Neely Steinberg and Hugo Schwyzer discuss how their personal histories have shaped their individual world views.
I first got in touch with Hugo via Twitter. He was responding to my recent article published on the Good Men Project, in which I chronicled my debate with Amanda Marcotte regarding the word “slut.” Hugo was on Marcotte’s side, but that didn’t stop us from sharing respectful tweets about the article and other topics, such as dating, sex, and the effect of feminism on men and women. We enjoyed our 140-character conversations so much we decided to collaborate on an article.
After throwing around some ideas, I mentioned to Hugo that I was intrigued by our contrasting positions—his steadfast defense of feminism and critiquing of men versus my critiquing of feminism and steadfast defense of men—not because we disagree in the ideological sense, but because of our tendency to stray from defending our own gender.
I wanted to know what has shaped Hugo’s thinking when it comes to dating, sex, relationships and feminism, since these are topics he’s covered extensively. Likewise, I wanted to share with him how I’ve come to certain conclusions about these important subjects as well, because I’ve been thinking, writing, and speaking about them for several years now. We could then present our contrasting viewpoints to Good Men Project readers. Far too often, we’re dismissive of those with whom we disagree, chalking their opinions up to nothing more than sound bites, propaganda shoved down our throats by evil news networks or talking heads. But that’s taking the easy way out. How often do we take the time to see where a person is really coming from and why they may think the way they do? Listening to other people’s stories may not change our own convictions, but it can make us more thinking, feeling human beings, more evolved. It can give us a fuller appreciation for and awareness of others.
Below is Part 1 of our discussion in which we highlight how our experiences have informed our perspectives.
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How does your background and experiences inform your worldview about dating, sex, relationships, and feminism, and the advice you give?
Hugo: What a huge question, Neely! Of course, it informs everything in ways seen and unseen. Though I’m leery of saying that we’re all just products of our environment and our experiences, I know my views about pleasure-centered sex education are very much rooted in what I’ve lived through and what I’ve seen.
If there’s one truth I’ve learned (and seen so many others learn), it’s the idea that contrary to folk wisdom, one mistake—or even a series of mistakes—will not ruin your life. In her wonderful Full Frontal Feminism, Jessica Valenti writes that Sometimes doing silly, disempowering, sexually vapid things when you’re young is just part of getting to the good stuff. That doesn’t seem all that profound until you realize that it’s pushing back against the toxic idea that experiences invariably leave life-long scars.
I’ve been married to four women, been “in love” with twice that many, and for a brief but intense period in my 20s and early 30s, I was very promiscuous. I now live very happily in a monogamous marriage. I’m not haunted by what I did, nor did the tremendous variety of experiences I had when I was younger spoil any opportunity for fulfillment with just one partner in an enduring relationship. Without compromising her privacy, I can say that my current (and last) wife’s life prior to our marriage was not dissimilar to my own. The intimacy we have today is at least partly a consequence of our experiences with other people, not in spite of them.
Experience really is the best teacher, even if not every student learns the lesson the first (or 101st) time. Women in particular need reassurance that their worth is not linked to their number of sexual partners. They need to hear that pursuing pleasure for its own sake when they’re young will not make it more difficult to form enduring monogamous relationships (if they want them) when they’re older. These are lessons I’ve learned, lessons I’ve seen the men and women in my life learn and embrace.
I do regret the pain I caused other people. Rightly so. But what my life has taught me is that insight and compassion are rooted in experience; you can’t advise about what you don’t understand. My own ability to be a patient father, a faithful husband, a decent teacher and mentor isn’t in spite of my wild sexual choices when I was younger—it’s in large part because of them, and the lessons I learned. I’m lucky, but not that unusual.
I don’t advocate self-destructive choices, and for different people, both promiscuity and abstinence can be self-destructive. I want to equip young people to discover their own sexuality and to make informed, pleasure-centered, empathy-centered decisions based on what they discover. I want them to know that they have the inner resilience to recover from the “silly” and “vapid” decisions they may make.
