of political economy.
The book was an eye-opener. It was, as I recall, almost devoid of empathy for the subject it was ostensibly scrutinizing. I was somewhat dumbfounded and crestfallen to discover that someone who could be so understanding of one realm of human experience could be so far off base in another. I have since learned that Barbara is by no means unusual in this regard.
“Is” /= “ought” — maybe Hefner is biologically programmed to want young women (although we can’t prove whether it’s because of biology or culture, a culture he actively promotes). But even if that is the case, that doesn’t in itself make his “desires” a good thing.
Actions are more important than “desires.” And Hefner’s marriage is occurring within a culture that he has helped to create and promote, a culture that values people not based on their humanity but based on their sexual attractiveness and compliance (women) and wealth and status (men). I do not believe this social structure is a positive thing, and any actions that support and promote it are dead weight on the system, dragging us further away from the goal of equality, humanity, and justice.
Comrade Svilova:
“However, I hope that you don’t think that Hugo’s opening is the only example in society of treating women as passive, nameless objects.”
No, the rest of the post was in the same vein, as were many of the comments in this thread.
“But the system in which this pairing is an extreme of an excepted and valued system (see Martin’s post about how he’d love to be in Hef’s position) — that system is fair game for criticism.”
Undoubtably. I’m waiting for you to get around to it.
“maybe Hefner is biologically programmed to want young women”
He’s 84 years old. His ‘biological programming’ is telling his body to kill itself. Chasing younger women is probably more of a habit.
Recall, you didn’t notice Hugo’s critique of the patriarchal system in which women are objectified and not treated as fully human and in which men are valued by money and status alone (and, thus, also denied their full humanity)? You may want to read Hugo’s post again and some of his other posts and some feminism 101 to boot.
I myself just assumed that readers of a feminist blog would be familiar with the feminist critique of patriarchy, which is why I didn’t do a complete analysis of the problems with our patriarchal system. But a clue is the fact that under this system both men and women are denied their full humanity.
I myself am in favor of full humanity for all people, whether gendered male, female, or otherwise; thus, although I support the rights of people to make their own choices within this flawed patriarchal system, I believe that the choice that Hefner and Harris have made is representative of an extremely problematic social and political structure. It is a symptom of the rottenness of our system.
Others in this thread seem to think that it’s a symptom of biology and thus inescapable. I’m with Hugo — I believe that we all (men as well as women) can move beyond biological imperatives to make choices based on an ethical system that is predicated on the full humanity of both men and women.
The more and more I read mainstream feminist discourse – nay – ANY discourse on the internet the more and more I’m turned off by the similarities to right wing religious busybody worrywart discourse.
We see the usual themes here – the shaming of people for their sexuality – the conflation of individual, personal choices about sexuality with immorality. We see plenty of “ick” reactions, we see people assuming the worst about other’s decisions.
I don’t know Hugh Hefner. I don’t care about Hugh Hefner. He can marry whoever he damn well pleases as long as she’s not underage and he didn’t force her by gunpoint.
In other words, I think American society would be better served by a bigger dose of “I don’t give a shit” when it comes to other people’s personal problems. I don’t care about Hugh Hefner? You know why? Because I don’t know him personally. If somebody wants to take him as an example of what they want to do in their life, well, that’s their decision. Let old people do whatever they want sexually, let women do whatever they want sexually, let men do whatever they want sexually, let everyone do whatever they want sexually.
In the meantime, I’m going to wish Hef a happy marriage. I’d do it for anyone else, why not for him? Seriously. Even if I were icked out over it, I’d at least have the humanity and decency to do so. Because not doing so would be identitical to those religious fundies who go “eeeeewwwwwwww” whenever two gay guys want to get married.
The feminists here aren’t saying that Hefner and Harris shouldn’t be allowed to marry. And in this thread I’ve said that as individuals, I wish them the best. However, the feminist posters are saying that their marriage — and the fact that it is seen as an aspirational model by some — is a symptom of a broader problem. When women are commodified and trade youth and sex for money and status, everyone loses.
Analyzing is not legislating. Nor is it hate-speech, physical violence, or psychological torture.
Right-wing fundementalists don’t just say “ewwww” regarding same sex marriage. They work to deny gays (and lesbians) equal rights, they force gay (and lesbian) youth into “conversion” programs, and they (at times) attack and/or kill gays (and lesbians) for their sexuality.
Feminists who see patriarchy as a problem approach that issue very differently — through discussing it, analyzing it, and seeking new ways of envisioning gender relations in the hope of a more just and equitable future. You may not agree with us that society would be better off without patriarchy, but please don’t conflate feminism with the violent and invasive attempts of right-wing Christians to impose an even harsher vision of patriarchy upon us.
Thanks comrade but I’m not buying it.
For one, I’d like to see a society without patriarchy as much as you would. (We can just toss that piece of straw to start out)
Second, of all, I don’t see how feminists get to say that cultural consensus building matters, and then turn around and discount the effects of their own words.
Hugh Hefner is an acceptable target. I get it. But the shit I hate is seeing everyone saying how “sad” his multiple marriages are.
and really, let’s be honest. If he were twenty years old and marrying these women, nobody would bat an eye. The age disparate thing is written on the tin at the top of this page – and most of the disgust in this thread has been elicited by the fact that Hefner is an old man. (We could also get into the topic of how people getting divorced and remarried are judged by society, but I’m not even going to open that can of worms)
So in essence, people care about this because they think that its tied to some “issue”. No, we’re not discussing Hugh Hefner anymore, we’re now talking about Hugh Hefner – the bad role model – corrupting the youth of america.
So, you might begin to see my trepidation at framing this entire discussion this way. It smells fishy. It smells houlier than thou- let me subject this random celebrity to some arbitrary moral standard that I’ve made up.
