Monthly Archives: August 2011

Not being able to trust praise: why erotic capital, isn’t

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And a follow-up to yesterday’s post on erotic capital at GMP today: “I Can’t Trust Your Praise”: Why Erotic Capital Isn’t Capital.

Conclusion:

It’s been more than 13 years since I slept with a student who was in my classes. And of all the people I hurt with my selfish, narcissistic behavior during my acting-out years, Claire was one of those the memory of whom has haunted me the longest. The amends I made to her may have been sufficient; it was the best I could offer. But she is one of those who has spurred me not only to change my life, and change it radically, but to be such a public advocate for banning “consensual” sexual relationships between profs and students. And she is one of those of whom I first thought when I read about Catherine Hakim’s thesis.

When the person with whom you are getting naked is also the person evaluating your work and your intellectual ability, the potential for crippling self-doubt will always be there. There is no capital in that.

Read the whole thing.

Erotic Capital and Myths of Male Weakness

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Catherine Hakim, a professor at the LSE, has been getting a fair amount of press for her Honey Money: The Power of Erotic Capital. Though the book has not yet been released Stateside, it’s stirred up considerable controversy in the British press — and stoked the dark fears of Men’s Rights Activists in this country. So it’s the subject of my column today at Good Men Project: “Exploit Men Whenever You Can”: Erotic Capital and the Myth of Male Weakness.

Excerpt:

Hakim’s thesis is as insulting to men as it is to women. What she’s hawking, with her crude call for women to exploit the “male sex deficit” to their advantage, is the hoary old myth of male weakness. That myth suggests that men have such a strong sex drive that they can be easily manipulated by women. The myth of male weakness is why we often cast more blame on the woman who sleeps with the married man than on the dude himself; the myth of male weakness is why we blame scantily-dressed women for “distracting” innocent men on the street and in the workplace. Women, as Hakim insists, aren’t that interested in sex to begin with – so they don’t have the same vulnerability to lust. But men’s frailty is women’s opportunity, she reminds us. And it’s an opportunity women shouldn’t be ashamed to seize.

Because men are so weak, good looks and flirtatiousness – the basic currency of erotic capital – don’t just supplement a woman’s intellect. Rather, they can serve to cover up deficiencies in ability or experience. The power of erotic capital lies in men’s willingness to choose sex over anything else. Play your cards right, Hakim seems to be saying, and a male boss will promote you to a position for which you are unqualified based on his attraction to you. Exploit the male sex deficit, she suggests, and your sex-starved professor may just give you a grade you haven’t earned.

Role/Reboot picks up the piece as well, and runs it with a different subtitle and a different image, which changes quite a bit.

The First Day of School and Imposter Syndrome

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An updated version of a post that appeared last year.

The fall semester begins today at Pasadena City College. If you look back through my archives, you’ll see that I usually have a “first day of school” post up on the last Monday in August. This year shall be no exception.

My mother tells me that my formal education began forty-one forty-two autumns ago, in September 1969. I was two when I first went to Santa Barbara’s long-vanished Humpty Dumpty Nursery School. Since that year of Woodstock and moon landings and the amazing Mets, I’ve been in school every fall without fail. I went from nursery school to graduate school without a break, and began teaching full-time at the community college while still finishing Ph.D. work at UCLA. I’m in my fifth decade in the educational system, which astounds me. And I’m beginning my eighteenth 19th year as a professor at PCC; this year, my youngest students will have been born after I started teaching here.

In August 2004, I wrote about still having butterflies in my stomach the first time I met a class. Six Seven years later, things remain very much the same in my innards. I wrote then of the reasons for my nervousness:

The obvious question is this one: why, after all this time, do I still get so nervous about the first day of school? It’s not stagefright; public speaking has never been a fear of mine. It’s not new material, at least not this year; all four courses I am teaching this fall are courses I have taught in the past. It’s not fear that my students won’t like me; though I do struggle with vanity, it’s not at the root of my jumpiness this morning. All three of these might be small factors at different times, but the core reason for this almost-pleasant state of anxiety is more basic: I still believe that I have the best job in the whole dang world, and I can’t believe they pay me to do it.

Even after all these years of full-time teaching (the last six 13 with tenure), I still expect someone to show up, and with an apologetic and yet officious tone, tell me “We’re sorry, Hugo, we made a mistake hiring you. There was this terrible mix-up, you see; we intended to get someone else. Though I can assure my readers that I did not lie or stretch the truth when I applied for this job, somehow after all this time I still suspect that I “got away with something” when I was hired to teach here.

I’ve talked about this with my parents and other colleagues who teach. My father (who taught philosophy for forty years at Alberta and UCSB) calls this feeling the suspicion of one’s own fraudulence. That phrase seems to sum things up nicely. Whenever I share these feelings, I note that it is often my most talented colleagues, students, and friends who say Really? That’s how I feel too! (One of the worst teachers I ever worked with, now thankfully retired, claimed never to feel this way.) I wonder if there isn’t some connection between periodic bouts of self-doubt (the imposter syndrome) and the drive to prove one’s self. Actually, that’s silly: I don’t wonder that at all, I know it with total certainty!