Neely: I agree with a lot of what Hugo has to say, but I think we may have different perspectives on the effects of casual, no-strings attached sex. I also happen to think most women aren’t all that interested in having a lot of it for purely sexual reasons, with multiple partners no less. And I’ve come to believe that feminism’s inability, and at times refusal, to acknowledge differences between the sexes has been disingenuous and has gravely backfired on women, leaving them ill-equipped to discover what really feels good and right to them.
The Samantha Jones (of Sex and the City fame) lifestyle was, in my opinion, a false bill of goods, sold to impressionable young women as glamorous, exciting, and liberating, while ignoring any sort of biological mechanisms that induce women to emotionally attach with their mates. I was told, by the 10% of women who are capable of effectively and consistently compartmentalizing their emotions when it comes to no-strings attached sex, that emotions were overrated, anathema even, and could easily be separated from sexual acts with another human being, to unapologetically unleash my inner slut (there’s that word again). It was our right (rite?) as women, our responsibility as sexual creatures, to show the world we can fuck like men do, have instantaneous orgasms, and feel faaaabulous while doing it in our 4-inch Manolo Blahniks. Countless women bought into this lie, only to realize years later that it doesn’t, in fact, feel so great most of the time, and that actually, there’s nothing all that empowering and liberating about spreading your legs with wild abandon.
Instead of embracing the emotional and biological differences between men and women, or at least considering them, sex-positive feminists buried their heads in the sand, unintentionally creating, in the meantime, a veritable sexual playground for men, often times at the expense of women, many of whom just wanted relationships that were both sexually and emotionally satisfying. Women were told they could have their cake and eat it too, but the dessert in many ways has been a better payoff for men.
I spent the latter half of high school, college (if dating was scarce when I was in college, it’s nonexistent today), and many years post-college, mired in the hook-up scene, which was, mind you, always fueled by alcohol. It’s as if I needed the crutch of Vodka to tell me what I was doing was an awesome idea, because without it I’d know better. I wasn’t alone. It was happening all around me. My friends, female acquaintances, countless women I’d met briefly over the years—we were all in the same boat. Post-college, we could pursue our careers and hobbies and passions full-force but were unable to form lasting attachments, to believe that a man wanted us for anything more than a quick hook-up, to understand what real intimacy was about. We tamped down our emotions and hid our dissatisfaction—how else could we have had our witty Sunday brunches at which we joked about our encounters? In reality, I spent countless nights crying over my dating life. I know my friends (smart, beautiful, accomplished women) felt just as dejected and lonely. And all of a sudden we were in our early-30s. Whereas I once blamed men for my dating troubles, I now began to turn a critical eye on myself and an ideology that didn’t seem to be serving me all that well.
I won’t deny those wild days are tinged with a bit of sweet nostalgia, but I also know that pain has a short memory. Overall, these sorts of trysts usually left me feeling empty and the hollowness I felt had nothing to do with the evil patriarchy shaming or guilt-tripping me. It just felt lacking in so many ways. I remember one night in particular when I was 29 quite vividly. After being totally ignored at a party by a guy who I had hooked up with the night before, I cried hysterically while my friend drove me home. When we pulled up to my apartment, I remember feeling devastated and deflated, yelling, “I’m sick of this! I don’t get it, what am I doing wrong?” as I smashed my hand against the passenger seat window, shattering my bracelet in the process, pearls spewing everywhere. I was tired of making mistakes and not learning from them but felt stuck, like I had just lost myself. If feminism’s goal was to eradicate the falsehood that a woman’s worth is tied to her sexuality, it has failed on many accounts. All I learned from drunken, fleeting hook-ups over the course of a decade was how much I was being viewed as a sexual object by men, as a vagina who happens to think and feel, rather than a thinking, feeling human being who also happens to have a vagina. As Laura Kipnis writes in her book The Female Thing: “Welcome to the new femininity—at least under the old femininity you got taken to dinner.”
I agree with Hugo and Valenti’s point, to an extent, about the importance of making mistakes in your love life and learning from them. If it weren’t for some of the wrong turns (and their attendant lessons) in my life, I wouldn’t have found the wonderful man who I am dating today and be able to appreciate him. But I think I owe that more to the few actual relationships I’ve had with the wrong men and less to vacuous sexual encounters that taught me nothing about intimacy or pleasure. Thankfully, I did the hard work to understand how both my familial dynamics and the cultural winds of the day influenced my decisions. I consider myself lucky to have found the right guy at 34 but worry about other women, no matter what age, who are wedged between a culture that tells them one thing and the voice inside them that tells them another.