I know that right-wing fundamentalists are vastly worse. Sure, I’ll give you that. But the way that this thread has been framed – it sets us up to serve as moral guardians ™. Everytime we lend credence to the idea of moral guardians ™, we lend credence to the same idea that gives those bad, bad people strength.
I envision a society where individuals might have differing views on what is acceptable in marriage, in reproductive rights, but respect other people’s views enough that they allow others to live their lives as they wish. So while I think selecting partners in the same age range over and over again is kinda shallow, it’s my view, and I’m going to keep it to myself.
My reality: An old man who can have sex with a much younger woman must have two things: money and viagra. Viagra does away with the myth ‘old men can procreate’. (In most instances. Exceptions to rules, and all that.)
If Hefner didn’t have money, he would not be having sex with young women, period. His fiance will definitely move on to a much more attractive man; and in her mind, her own money to then make her own choices. Both will eventually get what they want, but make no mistake, if Hef didn’t have money, this event would not be taking place. Women, as a rule, don’t marry for sex. (Unless we’re talking Roseanne Barr. Again, exception to the rules exist; the majority are wealth related.)
The sad issue is that many 40, 50, 60 year old men who have grown up in the Playboy culture believe that they too can have endless variety like Hef. However, most don’t want to ‘pay’ for it. Most are coming out of very costly divorces. They seem to think those younger women really do ‘like’ them and desire their old, decrepit bodies. It boggles my mind that these guys ‘buy’ into that. These guys usually lie about their wealth, and the relationship ends when the woman wises up. I believe a lot of these liar men can’t date women their own age/class. These women are too smart, too savvy, and have their own money. They aren’t interested in a poor/lying man! If the particular man HAS money, and spends it on the young woman, they are a happy couple. Both prostitutes, but for different reasons. This has always been so. The run of the mill shlub, and the run of the mill chub, do not have these choices. They never will. THEY are the norm, but Hollywood doesn’t really have a need to tell a run of the mill story. No one wants to watch old, ugly people make love. (For that matter, I have no desire to see a naked Hugh Hefner or any 80-90 year old! That principle applies to both sexes!)
I have the same feelings with gay adoption. I don’t really care that the wealthy can do it. They can pay for the private, insulated schools, the world travel and places that are open to ‘new’. The problem is that the average citizen doesn’t have the resources to overcome the stigma, and I believe the child will then suffer. The people who can’t afford to live a life insulated from the savage remarks and shunning of the population in general will have a hard go of it. This is the same reason ‘average’ unwed mothers do so poorly. They are not equipped for the emotional and financial costs of raising a child.
But Sandra Bullock can do it!
But Hugh Hefner can do it!
Sorry, average Joe, Jane, you can’t.
I have to ask. What is really the problem? I have read quite a lot of feminist opinions on dating and the meat market, and it seems no matter how left-wing the author is there is one consistent theme that keeps reappearing when discussing dating. The meat market is and should be the randian utopia. If man fails to attract woman it is his own fault and he has only himself to blame. Man gets exactly the female company he deserves.
This would seem to be the exact same situation. Obviously in the completely unregulated market economy of human attraction Hugh seems to be in possession of a goods that women want to buy. Did he force his soon to be wife to marry him? Or did she make a choice that he had something she wanted to buy?
Oh and about the invisibility of older women. Feminists can’t have it both ways. They can’t first fight viscously for their right to any preference, even if that includes rejecting any category of men for any reason what so ever. And then after that come complaining when they themselves are no longer in the position of being desired.
Katy, excellent point about how “beta-males” are also cheated by the Patriarchy.
And David, the problem is, we don’t live in a patriarchy-free society therefore Hefner’s marriage is not a neutral personal choice, and instead it represents one of the terrible sides of patriarchy. Pretty much everything we do — any of us — enforces patriarchy because it is such a pervasive system. Thus, it’s all fair game for critique — including the young man who marries a woman just for her looks and the young woman who marries a young man just for his money.
But by all means, let’s retain the patriarchy, because it’s a great “Randian system,” whereby human beings and relationships between them follow a market model. Let’s just all be prostitutes, valued only for our marketability and cast aside as soon as we lose money/status/beauty.
Plus, the “unregulated meat market” is not a free and equal exchange but is infused with a regulated by patriarchy. So even if it were desirable to envision all human relations as a free and equal market economy (?!??!) that is not possible until we dismantle patriarchy.
And if we even have a hope of dismantling patriarchy it will be through examining and analyzing it wherever it appears. And that includes age-disparate relationships as well as pretty much every other facet of life.
but is infused with a regulated by patriarchy should have been “infused with and regulated by patriarchy.”
And just to reiterate, in no way do feminists seek to make human relations a market economy. Feminism is entirely opposed to the commodification of human beings — female or male. Feminism problematizes the fact that what we have now is a vision of human relations that is predicated on exchange. That model leads to rape, manipulative “sugar babies,” miserable “beta-males,” and impoverishes human experience all around.
Wishing it does not make it so. I hate seeing creepy old men with much younger mates. Usually, because HE is the stupid one. It’s nothing…but sad.
If you are a man, 60+ years old, and broke, your chances of landing a Playmate are nil. (Unless you rape her.) When I start seeing financially poor, gross old men ‘spreading their seed to willing nubile women, because that’s how nature programmed them’, I’ll buy the genetic argument. Most, if not all of these creepy pervs are on Viagra. That isn’t ‘nature’. In fact, it is gross, and I don’t like seeing it in public. How small minded and un pc I am.
