And now let us bring Sex Offender Week to a close. Did you enjoy talking about manhood and TV and the music and the bros? Well, don't run off yet, here is one parting thought on the matter of contemporary gender relations!
"The last few decades have left us so profoundly disoriented about the most urgent personal matters–gender roles, sexual norms, the possibility of creating lasting romantic relationships, not to mention absolutely everything to do with family structure–that it's no surprise to find people embracing a theory that promises to restore order." -William Deresiewicz, "Adaptation: On Literary Darwinism," The Nation, May 20, 2009.
The basic features of the male sexual character are concisely enumerated in Uncyclopedia's exquisite description of Bertrand Russell. "He liked sex. Lots of sex. Sex with women, Sex with men, Sex with animals, Sex with your mum, sex with a tree, sex with a surfboard. If it had a hole or could be straddled, he was on it or in it." *
Bertrand Russell was a Nobel-prizewinningly priapic proponent of Free Love, and he had enough theories on the subject to choke a horse. These theories mainly involved a lot of "freedom" to engage in heaps of free-lovemaking, for he was an eye-crossingly randy devil who married four times and had an unbelievable number of lovers. Though it must be said that Russell did not fare quite so well in the courts of Venus in practical terms as he did theoretically. His first marriage to Alys Pearsall Smith started to unravel when he went out on his bicycle one day in 1901 and decided he didn't love her anymore. They didn't divorce until twenty years later, by which time the old goat had boffed a zillion other women, including but not limited to Lady Ottoline Morrell, Helen Dudley, and Lady Constance Malleson. Several of Russell's lovers went crazy, unsurprisingly. Reflecting on the mess when he was nearly eighty, he wrote, "[W]hat a failure I have made of my life, as a husband & as a father. I have tried to think the fault was other people's but the repetition seems to show that it can't be." Then he got married again.
In what can't have amounted to much spare time, Russell also co-authored Principia Mathematica, went to jail for conscientious objection, founded analytic philosophy, met and was appalled by V.I. Lenin, nearly died of pneumonia in China, and told his protégé, Wittgenstein, to put down that poker at once.
The reality but rarely fits the theory of a person's love life; the reality is a very, very difficult business to control, even if you have a mind as fine and agile as Russell's. The body has a way of betraying us. We've very often observed that the men's bodies, especially, are forever getting the better of them; this is true even in our own enlightened age, as illustrated by the Facebook exchange just yesterday between my 22-y.o. nephew Max and our cousin Lou:
Max: Women who listen to hip-hop are sexy.Lou: At your age, women who breathe are sexy.
Max: You make a valid point!
Men! They simply cannot control themselves; we know this. It's the overarching, undergirding lizard-brain reality of men, especially the younger ones. If they had their druthers, every female that would stand still for long enough would have her skirt up over her head, there is no question. The gay ones are just the same, except with trousers. Men really are not generally built for the deep, "meaningful" variety of love, let alone for monogamy, at least not until a terrific quantity of oats has been sown. I don't say that men don't want a lasting emotional connection; they do; they're just too overwhelmed by their physical imperatives to think about anything else. This is why it has traditionally been up to the women to Say No.
Saying No to a new partner is not too difficult for women; Science calls this relative difference between us the Coolidge Effect, and it is a real, measurable difference. Saying No is also easy for female hamsters, and also rats, and pretty much every other species that has been tested, including hermaphroditic pond snails.
The underlying reality, then, is that the gentlemen always want to and we do not always want to; and how to alter that, by means of mere theories?! Why try to alter it, even? What is wrong with all those fun things like at least holding hands first and poetry and getting to know someone's sense of humor, and maybe even waiting for ages and being well and truly pursued? I ask you. There is something in it for all parties to wait for the dial of anticipation to turn up to eleven, instead of just giving in when it has only reached an anemic two.
There are a number of ways in which a man might induce a woman to say Yes. The pleasurable, sporting methodology here involves raillery, wit, chocolates, flowers and the composition of fruity poetry and/or songs. A softly-strummed guitar may appear on the scene. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine. Breathless phone calls that last half the night, etc.