My office is a cheerful mess, I’m caffeinated and be-BrooksBrothered and readier than ever to begin the grand journey again.

UPDATE: Both in person in the hallways, and on my Facebook page, former and soon-to-be-current students have wished me “good luck” today. This isn’t new; I’m wished good luck each time a new semester begins. It might seem odd to wish it to the tenured professor; I’m not applying for anything, I’m not being evaluated this semester, and I’m not trying to get into a class. But I’m wished luck nonetheless.

I like to think it’s more than just a pleasantry offered when someone begins something new (or in my case, resumes an old and familiar task.) I like to think that it’s because even the very young recognize that there is an element of chance and mystery in teaching; some classes sizzle with chemistry while others, as we all acknowledge, are duds. Perhaps they are wishing me great students, or wishing me success in avoiding spilling on myself or teaching with my fly unzipped. Or perhaps they know that anything really can happen in the classroom, from the marvelous to the heartbreaking, and they are wishing me luck and grace and strength to cope with whatever comes, and to be as present and effective as I can be for all whom I will call my students.

The enduring appeal of tattoos

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My column at Healthy is the New Skinny focuses this week on tattoos and piercings:My Body Belongs to Me. Excerpt:

An eyebrow or lip piercing that seems to “mar” a pretty face is a way for the owner of that face to say, “Hey, this belongs to me, not you.” That’s a powerful and appealing statement.

I’m not saying that teens only get tattoos as an act of rebellion; it’s obvious that there are as many reasons for getting tats or piercings as there are people who get them. But there’s no question that the desire to mark the body as one’s own (rather than one’s parents, or one’s peers, or the fashion industry’s) is a huge part of the appeal of permanent body modification. But tattoos or piercings aren’t for everyone. Without judging or criticizing those who do choose to tattoo or pierce, we need to work harder to give young women alternative strategies for taking public ownership of their bodies. Whether inked or not, every girl deserves the reminder that her body belongs to her alone.

Our Kind of People

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The Good Men Project reprints a slightly altered version of an old post of mine today: Our Kind of People, Class, and Pride.

I wonder, reading it again, if I haven’t fallen into classic trap of the privileged white person: getting absolution from a poorer, browner person. Is “Oscar” (the story is real, name changed) my “magic Mexican”? (See the concept in film of the “magic Negro”, the wise black character who inspires transformative change in the white person, who is the real hero of the story. See “The Help”, “Green Mile”, and a hundred other films.)

I hadn’t thought about that before. Wondering now.

The opposite of man is boy

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We’re in Missoula, wrapping up a visit with my sister, nephew and brother-in-law in this splendid Montana college town.

My column at GMP this week: The Opposite of Man is Boy, Not Woman.

The conclusion:

If we really are in a “man crisis” in America, I suspect it’s rooted as much as anything else in this fundamentally mistaken belief that manhood needs to be about rejecting anything that smacks of the feminine. With fewer and fewer all-male preserves left in our society, guys who cling to this outdated notion of what it means to perform masculinity will indeed feel themselves at a loss. But if we understand masculinity as something we choose to perform—and grasp that at its core, that performance is about distinguishing ourselves from immature boys rather than women—we can still find something pleasurable, meaningful, and redemptive in acting like “real men.”

Managing editor Lisa Hickey responds here.

Men, MILFs, and the Madonna-Whore Complex

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Eira and I are home from our trip to Israel (I’ll try to write something about that soon). We’re off to Montana on Sunday, so the summer travels aren’t entirely concluded.

I do have a quick piece up at Good Men Project today: The Real Meaning of MILFs. Excerpt:

Though we had planned to have a home birth, in the end my wife needed a Cesearean in the hospital. (Our daughter was wedged into a breach position, and few obstetricians will support a vaginal breach birth these days.) I was at my wife’s side during the procedure, holding her hand and whispering encouragement, while watching with great interest as the surgeons did their work—blood and viscera galore.

I got to see the amazing moment Heloise was pulled (butt first, of course) from my wife’s body. I was there when our daughter latched on for the first time to Eira’s breast. I was awed and humbled by what I saw. And though I wasn’t turned on by watching the birth and the 15 months of subsequent breastfeeding, witnessing my wife’s transition into motherhood did nothing to reduce my attraction to her. That doesn’t make me unusual or heroic.

Read the whole thing. For an older piece on a similar subject, here’s my 2005 blog post Men, Childbirth, Lust.

August Hiatus

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I’m going on a short hiatus for the next few weeks. I’ll be in Israel and the PA, and then off to Montana to see some family.

I have a few upcoming pieces slated at the Good Men Project, including an interview with Warren Farrell about his White House Commission on Boys to Men. (Not to be confused with the White House Commission on N’Sync.) That should run within the next week. In the fall, I’ll be writing many other places as well, and have joined a second site (details to come) as a regular columnist. Less blogging here, more writing elsewhere.

This website itself will be undergoing a dramatic transformation. I’ve had the same template since November 2006, and it’s looking more than a little dated. The new site will be up and running by the end of August.