Try going to an Alzheimer’s ward. Watch what (mostly) male patients try doing sexually, because their sense of shame is gone. Again, it’s gross…but not their fault. Why would I want to see someone who can’t claim Alzheimer’s doing the same thing? Sure, they are consenting adults. He pays, she collects. A regular business transaction that has been called prostitution for centuries. Those of us who use our brains know she is selling her soul. No old geezer that I know wants his daughter to sell her soul. Donald Trump’s daughter won’t marry an Octo geriatric. Wealthy young women DON’T. Can’t we be free to voice our disdain…without having PC screamed at us? I’m not the moral majority. I’m not a bible thumper. I’m human. I watch the train wrecks happen. Some things will NEVER change. Men may be programmed to want young, hot women. Women may be programmed to want a man with financial resources. Doesn’t mean they have a God given right to have it. Which is where rape and war come in, but I digress.
Even Hugo saw the light. He’s married. He’s monogamous. Sounds like he is happy. Maybe he figured out that committing to oneself, and then just one other is really the trump card most seek. Those kind of couples are the ones I smile at.
Cute joke, as with all good humor, wouldn’t be funny if it wasn’t true. Don’t read if you can’t take one:
Sitting in a bar the Scotsman says, “As good as this bar is, I still prefer
the pubs back home. In Glasgow, there’s a wee place called McTavish’s. The
landlord goes out of his way for the locals. When you buy four drinks, he’ll
buy the fifth drink.”
“Well, Angus,” said the Englishman, “At my local in London , the Red Lion,
the barman will buy you your third drink after you buy the first two.”
“Ahhh, dat’s nothin’,” said the Irishman, “back home in my favorite pub, the
moment you set foot in the place, they’ll buy you a drink, then another, all
the drinks you like, actually. Then, when you’ve had enough drinks, they’ll
take you upstairs and see that you gets laid, all on the house!”
The Englishman and Scotsman were suspicious of the claims. The Irishman
swore every word was true. Then the Englishman asked, “Did this actually happen to you?”
“Not meself, personally, no,” admitted the Irishman, “but it did happen to
me sister quite a few times.”
Katy, I’m not sure I follow what you’re trying to get at with that joke, and I don’t find it funny — especially because it is true that women get plied with drinks and then raped. I just don’t appreciate rape jokes, especially because the situations they play for laughs are real things experienced in the real world.
And I also wish you’d taken your analysis of Hefner further — as you point out, it’s his money that makes him desirable, and a man his age without the money would never be successful with 24-year-olds. You point out clearly how many men have different standards for their daughters and the women they sleep with, and how a market model for relationships makes all relationships prostitution.
But I don’t think it’s necessary to talk about Hefner or other older men as being “gross” and age-disparate relationships as something you wouldn’t want to see in public. We can take the discussion so much deeper without playing into the ageist narrative that old people are disgusting. Sexuality isn’t something that belongs only to youth, and I hope that I can have satisfying sexual relationships in my old age.
I just want my relationships (now and in the future) to be based on a model that is not one of prostitution or a market economy, but rather a model of partnership, companionship, shared pleasure, and deep mutual respect.
Yes, and that is the model I’d take for my own personal relationships. However:
1. I have no right to enforce that model on other human beings, apart from enforcing non-coercive interactions. If both parties entered willingly into the agreement, I. Don’t. Care. Moreover, even commenting on it enters the territory of the absurd. Do I feel the need to change the collective culture as a whole to conform more to my vision of what is the “correct” relationship?
2. Other than the fact that Hugh Hefner is crazy old and crazy wealthy, I have no idea if his relationship is the transactional account that you or others have put down.
Sure, it “fits” the narrative, but when has that been evidence for anything?
I mean, just look at what you’ve said.
“Sexuality isn’t something that belongs only to youth, and I hope that I can have satisfying sexual relationships in my old age.”
Right, and wouldn’t it crank you, if simply because of historical reasons, people labelled your marriages in old age as prostitution?
THAT is precisely what is being reinforced here. We couldn’t possibly envision Hefner’s marriage as anything else. Oh no, he’s married too many times. Oh, he’s too old. Oh, he must be using viagra. So, he must be some sad old man with emotional attachment issues.
I say, fuck that cynical thinking. I’d rather propagate a positive message about the world and people’s sexuality, than throw around epithets of “sad and disgusting”.
Comrade:
Rape? Where on earth did you get that idea? I take the joke as the complete opposite. ALL of our minds believe in the double standard; the joke merely points it out. No one reads that joke thinking about how women think. MEN would love ‘free’ sex and booze. Women get it offered to them all the time. I would know. I AM one! (I know the difference between an offer and force.)
I thought feminism had come far enough to allow me to suggest perhaps the woman in the joke was having a lot of sex, and liking it; I was not talking about rape. I have drunk the fruits of the grape before, and then had sex. It wasn’t rape! It was mutual!
There are things that are ‘gross’ when done in public. A kiss or a hug, no. A young couple holding hands, no. An 82 year old man sexually kissing and fondling a 22 year old woman? Yes. Again, my comment: wishing for it to be different doesn’t make it different. I believe most people would find it repulsive.
However, there are some things that should stay private. Just the other day, a teenager on a plane from Utah to Idaho was sitting next to a pervert who ‘massaged’ his penis while sitting next to her. In a free society, why do we find this….so….repulsive? Had she exposed her breast to him, I doubt it would have ended in her being arrested after deplaning. Double standard? Yes. How far have we come? In the ‘old’ days, the man would have been beat up on by the father/male relatives. Instead, said teen’s Dad called the airport police. I dunno, do you espouse pervs relieving themselves in public because they have an ‘itch’?
However, had Justin Beiber, or some age appropriate teen idol have been sitting next to the teen girl….perhaps things would have turned out differently. I know the term ‘groupie’. Had that happened, perhaps being a groupie, she would have seized the opportunity. It’s all context, and, to my mind, the reason women fought for some semblance of sexual equality.