The unpleasant, unsporting method of getting a woman to say Yes is to appeal to her political duty. A more drably uninspiring rationale for love can only be found among those Christian sects that go in for the "temple garments." In any case, it's all the same thing! Even the Mormons make a duty of sex for women; in their case it's wifely procreation we're supposed to feel all dutiful about, rather than gender politics. Make no mistake, however, there are all kinds of institutionalized coercion. If you want to complain about male hegemony, here you go! They'll use literally any pretext available to get you to take your clothes (except the garments, which by the way won't stop ‘em) off.
The requirements of this newfangled "performative" sexuality are totally intruding on a valuable cultural preserve: the art of courtship. We are all of us winding up with less romance; is there anything of value that we are getting in exchange?
The new swiz works as follows. It is exactly like the "free love" of Russell, exactly like the bra-burning 1960s and exactly like the "liberated" 1970s. The current thinking likewise requires women to divest themselves of all their antiquated notions, and pants, and thereby "free" themselves to couple according to "their own wishes." By this reckoning, it is the duty of every enlightened female to put across in order to show how enlightened she is. She won't submit or succumb, perhaps she will even aggressively pursue. And because banging a lot of guys is a demonstration of enlightenment, the traditional blandishments are no longer required in order to get girls into bed. Also de rigueur for girls is a lot of noise about the condition of their own libido, which evidently makes them not unladylike or blabby, but "equal." Any woman with the slightest bit of restraint is going to be yelled at for being a dowdy, outmoded essentialist. An enemy of the state, practically. And meanwhile, no romance for anybody.
Cui bono is the question we must ask. And the answer is almost always: the men. They bono. Believe me, I am happy to see the gentlemen getting all the love they can, provided they are kind, candid and pleasant in their ways. But we women are being hoodwinked, and surely it is only fair to say so. It seems we're being had (again!) and in more ways than one.
* They are kidding, but still.
Maria Bustillos is the author of Dorkismo: The Macho of the Dork and Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman.
Related: Bertrand Russell was also famously quoted as saying that he "never would have survived adolescence were it not for Euclid's Elements and masturbation".
So true, right? I mean I.47 gets me hard like every time.
"hermaphroditic pond snails."
well now you're just trying to arouse me.
But what about, you know, fucking for fun? Should that not exist for/matter to women anymore?
i can't decide whether this article is silly or misguided.
I get the feeling that the young men Maria runs with are not much into technique.
Brad I think she is very young and/or was raised in a very traditional Latino Catholic home.
yes. i sense many bad fumblings in her past.
ok, i get it. it's all in fun. silly me.
I don't think she is joking. Read her essay on "Up in the Air."
no no. she must be joking. i am Certain.
All due respect, I think you misunderstood her essay on "Up in the Air." Different thing.
Balsa, just because you disagreed with me does not mean I did not understand it.
Well, I don't mean to be insulting. Honestly. But you took her argument against the "shock" ending of UP IN THE AIR, and twisted it into what you perceived as a crusade for monogamy. That's not what she was saying--she had issues with the about-face Reitman pulled on Vera Farmiga's character at the end. You sound like you're fine with someone who juggles simultaneous romances, and I absolutely get where you're coming from--but, ON THE EVIDENCE OF THE NARRATIVE, Reitman isn't fine with this at all, and so he more or less burns Farmiga's character at the stake. In any case, Bustillos didn't turn Farmiga's character into a dragon lady--that was Reitman's doing.
I also don't fully understand what you're on about here. You've thrown out a litany of ad hominems. Apparently, in your opinion, Bustillos is just a silly young inexperienced Latina woman who still has issues that you got through a long, long time ago--and she needs to read some identity politics how-to guides off Amazon(?). You haven't mounted much of an argument beyond a dismissal, which is a shame.
balsa, My comments about "Up in the Air" posited an alternative theory on the character's marriage. As opposed to Ms. Bustello's knee jerk reaction to her, and by calling her a "dragon lady", yours as well.
As far as this essay, I believe it is naive and unrealistic to imagine that women do not receive any benefit from having sex, and therefore men must work harder to get it from them.