Again, while I think women need to make mistakes in order to know what they want, at what point does that end? I understand everyone’s journey is unique, but I think young women today are looking for different, more tempered voices other than the I-am-woman-hear-me-roar variety, for tangible, strategic dating advice (such as, if you want a relationship try developing emotional, spiritual, and mental bonds with a man you like or just started dating by delaying sexual gratification—yours and his). My advice is based on the distilled wisdom that I have gained with age. If only one woman can be spared a night of crying against her pillow and get closer to what she really wants because of something I’ve written or said, then I feel like I’ve made a positive difference.
I understand what the feminist credo and Hugo have to say about pleasure-centered sex education and helping women to understand that it’s okay to enjoy sex outside of relationships (it is!) and to make silly, vapid mistakes, but we should also consider the notion that casual sex and hook-ups may not be for many women and can indeed have long-term deleterious effects (emotional and physical). Moreover, I think this sort of feminist-speak can often seem like highfalutin mumbo jumbo to a woman who, say, has hit her early to mid-30s, already spent years exploring her sexuality, made mistakes ad nauseam, and is now ready to settle down but has unfortunately found the dating pool has shrunk considerably. Lori Gotlieb wrote about this dilemma in her controversial article (and subsequent book) for the Atlantic entitled Marry Him!
And, of course, there’s the ever-present tick-tock of the biological clock. It’s the one factor that feminism and college professors can’t manipulate. This is one such example as to why real-world practitioners are often at odds with academics: A professor sits behind the thick veil of tenure, spouting off theories and philosophies about how the world should be; a real-world practitioner has to deal with the world as it is, to make difficult decisions based on the realities of life.
Based on my experiences and what I’ve seen countless other women deal with over the years, you can see why my approach to dating, sex, and relationships comes from a more strategic, realistic place (another example of this approach: if you want marriage and biological children, you should start taking your love life seriously by the time you reach your late-20s/early-30s), and why I now feel compelled to offer a critique of feminism. I want women to be happy, and to be honest with themselves, without feeling the need to buy into a politically-correct ideology, about what makes them happy. If it truly is lots of casual sex and fleeting hook-ups, more power to you! If not, that’s okay too! For so long I was dishonest with myself, getting swept up in a powerful cultural force that wasn’t there for me when I really needed it. Regarding the feminist movement, we have much to be thankful for, but we must also recognize it has created an unintended set of less-than-desirable circumstances for women that are very real and difficult to confront. We now have to deal with those consequences, honestly and openly and without fear of reproach.
—Photo Trishhhh/Flickr
“Are you suggesting that a married woman who has had only 1 lifetime sex partner is damaging her vagina because she has frequent sex with her husband? Or is it just casual sex that is damaging?” I always thought about this. Someone who has sex with 7 partners in a year but only a couple of encounters with each is going to have a lot less sex than someone who is married and having sex with her husband daily or even weekly. What about a woman with no partners who uses dildos? The myth of multiple partners doing something to… Read more »
It does do something to your vagina if you have sex with males who have abnormally large member and if you don’t practice kegels and have multiple childbirths and no corrective procedures. Of course there are exceptions. Take the blinders off and step into the real world, like the author is saying. Take it from someone who has examined many vaginas and interviewed women regarding their sex habits/attitudes.
Hell, even ask a gynecologist!
“[a woman’s] body is rarely, if ever, permanently changed by sexual activity. Previous or current sexual activity does not make a woman’s vagina “loose.” “During intercourse, the vagina may not feel “tight” to a partner or a woman for a few reasons. When a woman is not scared and is sexually excited, the muscles around and of the vagina will temporarily become more flexible and open. Vaginal lubrication that also often happens at those times adds to the vagina not feeling tight. **”Contrary as it may sound, when women feel very sexually aroused (excited) and are active sexual partners, the… Read more »
I stand corrected. The vagina is infallible. Erectile dysfunction is a myth too people.