In a perfect world, an 84 old man french kissing a much younger woman in public would be perfectly OK. However, in the real world, everybody is in on the secret. Either the girl is on drugs, or the man is paying, or both. It isn’t ‘lovely’, it isn’t ‘pretty’, and really, it cheapens real adult sexual relationships based on mutual attraction.
If an age appropriate 80ish couple was kissing that way in public, still, I wouldn’t want to watch; but there would be no ‘ick’ factor.
I was raised to have some public decorum. I like that about me. : )
All this angst about not embracing the beauty of an 84-year-old’s sexuality…tell ya what, as soon as Hef starts embracing some 84-year-old’s sexuality himself, I’ll think y’all all have a point, but since Hef clearly agrees that 84-year-old sexuality is nasty and that 24-year-old sexuality is to be far preferred, I really fail to see it.
Yeah, but we’re better than Hugh Hefner.
I believe that the religious right made the same fallacious argument when people wanted to build the “ground zero mosque”
They shouted and raged about how “We wouldn’t be allowed to build a church in Mecca, so why a mosque on ground zero in New York City?”
because the U.S. isn’t Saudi Arabia. because in this case, we’re trying to construct a cultural awareness that doesn’t shame people for personal decisions. We’re trying to move beyond petty, irrelevant bullshit.
Sometimes creating that environment requires extending compassion to everyone – even those who might not deserve it. Has apathy and a sense of “But they’re worse!” ever elevated a group to making real, long lasting changes?
Hugo, it is funny that you should write this. There was an article in the Huffington Post this week in which one of Hefner’s former bed-mates declares that he is a “cold fish” in bed. He just lays there and allows the women to pleasure him. He seems to have no desire or ability to pleasure the women he is with. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/30/former-playmate-izabella-_n_802754.html
David: you’re making a fallacious comparison here. The religious right wanted to forbid people to build a “ground zero mosque;” I have no desire to forbid Hef to do anything. I simply find his behavior distasteful, and I feel free to express that distaste publicly as he is deliberately publicizing his behavior. I’m perfectly fine with not promoting cultural acceptance of 84-year-olds with 24-year-olds and I think I’m not quite getting why I should want to do so. But I’d never remotely suggest that it should be forbidden.
David, perhaps you have no wish to change the dominant culture because you are fortunate to be in a position where that dominant culture hasn’t caused you to be sexually harassed, stalked, seen as the rightful property of older men just because they paid attention to you, propositioned by men twice or three times your age who felt entitled to your body, been on the receiving end of unwanted and unasked for attention in the form of gifts & sexually explicit messages from much older men who were determined to get your attention, etc.
I’m happy for you that the dominant culture has never caused you any personal problems and therefore you’re content to be theoretically “against” patriarchy without seeking to change it. I myself have seen my fair share of patriarchal BS and I definitely want to change it. By analyzing and discussing it. It doesn’t mean much to be “against” patriarchy and injustice while asking others to stop even talking about and problematizing these things you are supposedly against. If you don’t like hearing people discuss and analyze sexism and social injustice, why even stop by a feminist blog?
And Katy, I guess I didn’t read the joke that way, but I see what you’re saying about how it could be interpreted as enthusiastic consent on the woman’s part.
And LisaKansas, definitely agree with what you said about the problem that Hefner himself apparently sees the sexuality of 84-year-olds (84-year-old women at least) as unappealing.
And David, just so I make myself clear, I’ve said repeatedly that I do *not* think it is a positive step to call Hefner “sad” or “disgusting.” Nor do I want to forbid him from marrying young women. But I believe that it is important to look at the cultural forces that shape his, and everyone’s, choices.
Simply saying “I’m going to believe the best of everyone and tolerate everything” is never going to result in change. Making fun of Hefner will get us no where, but neither will endorsing his lifestyle and promoting it as a model of success. And right now, far, far more people see Hefner’s lifestyle as an aspirational model than otherwise. It’s important to ask why they see it as aspirational, how we can understand the cultural forces that shape Hefner’s choices and those who follow in his footsteps, and how we can create a discourse that posits a different model for human relationships.
Again, that’s only if one is seeking change. But seeking change is something that’s very important to feminism, so if you’re happy with the status quo, you may not find what you want on a feminist blog.
What some people don’t get is that different people find different things attractive in a mate. What Katy may find gross others may find attractive. The vast majority of people may not be attracted to people older than they are, but some (maybe a small percentage) are. Heck, a small percentage of people are attracted only to people of the same sex. The truth, however, is that a small percentage of millions of people is a lot of people. So . . . when my 30-year-old friend falls in love with an over 50 bodybuilder I can fret over the age difference or I can just be happy for her and wish them the best. When my 29-year-old friend falls in love with a not traditionally attractive woman in her mid 40s who has a ten year old daughter and a crazy ex-husband, I can worry about the situation or just be happy for him and wish them the best.
Katy-
1. Some people find interracial marriage disgusting to the same extent that you find age gap relationships disgusting . . .
2. Many men can father children later in life. Five years forward and the first age gap couple that I mention above have kids. If the ages of the parties involved were reversed it would require a spectacular miracle to naturally bring kids into the world.
3. Viagra and similar drugs are not natural, but most birth control isn’t natural either . . .
Lisa, to say that forbiddance was the main part of the religious discourse about the ground zero mosque would in fact be slightly misleading. There was also a large group of those, who in the wish of not appearing so intolerant, took a slightly sneakier route. There were those who said “I don’t want to prevent them from building it at ground zero, but…” and then continued to list a litany of illogical complaints about offended sensibilities and cultural sensitivity toward the families of 9/11 victims. Something doesn’t have to be an outright infringement of rights to be wrong.
Comrade, in response to your first post, I have been subject to sexual harassment in the past. Rather than elaborating further I’ll leave it at that.