Okay, kitten, but grrrr...she's PORTRAYED as a "dragon lady"--that's the way Reitman's cheap, manipulative narrative functions. It's not me saying it--the story's saying it. I'll use less problematic phrasing: she ends up looking like, in the eyes of the viewer, at best a liar and at worst a sociopath. She seems to stand more for free deception than for free love--that's what I think is problematic.
Regarding this, I think Bustillos's greatest sins here are a) her propensity for sweeping, easy-to-puncture generalizations, and b) her die-hard unfashionableness, and c) her privileging of "romance," which means something different for everyone. While I agree with you that it's naive to think women don't receive any benefit from having sex, I don't think she's asserting that, either.
There are several points in this post that I highly disagree with. First of all, the characterization of males as eternal satyrs and females as sexless Heras. It would be nice if all men were constantly horny for everybody and anybody all the time, but sadly, they're really not.
Secondly, plenty of women have a hard time "saying no"; what they don't have a hard time of is lying about it. Hence the endless discussions with one's girlfriends about how this time "didn't count" and that time "doesn't have to go on your list," and so on. Women aren't sexless, they're just craftier about managing their desires.
I appreciate the author's larger point about the need for courtship. I think courtship can be beneficial for both genders, since most people are giant sentimental babies not built for one-offs. But the author's depiction of courtship is a bit stomach-turning, as it involves "wooing." There's nothing grosser than "wooing," since it entails putting the female on a creepy pedestal. A lot of Madonna/Whore stuff usually comes out, and some mommy stuff too. There is nothing more disgusting than a breathy phone call--nothing. Instant clit wilt.
Why don't people just play tennis together?
I've got to find a way to use "clit wilt" as many times as possible.
I think courtship can be beneficial for both genders, since most people are giant sentimental babies not built for one-offs.
Way to sell monogamy there, Mar. Though I agree that there's something a bit creepy in the whole 'wooing' concept, especially when it bleeds over into 'stalking.'
You're cui bono-ing us? Really? You really think that men are the ones who have driven the endless and perpetually self-cannibalizing waves of feminism, manipulating the associated (and also periodic) sex-positivity norm to our own treacherous, libidinous benefit?
Well, I suppose that would be one way to go about it. But most of us find it easier to just offer to buy you a drink.
I blame that Liz Cuomo trollop and her paramour Rivers Phair.
"Men really are not generally built for the deep, 'meaningful' variety of love, let alone for monogamy, at least not until a terrific quantity of oats has been sown. I don't say that men don't want a lasting emotional connection; they do; they're just too overwhelmed by their physical imperatives to think about anything else."
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Strongly seconded.
Evidence, please
Well clearly some men are pretty much as described in that quote. However, to make that sweeping generalization about all 3 billion of them is ridiculous.
Most of the guys I know who are my age (mid-twenties) are just as bent on getting into a meaningful relationship as most of the girls I know. And that's been the case for several years now.
I've also been in a relationship where the guy wanted a deep serious relationship and I just wanted to mess around. It ended poorly, though that probably reflects more on me than anything else.
Anyway, that's my evidence. It's anecdotal, obviously, but that's where my opinion comes from.
Also, reducing anyone to their "physical imperatives" is insulting.
as someone who gets propositioned sexually via her online personal ad daily (which explicitly states LTR), I disagree with you. I've been specifically told by men that they will sleep with just about anyone they can.
srsly guys, can't you even offer to buy me a drink?
Not to turn into That Guy, but how about my whole fucking life? And the lives of my best friends. There's your evidence.
That's not evidence. That's what we nerdy programmers would call a pointer to evidence. I'd like to know exactly how many oats you have sown. And your friends, of course. You can only prove your point, in your own particular case, by showing (a) you have sown very few of said cereal and (b)you have reached this point of enlightenment you claim for yourself (and let's throw in your friends, too).
And what's wrong with making sweeping generalizations about 3 billion men. Here's one: nearly all of them have two legs (and two testicles).
Millions of men worldwide don't have both their legs. Let me introduce you to landmines, conflict, and medical care in the developing world.
This is what's wrong with sweeping generalizations: They make you look like an uninformed idiot.
Your opinion is based on a scientifically representative sample of men who go trolling through online personal ads?
There are also men who have ovaries. Your point being?