Reading some of the commentary here reminds me of attitudes / outlooks from the 1960’s. We visited the “free love'” concept once, and found it pretty shallow. Good thing that was the only drawback… then.
Today we have AIDS, and another half-dozen or so Permanent, Incurable diseases. Sleep with enough bums… and it’s only a matter of time.
Enjoy it while it lasts…
“They need to hear that pursuing pleasure for its own sake when they’re young will not make it more difficult to form enduring monogamous relationships” That is absolutely not true. If you speak with most women who are currently in their late 30’s or 40’s who were heavily into the hook-up culture you will find out that they DO have trouble finding a monogamous relationship. If someone is happy living a hook-up life and that is what you plan to do for the rest of your life, great but you can’t sell them the idea that they can live that… Read more »
“That is absolutely not true. If you speak with most women who are currently in their late 30′s or 40′s who were heavily into the hook-up culture you will find out that they DO have trouble finding a monogamous relationship.” Rubbish. Where DO you get your information? I and many, MANY of my female (and quite a few of my male) friends greatly enjoyed what I believe to be (from this post) “hook-up culture” in our 20s and 30s, yet at the same time have since had and/or are currently in long-term (monogamous and nonmonogamous) relationships. And I have hundreds… Read more »
Morgaine, let’s talk straight here. I’m sure there are plenty of promiscuous women that are in monogomous relationships now in their 30’s and 40’s. But let’s be honest with eachother here. As a older brother to 5 younger sisters, and privy to their plights with men, and from my perspectiive living in nyc for 20 years, I just think you are arguing the excpetions. Sure, we can always argue the excpetions, but where does that get us? Do women with a long sexual history end up with a attractive man they truly love? Sure, but what are the odds. In… Read more »
Just saw the trailer for This Means War, starring Reese Witherspoon.
The premise: Two gorgeous men who are top CIA operatives are dating the same woman – Reese.
Reese says she’s never dated two men at once, to which her friend, Chelsea Handler, angrily replies:
“You think Gloria Steinem got arrested and sat in a jail cell, so you could be a little bitch? Get out there, you get flexible.”
Discuss.
Neely, your post is so full of fail I am not sure where to begin. First… Samantha from SATC is not the same as sex positive feminists and vice versa. I am a sex positive feminist and every time I see SATC on the telly I want to stab the screen. I hate the whitewashing of NYC and the rampant shallow, consumerist culture it promotes and I’ve never met a real woman who acts like any of those neurotic *fictional* characters. 10%? Ok, that is just sloppy writing. You just pull a random low stat out of your butt and… Read more »
“The Samantha Jones (of Sex and the City fame) lifestyle was, in my opinion, a false bill of goods, sold to impressionable young women as glamorous, exciting, and liberating, while ignoring any sort of biological mechanisms that induce women to emotionally attach with their mates. ” I don’t get all this Samantha-bashing. I am a full-fledged, “card-carrying” feminist borne of the Second Wave and completely enthusiastic about the Third. I LOVE Samantha Jones. I WISH there had been a Samantha Jones in the zeitgeist when I was a teenager or in my 20s. The best I had was Isadora Wing,… Read more »
“Countless women bought into this lie, only to realize years later that it doesn’t, in fact, feel so great most of the time, and that actually, there’s nothing all that empowering and liberating about spreading your legs with wild abandon.” I found this an extremely interesting sentence because in a sense that describes my experience (except for the woman part). After having been “good” and not being rewarded for it (I know this is charged language but it’s the most concise way of presenting it I can think of), I decided to throw forming a connection out the way and… Read more »
I can’t really identify with the terms under which this debate is being waged. There are a few dichotomies everyone seems to accept: 1. High sex drive people want casual sex 2. Low sex drive people want relationships 3. Men are high sex drive and therefore prefer casual sex 4. Pro Sex == Pro Casual Sex 5. Non causal sex implies a relationship I don’t really like casual sex but maybe I define casual sex differently than others. I have a high sex drive. I am a man. I don’t necessarily need to be in a relationship to have sex… Read more »
As far as I know, there is statistical research that suggests many mammals break along gender lines in terms of desiring casual sex vs. committed relationships.