For the second charge, that of being against patriarchy while secretly supporting it…
I suppose you’re confusing wishing for different means with wishing for different outcomes. Rather than having no wish to change the dominant culture (which again, is a fallacy you seem to have picked up on multiple times now), I do very much wish to change it. The way in which I think it will be changed is different.
I think that society will become more and more just when people wish to take less authoritarian and judgmental stances toward others. While you would deny it, speaking as if Hefner’s personal concerns are part of a greater societal ill is damaging. That particular take on this issue is simply an extension of prohibitive views of sex, marriage and personal freedom. The damage of people choosing to follow Hefner’s somewhat curious and privileged sexual lifestyle pales in comparison to the damage that results from we, as a culture, deciding that we’re fit to make judgments about moralities that are different from ours.
There was an episode of Nip/Tuck once that reversed the situation, with a 30-something boytoy who was getting plastic surgery at the behest of his 80-something sugar mama. As I remember it, he was frustrated that she hadn’t died yet and left him her money, but then he had a stroke or something on the operating table, which made the situation all the more pathetic for him. I thought that it brought home that, in all likelihood, anyone doing the arm-candy/kept-man-or-woman thing is probably doing so for something other than hot burnin’ love for a living California raisin. Is that wrong? The envy for Hef probably comes from the fact that, as commenters have pointed out, he’s able to do what few other 84-year-olds ever would. All else being equal, I doubt that anyone would want the same sexual partner at 84, or 54, or even 34, if they could have them at 24, but most of us won’t have those options at 84. For Ms. Harris’ part, I suppose without Hef, she’d go as far as whatever skills or education she has would take her, perhaps marrying another twenty-something entertainer starting his career as well. I’m not qualified to make that choice for either of them, and most of us will never be in the position to make a similar one.
Oh and as an aside to this discussion: If one feels that an idea in society is damaging I am a firm proponent of providing an alternative to that idea instead of simply tearing it down. If people disagree with Hefner’s choices I’d much rather see them posit loving, healthy relationships between two similar aged individuals as an alternative – rather than feeling a need to tear down or isolate anyone or any group that doesn’t conform to their ideals. Positivity over negativity.
Just curious, you said you had issues with age-disparate relationships. I must admit to being a new reader, so I don’t know what your issues are in a general sense, nor what you consider to be the dividing line there… Is 5 years too much? 10? 20? I’ve had relationships with people twice my age (I was in my 20s), and people half my age (she was in her 20s). My current primary relationship is 11 years younger than I, and my secondary is 8 years older. The 3 of us often date together, as a group of 3. Which creates a 29 year gap between the two women. I haven’t found much in the way of age related difficulty, even though societal myths usually say age-disparate relationships are not a good idea. But perhaps the gaps I’m discussing aren’t large enough?
David, obviously we disagree about how to seek change. The problem for me is that there’s almost nothing about the status quo of our current culture that I think is positive, so there’s nothing for me to affirm in what I see around me. I myself constantly engage is patriarchy promoting behaviors — the dominant paradigm is “dominant” after all. Thus, I think everything is fair game for analysis and critique. And popular culture (of which the news about celebrities’ lives is a large part) is one of the strongest forces promoting and reinforcing the dominant paradigm.
I wish you could understand that when a wealthy, older man marries a woman sixty years younger, people can ask “what generally makes such pairings appealing? what does that say about our culture? would such a pairing with the genders reversed be as likely? why or why not? what does that say about our culture?” WITHOUT saying that old people or the particular man in question is “gross” or “disgusting.” This really isn’t about Hefner for me, as I’ve noted again and again. It’s not about demonizing his choices and sexuality. It’s about using celebrity news and the way it is treated and received as a springboard to analyze real problems in our culture. It’s about the audience for this news about Hefner, not about Hefner himself.
I’m sorry that you’ve been sexually harassed in the past, and I respect your choice not to talk about it further. For me, when I’ve been sexually harassed and stalked it has been, repeatedly, by men who felt entitled to my attention and to my body, despite my express lack of interest, and in several cases an inappropriate age difference (I was 16, he was 35; I was 17, he was 52; I was 22, he was 65). Where did their sense of entitlement come from? I don’t believe it developed in a vacuum. It developed within a culture that expressly and repeatedly sends messages that men are entitled to beautiful women (as long as those men are wealthy enough, persistent enough, etc etc). There is nothing positive about those cultural messages, and a specific example of them is the media’s treatment of Hefner now, and throughout the years. There are countless other examples, of course, and I criticize them as well.
There are simply too many problems with the status quo for me to sit back and say “all (legal) choices and all (legal) things are great, I wish everyone well.” There’s a lot that is legal in this world that is directly producing cultural forces that impede my ability to maintain my bodily autonomy, my ability to be taken seriously at work, my ability to be treated fairly in dozens of situations, etc. I’m going to criticize it all.
Dear Comrade
The only thing I see here is that Hugh has managed to obtain the flipside of an often used feminist argument. The female right to preference and choice implies exactly the randian situation I previously described. The meat market is one of the very few markets that is completely unregulated. This is something feminists often support loudly. Even if this implies a paretto distribution of sexual encounters for men. The viewpoint is often that a man gets precisely the female attention he deserves. If he is rich, tall, handsome and charming it’s only fair that he belongs to the 20 percent. If he is short, fat, unemployed and lives in his parents’ bassement, then it is only fair that he belongs to the 80 percent. I fail to see what the difference is here. Hugh obviously has what it takes to be a winner in the unregulated meat market, and thus only deserves the female attention he gets. The flip side of the same argument often used to tell men that they should blame only themselves when they don’t attain the female attention they would like.
Sorry, I am not in favor of a market economy for human relations, as I noted before.