Really, Cherri! Are you serious? What is the percentage?
It's simplistic and a bit insulting to say men are incapable of "deep" love. Some men might be? But even that is often a conscious lifestyle decision. I could agree to the idea that men are generally less interested in the hoopla of romance and wooing than women, but frankly that's a culturally constructed thing. If you measure the depth of love with flowers and candy and cheesy love songs then that "depth" looks pretty shallow from my perspective. If you're talking about caring and loyalty and consideration, you'll find men and women on pretty even footing (that being: they're scarce, but out there).
Scrooge, your thinking is completely backwards. If you want to claim that all male behavior falls in a certain category, you will have to offer evidence for that massive statement. To suggest that you can't say "it's hard to generalize about male behavior" without divulging details about your sex life to a stranger is patently ludicrous.
To be fair, the author does at least offer some scientific background, but I think she overreaches in her interpretation of it. That men are unlikely to "say no" to an offer is obvious from an evolutionary perspective: males don't invest as much energy and resources (in the calorie/nutrient sense) in reproduction as females do. But that kind of instinctive survival budgeting happens on a completely different level of the brain from complex emotions and social relationships; it's a poor foundation for claims about whether men are capable of love.
@scrooge - I had a whole long post written out, but the internet ate it. From what I can gather, (though no organization formally keeps track of this) there are 3-4 million lower limb amputees worldwide. Assuming half of them are male (logically, it's almost definitely more than half but I can't prove that) so you've got around 2 million legless males. Which is .03 percent of the total global population. In terms of percentages, sure, not the biggest deal. But still, millions of people.
OK, you win. I concede that .06% of men don't conform to the Bustillos stereotype.
Hey, I also could've looked into the number of eunuchs, men with only one testicle, the intersexed and trans people who identify as men, but frankly, there is other research I have to do for school, which ranks (slightly) higher than internet discussions. My point was that nothing is 100% accurate.
If you would like to get into a discussion of any of the topics of my grad school papers, I will joyfully submit all the statistics you want.
I'm happy to "say yes", but if I can get something additional out of it (furniture, remodeling, brunch), it just makes it a little bit sexier.
For me.
"Also de rigueur for girls is a lot of noise about the condition of their own libido, which evidently makes them not unladylike or blabby, but "equal.""
I don't look at it as equality, I look at it honesty which is far, far more fun in courtship than pretending I don't want to (eventually) get boned.
Also, our sex drive connected to our overall well being. If we are not honest about what's going on with our bodies and pretending that sex is not important to us do we risk overlooking issues like depression, thyroid trouble, certain cancers, infertility, high blood pressure and diabetes?
In short: Your libido is important enough to talk about. What you want do with your libido is up to you.
I have not read this and for some reason I can't deal with FEMINISM this week at all on any level, but I would just like to say in response to the title:
NO.
Okay, well, now I have read this and honestly, I'm disappointed. There are huge sweeping stereotypes in this post that are vague, trite, and in some parts, flat-out wrong. Stick to your strengths, kids. Don't do things like this.
The first portion of your piece left me feeling rather dreary. It is true that men seek sexual variation, a tendency which is antithetical to a healthy, committed, long-term monogamous relationship. But that's the point. It's a tendency, not destiny. I married in my early 30s and was abstinent before marriage. I've now been married a little over a year, and haven't strayed and don't plan to. You are, of course, now saying to yourself that no one plans to stray, and I would be compelled to acknowledge that you are correct; however, I would respond that 30 years of abstinence has demonstrated to me that I am fully capable of subjecting my sexual desires to my will. My confidence is further strengthened by the fact that I know hundreds (thousands?) of men who have remained faithful to their wives over the course of many years of marriage. It's true that my abstinence before marriage and my fidelity within marriage are informed and motivated by my religious beliefs. Regardless of the motives for it, my behavior - and the behavior of countless others - proves that under the right circumstances men are more than capable of exercising sexual self-restraint. And by "right circumstances" I don't necessarily mean religious ones. That both men and women now generally assume otherwise is, in my view, tragic.