That said, the situation is complicated by the fact that humans have language and higher culture, so biology is probably less destiny for us than other animals.
Hear hear, Assman. Your comments are often some of the most pithy and insightful on GMP. I wish there were more of them but then if there were, you wouldn’t be so pithy, now would you? 😉 Doesn’t Susie Bright make so much sense? Don’t you just want to send all these budding and full-fledged misogynists, so terrified of women’s sexual power, over to her? It’s hard to believe she’s in the US– but then, she wouldn’t be such an anomaly in [most of] Europe. Really, in cultures that are casual about sex, there just isn’t the level of terror,… Read more »
How come no one ever brings up other unintended consequences of copious casual sex such as overly enlarged vaginal orifice. This is an impediment to long term relationships later on in life too. Men think about these things.
Oh please. Copious casual sex does not damage a woman’s vagina, other than the risk of pregnancy and STD’s. The vagina has extremely powerful muscles. Childbirth can make a woman’s vagina less “tight” (although I’ve heard it sometimes has the opposite effect). So can aging, because of muscle atrophy (same reason your stomach gets flabby over time).
Are you suggesting that a married woman who has had only 1 lifetime sex partner is damaging her vagina because she has frequent sex with her husband? Or is it just casual sex that is damaging?
Please stop repeating urban legends.
Misogynistic misinformation, more like it. LOL
The levels of ignorance are appalling.
I’m not repeating urban legends. I’m talking about real life. I have been with over 200 women of all types. A lot of sex with varying penis sizes and childbirth does wear down the vagina. Don’t get mad at me, I didn’t make it that way.
Also, not all are the same, some withstand the wear and tear better than others. #dontshootthemessenger
200 women? Out of, oh let’s say roughly 2 billion of an age to be sexually (consensually) active during your lifetime.
A good random sample: NOT!
LMFAO, what an ignorant, misogynistic prejudice, not backed up by ANY medical facts. You obviously know nothing about female anatomy– or actually, anatomy or biology of ANY kind.
ONLY in US America, where ignorance is proudly proclaimed!
Go examine some vaginas that have been through the type of wear and tear I am referring to (repeated insertions of various above-average sized penises and childbirth(s)) and then get back to me.
It can have an impact, but your bits are your own to use and decide what to do with. I you go through life “saving them” for a special occasion that never comes around, what good is it?
Even if there are a few men who are put off by sexual experience theres just as many that are attracted to it.
Thank you for at least acknowledging the truth. I didn’t say people with worn vaginas were bad people or anything.
It’s just something that makes a man think.
I take issue with this article on a number of levels, but I think my main problem is that Neely seems to suggesting the sex-positive feminism INSISTS that all women MUST “unleash their inner slut” and have as much casual sex as possible in order to be liberated and empowered. From all my reading, that’s not what sex-positivity condones at all. “our responsibility as sexual creatures, to show the world we can fuck like men do, have instantaneous orgasms, and feel faaaabulous while doing it in our 4-inch Manolo Blahniks.” For example, this is sentence sounds like a formula for… Read more »
Well said.
Shame free existence is not a reality for anyone. Their will be people with different opinions about certain behavior so the fact some level of shaming may exists doesn’t mean society is faulty. In fact we could all turn out to be wrong promiscuity in both genders as was done in the past. Sexuality needs to fit into a family friendly frame work. The whole reproductive component of our life cycle is not suppose to be a after thought. We have seen the consequences of that and it’s really looking like a failed social experiment. Unstable families or people simply… Read more »
My major gripe with Hugo’s stance is that “You can learn from your mistakes” so quickly becomes “you have to make mistakes in order to learn”. While the difference seems subtle, it’s not actually. I know that there are a lot of people out there that think that acting like a fool will actually make them better people down the road. There are plenty of things that you can learn from – mistakes are probably the worst of them. Having a ton of one night stands will not automatically make you a better partner or parent. I agree with the… Read more »
“I also happen to think most women aren’t all that interested in having a lot of [ casual, no-strings attached sex] for purely sexual reasons, with multiple partners no less. Hi, I’m Morgaine, and I have enjoyed and hope to continue to enjoy quite a bit of casual, no-strings attached sex in my life. So have and do many of my female friends. And a fair number (majority) of my students at the variety of universities at which I’ve taught. Here’s what might mean a HUGE difference in our perspectives: I lived in Europe for nearly a decade, where ”… Read more »
Here here!