Most feminists do believe that no one has to have a relationship with someone else against his or her will. But the solution we seek is not a market economy model. It’s a solution where those categories of “top 20%” and “bottom 80%” (which are due to artificial markers like wealth and status) disappear, and people are treated as full human beings. No one would be guaranteed a relationship, but everyone would be guaranteed their full humanity. The market economy system we have now doesn’t even guarantee people their basic humanity.
I also notice that you didn’t even respond to my point that the “unregulated meat market” is in fact heavily regulated by patriarchy — a force that is extraordinarily detrimental to both men and women. We would all be better off without the patriarchal meat market, which is what determines that some men are “alphas” and “betas,” instead of simply “human.”
Just because women and men have the right to choose with whom they have sex doesn’t mean that the current model for how people are evaluated as potential mates is positive. Open your mind and imagine what it would be like if people were no longer judged by the foolish and detrimental markers of patriarchy, and were instead treated as fully human. Hint: it would be good for everyone!
Comrade Svilova
You talk about that you are not for a market economy model of relationships. Yet you fully support positions that can only lead to a complete and unregulated market for relationships. This means that some men will gain tremendously and some men will lose tremendously. Compare this to Hugh and basement-dwelling loser.
Regarding your following paragraph, I am yet to see anyone showing that these markers are artificial. Where are the feminist women parading their loser boyfriends? Could you show me some? The way I see it, we all try to get the best we can. This means some win big, some lose big.
Could you elaborate on how the meat market is heavily regulated by the patriarchy? Does some mysterious conspiracy of older men send mind control beams into the brains of women? Oh and regarding alphas and betas I would say women are pretty good at labeling men that way as well.
Could you please tell me how this utopia of yours would look? Would women no longer flock to tall rich, handsome guy? Would fat, loser guy suddenly become attractive?
I see that you are unfamiliar with how the patriarchy functions. You can find out more here:
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/21/faq-isnt-the-patriarchy-just-some-conspiracy-theory-that-blames-all-men-even-decent-men-for-womens-woes/
I’ll just highlight this passage, which is very appropriate to the topic at hand:
Not all men are Patriarchs. A Patriarch is a man who has special power and influence over not just his family but also in society, due to privileges gathered through intersections of age, wealth, achievement, lineage, patronage and the exploitation of others as these attributes add to his place in the elite social hierarchy.
Non-elite men do not generally actively conspire with Patriarchs (although they may aspire to become one)
The very categories of “desirable” and “loser” as we currently understand them are dictated by patriarchy. So yes, if we dismantled the patriarchy, then men would no longer be valued as they are currently.
And because patriarchy is a pervasive and all-encompassing system, we all participate in it and reinforce it. So of course women label men according to the values of patriarchy, just as women label each other as sluts and prudes; patriarchy is the dominant paradigm, from which it is incredibly difficult to free oneself. But if we can work together we can move towards a world in which all of this would fall away.
Dear Comrade Svilova
Then I suggest you take the first step. I would also recommend you to urge women to take the first step. An movement claiming to be for equality, yet still always making claims on men and then neglecting to claim things from women will have a hard time making itself believable.
Just because you’re ignorant of how much feminist discourse examines what women can do to affect change doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. It is a central part of discussions among feminists, online and IRL. Your ignorance proves nothing except that you are ignorant.
And while women are working together to make the world better for women and for men it would be nice if men would join us rather than just waiting to reap the fruits of our efforts.
Shorter Comrade Svilova: Humans of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Comrade Svilova:
“Recall, you didn’t notice Hugo’s critique of the patriarchal system in which women are objectified and not treated as fully human and in which men are valued by money and status alone (and, thus, also denied their full humanity)? You may want to read Hugo’s post again and some of his other posts and some feminism 101 to boot.
I myself just assumed that readers of a feminist blog would be familiar with the feminist critique of patriarchy, which is why I didn’t do a complete analysis of the problems with our patriarchal system. But a clue is the fact that under this system both men and women are denied their full humanity.”
The patriarchy doesn’t prevent one from looking up Ms. Harris’s name. It seems like you’re bending over backwards to excuse Hugo’s use of objectifying language.
I really don’t think Hefner or the Sexual Revolution or photo-based pornography invented the phenomenon of men of all ages lusting after fantasy objects embodied by young women. Forget the women of the 1,001 Nights or Nausicaa in The Odyssey… what about the ballerinas of Degas, the “Gaiety Girls” pursued by their bourgeois “Stage Door Johnnies” in 1890s London, the ballet dancers who live as the kept women of Army officers in the novel Anna Karenina?
I don’t want to get into feminism bashing now that the conversation has turned away from talking about my direct concerns with hating on other people’s sexuality. I’d rather talk about some experiences of mine that I remembered because of this post and these comments:
My experience with feminism is complicated. Before in college I didn’t take any women’s studies courses. This experience is typical of most males. Probably typical of most women too.
But I was active in my college’s message board as a frequent commenter. I participated in the variety of discussions that happened there. Some of those focused on gender.
My take away from those discussions was that, while I still considered myself a feminist ally at the time (even though I wouldn’t have thought of it in those words) – there were definitely more nuanced positions that were not feminist and I still considered to be alright.
After college, I took a sojourn on the internet. In a sort of lame metaphorical sense – mostly I just had way too much free time while finding a job. In those first days, I found some feminist blog. I don’t remember how – I simply remember that it happened while following a link from some other news site. Something like that.
The conversation was lively, and I had a different enough position from the posters there to want to post.
After posting, I was unceremoniously flamed. Alright, I thought, feminism can’t be that bad – I’ll try again. After peeling the seared strips of skin from my face I realize I couldn’t have been more wrong. That was the first time I encountered an unexamined assumption in myself. It goes as follows:
“A bunch of right-wingers hate feminism. So, that means that the majority of criticisms of feminism must be wrong”
I construct this argument now to look as fallacious as possible – but it was true back then that on some emotional level I considered feminists correct because they were on the left and politically affiliated with most groups I considered “correct”.