The second part of your piece left me feeling rather amused. You very clearly have no idea of what you're talking about when it comes to Mormonism, of which I am an adherent. The idea that "wifely procreation" is the tool Mormonism uses to "make a duty of sex for women" implies that Mormons believe that sex is only for the purposes of procreation. If this were the case I would only be able to use that tool to guilt my wife into sex, what, maybe a hundred times our whole marriage (assuming both of us are capable of having children)? Pretty crappy tool. You could more or less accurately argue that there is pressure on Mormon couples to have a lot of children, but I'm afraid that doesn't translate into pressure for women to have sex. Mormonism teaches that sex is for procreation but also for pleasure and fun and for bringing a couple together. I'd be happy to provide you with documentation showing that to be the case, although I suspect your interest in Mormonism started and ended at using it as an interesting little foot note for your argument.
But didn't Joseph Smith adopt polygamy so he could cosy up with women who weren't (yet) his wife? And then his wife divorced him, or something.
As Awl's resident zombie Mormon wife, I had to ask permission of my husband to agree with Captain Awesome. It's a good thing I was granted a special dispensation to stop my "wifely procreating" and post this response on the Internets, or you would've have never known how that your entire "Mormon" argument was stark, raving, bananas.
i'm just trying to have a little more fun in my life and actually fucking RELAX. this article frankly doesn't seem all that fitting to my goals, but i did read this just yesterday and i am excited to put my best fatale foot forward and see how it goes...wish me luck!
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/the-french-feminine-mystique-20100408-ru5h.html
I'm so glad I'm gay.
I can't speak for all men, but I and the other two thirds of my human caterpillar are very happy in our closed relationship.
I don't why that replied to you, Goons. Want in?
If they had their druthers, every female that would stand still for long enough would have her skirt up over her head, there is no question. The gay ones are just the same, except with trousers.
I can't see why, it seems to entail massive wedgies every time you get some.
Broad (heh) generalizations warrant massive wedgies.
@conklin: I fear insex.
@conklin: oh god, imagination is worse than film.
Can there be an Awl rule that we turn That Movie into That Movie We Don't Mention? Please?
What bollocks. "Nobel-prizewinningly priapic proponent" indeed.
He summed his own life up as follows: "Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."
Not a bad way to live, I'd say. Plus, he had balls enough to go to jail for his convictions at a time when that was definitely NOT an easy thing to do.
Finally, I believe "footnote" is one word, as opposed to a note attached to the foot. Quite gave me visions of the city morgue...
How about more "How to cook a fucking possum" and less "10 reasons why all men are jerks." Just seems so darned passé.
Nobody's saying he wasn't a fine fellow. Just that he was really horny. Which is hard undeniable, even for a sophist like Bertie. So bollocks not, Onj.
Re: your last paragraph: hear hear.
This weekend you should listen to an old Weezer album, curl up with some Mad Men, and admit you're in the business of not really understanding men (& lots, & lots of womens too) before writing another one of these sophomore sociology papers for the internet.
Hear fucking hear.
No sociology prof I know would accept this tripe.
"The bra-burning 1960s" is an urban legend, something a writer on any subject touching on women's issues should know.
Yeah, um, there's lots of problematicness in here, but the basic thesis is interesting! The language of political radicalism can potentially be used as a bludgeoning tool to perpetuate male control over the female libido. But mostly I like your implication that the gays wear their pants around their necks.
They are suffering for fashion.
I kept assuming this essay was a parody of gender difference it would later contest. In the end, it turned out to be a parody, but not obviously an intentional one.
Seriously. Not all men want to do it all the time. Many, many women have had to deal with the guilt of being made to believe the bullshit you purport while a man stands there limp-dicked, not ready for action. People are really very different, and as long as everyone is having the sex they want to be having and none of the sex they don't, we are as healthy and happy as we can hope to be.
It seems like it would be obvious to any feminist adult that women don't "have to" put out, just like they don't "have to" withhold something they want in order to maintain some mythical female power to obtain shit as a bribe for sex.
I was waiting for the punch line too.
Ha ha ha. Just wait until all these should-I-shouldn't-I-put-out men and women have kids.
"No" gets a lot easier.
Ha ha. You imply that someone is asking to begin with!
I've personally noticed these days that if I really do like you I want to date and woo and court and get to know you, but if it's clear that this isn't really going to go somewhere, then let's go to bed now.
I think it was Pepper Schwartz who discovered that without the hornier male in the bedroom that most lesbian relationships often experienced "lesbian bed death." Another study found that the need for sex for women diminishes once they're in a secure relationship. I don't think anyone can argue here that women just aren't as horny by nature, 1960's swinging stewardess nymphomaniacs aside, and is this true for all women and/or even lesbian couples - absolutely not, so don't get your panties in a bunch.
Your point that there are sociological and cultural and governmental campaigns to get women to put out is an interesting one. I'm not sure there was ever a collective gathering of male minds that created certain advertising ideologies, like you're an outcast if you're a chick who isn't putting out on your high school campus, but there are interesting truths here. Whether the bra-burning 1960's was an urban legend, you're missing her point entirely, that the movement was designed for women to free themselves and join the sexual revolution, thus put out more.
It's difficult to read something like this without over personalizing it. Like I'm not a horny little devil, I was sexually abstinent for 30 years and can rise above my desires. Well good for you, but if you think you're a typical All-American male you're as misguided as the guy calling for the listening of old Weezer records (shoot me now) as if pop music is somehow demonstrative of reality. The Beatles may have wanted to hold your hand, but if they could get to second base or third they were probably going to go for it too.
Yeah! Especially the bit about the Mad Men Weezer geezer.
WaPO was right. All the good band names ARE taken
http://www.lesbianbeddeath.net/
Philo, Bra burning:
http://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/bra-burning-revisited-in-error/
While sex is not mentioned, I stumbled upon these today:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32912172@N00/4482841727/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32912172@N00/4482807949/
Philo, Bra burning:
http://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/bra-burning-revisited-in-error/
And while sex is not mentioned, I stumbled upon these today:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32912172@N00/4482841727/
and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32912172@N00/4482807949/
I tried to post this as a single post but it is awaiting moderation.
"that the movement was designed for women to free themselves and join the sexual revolution, thus put out more"
Well, no. It was designed to make it women's prerogative when and whether we would put out more, rather than to continue subjecting the use of our own bodies to the whims of the various men we encountered.
Also, this:
Also de rigueur for girls is a lot of noise about the condition of their own libido, which evidently makes them not unladylike or blabby, but "equal."
So, a woman shouldn't say what she wants? So it's up to the guy to be a mind reader? Guys shouldn't expect women to be honest about what they're interested in in a sexual encounter? That they should instead expect a woman to say "no" when she means "yes"?
Rape culture: You're perpetuating it!
Oops, I didn't mean to reply here.
"Seriously. Not all men want to do it all the time. Many, many women have had to deal with the guilt of being made to believe the bullshit you purport while a man stands there limp-dicked, not ready for action."
"It would be nice if all men were constantly horny for everybody and anybody all the time, but sadly, they're really not."
Um... How do I put this? ... Pictures, please, ladies.
I can usually get Mr. Mar to put out if I write him a POME on my GUIT BOX.
Now that's what I call wooing.
With any luck, in a few years Ms.Bustillos will look back on this post and cringe. Her crass generalizations only go to show that experience counts for something, and that stereotypes benefit no one.
How do you know Ms Bustillos hasn't got a lot more experience than you have, miss d? Also, using stereotypes can be extremely beneficial. For example, suppose you find yourself in a tank full of great white sharks...
The same way that I know you're a fucking idiot.
hmm, i like your nuance. sign me up for the pamphlet. (and no, ms. bustillos, i am not attempting to semantically hump missdelite's leg)
But she wouldn't mind if you did ;
Ruff!
Who decided to run this article?
The "men are the gas, women are the breaks" thing is garbage. Men who "can't control themselves" are simply living down to rock-bottom expectations.
You're also basically denying the fact that men can be victims of rape.
The idea behind sex-positivism is to respect women's sexual autonomy and agency. No one gets "yelled at" for not being sexually active - as that would be the opposite of respecting agency. But if a woman decides to criticize other women for their choice to be sexually active, then she'll probably be criticized for slut-shaming. There's a difference. The principle is simply that women should be able to have the kind of sex that they want to have.