In my journey of the internet I discovered this assumption to be false. Actually, I think this has made me a better consumer of politics. This experience forced me to consider that I should really examine my own beliefs to ensure that they are correct.
It also forced me to examine the negativity in the political movements that I identified myself with. I think both liberals and conservatives have become a lot more negative of late. I speak from an American, or U.S. perspective here. I don’t know if it started with the Republicans and their obnoxious way of calling Democratic legislators “Democrat legislators”. I’m not sure if it came as a result of Republicans calling Obama a socialist, or of Democrats calling the Republican party “tea baggers” or “wingnuts”. What I do know, is that I now cringe whenever I hear any of those terms.
Hell, I know I need to check myself more. I used the term fundie a few posts ago. It’s sort of a passive-aggressive nonsense term just meant to vent frustration. But, I do think we can demand more of movements that we affiliate with. I think that introspection, and moreover positivity make social movements stronger. I do think that feminism would benefit greatly from this lesson. I do think that MRA’s and their ilk would benefit greatly from this lesson.
tl;dr. If being positive (in a strong way, not in a milquetoast agree with everyone sort of way) isn’t in style right now I don’t care. I’m tired of people justifying anger with the trope of “if you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention”. To all who would say that, I say: “If you are angry, then you’re not thinking”. A social movement based off of anger can only reap the seeds of anger sown.
Slightly off-topic, but appropriate with the amount of cross-talk and bickering I see on the internet.
Okay. I haven’t read all 101 posts, so direct me if I’ve missed it. My question is, are there any reports of Hugh seeing the beauty and brilliance in women closer to his age? Why does he not see it in women in their 60′s, 50′s or 40′s, even 30′s? There are AMAZINGLY beautiful, fit, sexual goddesses in these age ranges, and fertile ones in their forties and thirties. Does Hugh ever “enjoy” these women? What are his definitions of beauty and desirability?
As a notorious, cult-level “leader” in societal trends and norms, his choices direct the impressionable masses. Obviously, this the reason why his choices perturb so many.
Oh, those feminists and their loud mouths. Won’t they ever shut up?
It’s interesting that you conflate ‘regulation’ with questioning. Are we not allowed to talk about why people make the choices they do, or how our society values those choices, because regulation will magically spring up around us?
Jonestown was a cult. Kim Il Sung has a personality cult.
The most Hugh Hefner has are millions of men that use his magazine as masturbation material and vaguely aspire to be as youthful (or have as many sexual partners as he) when they’re old.
As for attractive women, if he misses out, his loss.
mythago
I see you failed atempt at sarcasm. However, there is a vocal support among feminists for the totaly unregulated meat market. ‘Female right to preference’ I believe it is usually called. Thus, the same has to apply to men. So feminists should at least have the decency to present a consistent argument.
Regarding your secondary statement, I ask again. What exactly is wrong with what Hugh does? He has managed to secure a place among the 20% in the Paretto distribution, and as long as the women who have sex with him do so of their own free will, I fail to see the problem. What is the problem?
Hi Hugo-
Regarding “Hef has done more than his share to contribute to the sexual invisibility of older women.”
That’s laying a lot on one old man. And it also smacks of a knee-jerk reaction.
Did you know that Hef extends a lifetime open invitation to all former playmates to attend events at the mansion? Surely if he thought women had an expiration date he would not allow his grounds to be littered with aging centerfolds.
(I have attended two events at the mansion and have met former playmates from the 1970s who have informed me of the open invitation policy, btw.)
Throughout his life Hef has been doing what every man wants to do: have multiple, beautiful sex partners. This is nothing new. Men have been doing it for ages. You’ll even find the practice in the bible.
More important: Hef has managed to have multiple sex partners openly, without deception. (Unlike, say, Bill Clinton or a certain women’s studies professor.) He seems to be on good terms with his exes.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-04/hugh-hefner-newly-engaged-responds-to-complaints-from-ex-playboy-bunny/?cid=hp:mainpromo6
Also, before you put the blame on Hef for the invisibility of older women, you should be aware that he hasn’t been running the Playboy empire in nearly 30 years. Daughter Christie became president of Playboy in 1982 and in 1988 ascended to CEO, a position she held until 2009.
CLF, where in the bible is there approval by God for men pursuing multiple beautiful sex partners? There was a lot of murder back in the day.
Murder is natural. Cancer is natural. An average life expectamcy of 40 is natural. Nature is vicious. We are here to overcome our natural instincts as following them gets people killed and neglected. Society is about modulating our desires so our pleasure doesn’t come at the expense of others, a point Hugo often makes.
Oh, and Hugo had many sex partners a long time ago. He has repeatedly said he regrets his past promiscuity. Men can change. The difference between Hef and Hugo is that the former has never changed, never grown up.
CLF, where in the bible is there approval by God for men pursuing multiple beautiful sex partners?
I’m going to jump in here, because while I agree with your conclusion, Geni, I know that people are going to jump all over this premise. Because unfortunately, God’s approval for men having multiple beautiful partners (and often doing whatever they wanted with women) is a major feature of the Torah.
Genesis is full of it. All those patriarchs had tons of randy sex with their wives, concubines, slaves. They even could use their slaves to protect their friends, as when Lot and a man in Judges let their daughters/concubines be gang raped to protect angel-strangers. God was cool with that and even thought Lot was the “only virtuous man” left in the land. Wow, right? Just wow.
My point is that, yes, God clearly approved of multiple partners, at least back in the day. The New Testament may have changed everything, but as an atheist Jew, I don’t really care.
Geni’s overall point is still good, however. Whatever people did in the past — either with God’s approval (if you believe in hir) or in the Caveman Days — doesn’t necessarily offer the best model for what we should do today. There’s no logical connection between “this happened in the past” and “this is a good idea.”