If a woman just wants to have sex, why should she have to choose between denying her desires, and getting into a committed relationship that she has no interest in? That's silly.
You're suggesting that the only reason why a guy bothers to get to know his girlfriend's sense of humour, or hold hands, or really spends time with her at all, is because he thinks he'll be rewarded with teh seks.
You're saying that girls have to bribe guys with sex to get guys to spend time with them.
Do you realize what's wrong with that?
Why is that desireable? It's depressing.
There are guys who are just interested in sex. There are girls who are just interested in sex. What they do together is there own business.
There are also guys who fantasize about finding the one special girl to spend the rest of their lives with. There's plenty of romance to be had with them.
Fellow awl commenters I like you, but right now you're being unnecessarily pedantic and mean (yes I believe in a thing called necessarily pedantic and mean). Fundamentally, the project is a good one! This idea of "liberty" the baby boomers keep pretending to have invented really could be usefully contextualized (via #politics cf. @JSMill) and this is a small part of that. Where it is limited it should be expanded, not exploded.
Also @editors, thank you generally for letting young people crash on the couch of your web platform.* It's been tough going lately, but we're still saving up for that new republic article they're totally going to let one us write.
*For the record, I have no idea if Maria herself is young or not. Jes' sayin.
O I don't mind a bit (Maria here, btw.) But all this piety has been a bit of a surprise. And anger! The comments taken together with the piece itself produced a very interesting document.
Please note the thing is clearly marked: Opinion.
p.s. I am staggeringly old.
Piety? Huh?
It's marked "opinion", but you're making a claim about "reality". You're trying to assert a fact. If I wrote an "opinion" piece saying that creationism is a stronger theory than evolution, should people not dispute my claim just because it's marked "opinion"?
Not only that, you entirely misconstrue and misrepresent what the performative model for sex, and sex positivism is all about. The idea that any feminist would claim that women have a "duty" to do something they don't want to, especially when it comes to sex, is ridiculous. You entirely obscure the fact that one of the aims of sex positivism, besides recognizing women's agency, is to undermine the ways that the sex-as-a-commodity/pursuit model reinforces rape myths. So yeah, the idea that people who are trying to change the culture that hides and excuses sexual assault are actually trying to pressure women into unwanted sex is pretty offensive.
Not to mention the fact that what you've written is very insulting to men. You demean their emotional and intellectual capacity. Stuff like this is what leads men to think that they are abnormal for having feelings, and to try to conform to the dominant model of masculinity instead of seeing to their own emotional needs.
"p.s. I am staggeringly old."
... proving that age is just a number.
So basically, men are from mars, women are from venus. And: Oh those men!!! Such bastards they are!!!
/Jez
Ugh. Dear god.
THANK YOU for posting this.
Maria Bustillos and others like her are the reason I worry that I'm a beast for having as active a libido as I do.
Shame on you for shaming me. And shame on me for spending time reading this insulting tripe.
(Maria here) for heaven's sake there is nothing in there that would suggest I am trying to shame you! Really, I am terribly sorry to have offended. I have a ridiculously active libido myself! It's just a question of strategy, how much you talk about that.
Here's the thing: the battle of the sexes is to me a nonstop comedy, though sometimes a rather dark one.
Maria, you might want to read this
http://www.amazon.com/Maria-Paradox-Rosa-Gill/dp/039952309X
Jolie, I hear you.
Actually Maria, to use just one example from this piece, saying no to a new partner is hard for me, and when you state that it is inherently easy for women to say no you make me feel like an outlying freakshow.
Any new partner?! Surely not, or I would beg you to bar the door with a piano. (Kidding! for god's sake.)
You write that women who have casual sex are ruining the romantic lives of other women. That seems like shaming to me.
Yeah...I have to agree with this comment. Also, constructive criticism is best.
I for one, have tired of the fact that the "hook up culture" that permeated college seems to have extended into the post college dating world.
For what its worth, I'm 30 and have dated a lot. Sometimes I do feel like I'm the one responsible for putting the brakes on the extent of physical relations while it is men who set the limit on emotional relations. Men assume women always want more emotionally while women assume men always want more physically. But then I just know I'm not with the right guy.