Finally, I’m going to differ from Hugo and Geni on the idea that monogamy is more mature. I’d be poly if my monogamous partner were cool with it, but he isn’t, so I’m happily monogamous for his sake. Personally, it’s not the concept of multiple partners that I find problematic and immature, it’s the concept of people being valued for only a small, patriarchy-approved aspect of who they are — the women for their looks, the men for their status and money. That vision of the world seems sadly impoverished, and I strive for a world of better, richer, fuller lives and love lives!
But Comrade Svilova, I wasn’t denying that there is a lot of sexual misuse of women in the Torah/Genesis. But Lot isn’t unfaithful to his wife until his wife dies and his daughters seduce him (I know, yuck.) Abraham only sleeps with Hagar after his wife asks him to. The rapists of Dinah are punished. Jacob wanted to be with Rachel only, and it was Rachel’s father who forced him to also be with Leah. And the most righteous of all the patriarchs, Joseph, demonstrates that righteousness by refusing to sleep with Potiphar’s wife. (And yes, Hugo taught me a lot of that in class and in this blog.)
Yes, I know not everyone agrees on monogamy. It’s still what most people, including women, really want, or so I think…
Hmm, I guess I hadn’t thought about the Torah stories from that perspective; just that it was clear that polygyny (specifically) was not a “mortal sin” or some such. But that’s an interesting way to see them. Thanks for the perspective.
I guess I’m still hesitant to claim that most people want/need/should be monogamous. I think the problems with the Playboy lifestyle go deeper than non-monogamy, too, and I’d rather problematize those elements (especially objectification). I guess, while respect and monogamy are often correlated, I don’t think that they are contingent upon each other. Whereas objectification and transactional sex seem to be rarely (if ever) connected to true respect for a partner’s full and beautifully complicated humanity.
I’d rather not problematize any two people’s victimless consensual choices. What is very well an aspirational model for you and me might not be for other people.
The dominant paradigm is not a victimless consensual choice made by two people. And the dominant paradigm (that women must be beautiful to valued, that men must be wealthy to be valued) is what I’m criticizing.
It’s cool that you don’t want to criticize anything, and I definitely agree with you that being positive and focusing on the positive aspect of a situation is one way to seek change.
But when I say “I have these problems with the dominant paradigm” please do me the courtesy of acknowledging that what I’m talking about is much more important, pervasive, and problematic than Hugh Hefner’s marriage. If Hugh Hefner had never lived, the dominant paradigm would be what it is. And I would still criticize it. It is so far from a victimless crime that we are all its victims in some way or another.
You deal with the problems with the dominant paradigm by focusing on the positive; I deal with the dominant paradigm by analyzing the shit out of it. Two valid choices.
Let’s not fight amongst ourselves but seek the best for humanity in our separate ways.
Our choices are not made in vacuums, and we need to remember that two people’s choices tend to impact others. Y’all act as if I’m proposing a ban on age-disparate unions; as long as the younger party is over 18 and not under the current professional or educational supervision of the older, it’s all legal beagle. But to paraphrase Paul, since we’re rockin’ the Bible here, “all things are permissable, but not all things are beneficial.” We do right to ask questions about how the culture shapes and mediates what we think of as “our” “natural” desires.
Criticizing the paradigm “a woman must be beautiful to be valued” and “a man must be wealthy to be valued” is worth it.
To me, this is fundamentally different from criticizing an individual’s choices because they are associated with this model.
I concede that criticism does have value. My only point – my main one – is that such criticism shouldn’t take up the mantel of self righteousness in order to do so.
Comrade Svilova:
“It is so far from a victimless crime that we are all its victims in some way or another.”
Ok, I’ll bite, how does it victimize me?
May I suggest that, while it may not be to your personal liking, a kind decent compassionate older man who enters into a loving, mutually respectful and monogamous relationship with a younger woman, who is of legal age and not under his formal supervision, is very vary far from the worst thing a man could possibly do. All of us, I believe, should be permitted a few personality quirks and preferences that may not be what others think ideal, but also give us the space to nurture our unique souls in ways that only we really understand. If an otherwise decent older guy chooses younger women as the personal quirk he needs to nurture his soul, perhaps we should step back and not assume so much.
There are things in this world that are universally bad and there are things that are sometimes bad, but also sometimes really good. As we make our way through life, all decent people should get to pick a few things from the second list without judgment. A preference for a sexual partner outside one’s age bracket is one of those second list items.
Recall, there’s plenty of information out there on how The Patriarchy Hurts Men Too. Google is your friend.
Skylark, sure, it’s not the worst thing someone can do. But I’m capable of being critical of both The Worst Things The Patriarchy Leads To and also More Minor Things That Are Symptoms of Patriarchy. If you can’t multi-task like that, by all means, only criticize the things that you feel are The Worst Aspects of Patriarchy Ever.
We do right to ask questions about how the culture shapes and mediates what we think of as “our†“natural†desires.
Exactly. No one has to do this, of course. But why all the hating on those who DO want to examine cultural and social forces and how they affect us all?
I’m real late to this party becauee I thought I didn’t have anything to add, but I have to say that Comrade Svilova is making a really obvious and I think pretty uncontroversial point. In this society there is a certain demographic in which hot young babes and rich old men (and rich young athletes) are considered rpizes and the cultural system grants them to what it identifies as “winners”. It takes people lots of talent and struggle to master athletic skills, drive and unscrupulousness ot amass fortues, and lots of breast augmentation and body image obsession to win these stakes, but there thousands who manage it and millions who dream of it.
Sure there are old people who are “decent compassionate older man” but Hef has had 50 years to show he’s that kind of guy, and I’m not seeing it.