I don't think comparing men to farm animals is really fair, that guy from Zoo only did it with one horse as you may recall (romance is possible! till you die from a perforated colon).
In closing, all I can say is "I want all that boring old shit, like letters and sodas".
Proving once again that sex offender week = Liz Phair week.
"Men assume women always want more emotionally while women assume men always want more physically. But then I just know I'm not with the right guy."
Yes! It doesn't mean, as Bustillos seems to suggest, that the women who just want to have sex are ruining romance for everyone else.
Speaking as a man who is perpetually overwhelmed by physical imperatives, and who, by his essential nature is ill-suited for 'meaningful' varieties of love, and who, what is more, sows his oats by (mostly) appealing to womens' notions of political duty, I gotta say: you nailed this one square on the head.
Actually, I don't speak as that fellow at all. So. Nevermind.
To be fair, I frequently am overwhelmed by physical imperatives. To, you know, use the toilet, or cook & then eat a fucking steak. Somehow I'm perfectly content not fucking women other than my girlfriend, though. Still: this is totally anecdotal, maybe it's just an indication that I'm a little light in the loafers, as my gramps would say. (Abiding by the rule that it ain't homophobic if you're over 95, y'see.)
I love the response to this article. Anyone who has read Bustillos before knows that she draws on a rich life experience and says exactly what she wants to say, without deferring to favored theories. In this case, the result seems to have been that pretty much everyone was offended. So I guess she's the final star of Sex Offender Week.
I can't find any negative judgment in the article against men or women, and certainly not for their sexuality. Bustillos really seems to be advocating for better sex, not less of it. Ultimately, the message seems to be: Don't be persuaded by hype into doing something you don't want to. Especially in the name of liberation.
An example of this kind of creepy liberation can be found by going to youtube and looking at old episodes of "Playboy After Dark" -- totally worth doing by the way, if only to watch Harry Nillson perform on one episode. But the particular 1960's version of the sexual revolution radiating from that show consists of sleazy geezers sliming around girls who are presumably on the pill. It's pretty much a non-stop gross-out. Cui bono? It's pretty obvious.
So if the new rhetoric is coming from a different direction (pro-sex feminism, and more power to it), the real object of the article seems to be to say: Yeah, but don't it if you don't want to. If you want something different, hold out for it.
Sure, as a gay man, my entire sex life has been reduced by this article to an endless round of trouser shucking. So what? I thought that line was pretty funny. Which reminds me, it's probably about time for me to go out on the prowl. Talk to me, Tiger!
What, and everyone else isn't drawing on their life experiences? No, she doesn't defer to theories, she defers to tired stereotypes.
She's saying that in order to have good sex, women need to string along guys in a relationship, even if neither of them want a relationship. She's saying that women who have casual sex ruin romance for other women.
And the entire premise is flawed, because she utterly and completely misunderstands the performance model of sexuality. No one is saying that women have to "put out" to be "enlightened", so why is she writing as if they were?
You're looking at Playboy as an example of female liberation? Well, there's your problem right there.
MissaA: Bustillos is not arguing against casual sex. She's arguing in favor of courtship. Courtship followed by sex. Courtship not as a precursor to a relationship that people don't want, but as a way of making the sex more pleasurable. The rest of what you're saying is projection.
She's also saying that ideological coercion, whether on the part of the patriarchy or on the part of feminist theory, is probably a lousy reason to have sex. So the way to respond to this tellingly would be to actually articulate what she's missing about the performance model of sexuality, not to misconstrue what she's saying.
I used Playboy After Dark as an example of the "sexual revolution" of the 1960's, not as an example of "female liberation." That show was able to be on tv in the late 60's because the society had become more open about sexual matters. But my whole point was that this kind of "sexual revolution" was not accompanied by an enlightened view of women in any way, shape or form. It was clearly exploitative.
So I'm not really having a problem.
you lost me when you brought up nillson. now i can't get the lime and the coconut song out of my head. and i'm not unhappy about that either.
Brad, replace that "My Good Old Desk":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shVTtFqJb4U
yes. that and jump in the fire.