There are alot of women out there with very liberated attitudes to sex, the quote you mentioned doesn’t deny it. What it suggested is that *most* women still feel pressured (either by biology or society) into chastity. As for your european experiences, glad you had a good time :). But keep in mind that you’re talking about an entire continent consisting of over 50 countries, even more cultures, and hugely varying attitudes to sex and nudity. “Some people are happy to choose monogamous pair-bonded relationships. JUST AS MANY prefer another dynamic” I don’t look down on polygamists, but I don’t… Read more »
“*most* women still feel pressured (either by biology or society) into chastity.” Do you have numbers on that? The US makes up less than 5% of the world. So US women make up less than 2.5%. I’m curious as to where you get this assertion. “Some people are happy to choose monogamous pair-bonded relationships. JUST AS MANY prefer another dynamic” “I don’t look down on polygamists, but I don’t think they represent anything near 50% of most human populations. Maybe that wasn’t meant to be taken literally though.” There are OTHER options as well, between monogamy and polygamy (or polygyny… Read more »
Do you fear the day when men will no longer find you sexually desirable? I also lived in europe for a few years, and I find my experience to be completely at odds with your own. Sure, people are more comfortable with their bodies, but not with casual sex. You make it sound so chic and cool. Did it ever occur to you that them men were very open minded because that’s what men do to get laid? If a guy wants to screw you I doubt he is going to give you a lecture about being easy. Look, imnot… Read more »
I think what sex positive, egalitarian feminists don’t realize is that most women simply are not satisfied with just sleeping around. Most women do not enjoy no strings attached sex *to the extent* that men do. Not only that, but are often trying to turn a hookup into a boyfriend. Men simply want sex more than women do. This is such basic truth to anyone who is honest that it’s laughable I have to give an explanation to what everyone reading this knows, but might fail to accept. Even on a rudimentary level, we can dispel the myth that women… Read more »
“Men simply want sex more than women do.”
Citation needed.
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
L:
Here is something I found just off the cuff:
ht tp://www.webmd.com/sexual-conditions/news/20030626/testosterone-increases-libido-in-women
Missed the whole hookup thing myself, though my sister wh was a teen in the late sixties probably saw more of it than me being 20 Ish in the pre-cocktail HIV years. I’m with watsername who noterd that the sexual revolution and feminism are separate but cotemporal phenomena.
In my experience, single guys who are ambivalent or negative about parenthood avoid 30-something women due to the tic-tok so younger and older women have more prospects.
Excellent post, Neely! You definitely made the better argument here. As for Hugo, this paragraph in particular stood out as an example of nonsense piled upon nonsense: “Experience really is the best teacher, even if not every student learns the lesson the first (or 101st) time. Women in particular need reassurance that their worth is not linked to their number of sexual partners. They need to hear that pursuing pleasure for its own sake when they’re young will not make it more difficult to form enduring monogamous relationships (if they want them) when they’re older. These are lessons I’ve learned,… Read more »
A couple more things on Hugo and experience. For one, it’s not like only sluts have experience. *Everyone* has experience. It’s an unavoidable consequence of being a conscious, living being and, well, experiencing life. Sluts have the experience of being sluts, and as a result they lack the experience of not being sluts during the same time frame. What Hugo wants us to believe is that the slut experience is superior to the non-slut experience, but he doesn’t say why. Instead, he tells us of the importance of feeding sluts a bunch of BS so that they won’t feel bad… Read more »
I wonder how well Hugo would have fared in the dating world after his numerous trysts and marriages if he were a woman. Would this hypothetical woman, whose behavior fits the common definition of “slutty,” have found a Mr. as talented and physically attracitve as Hugo’s wife? I believe that “slutty” women have more to fear when attempting to nab a long-term partner than “slutty” men (and I grant that this is due to sexism) – isn’t it ironic that Hugo’s male privilege is probably at least partially responsible for his blase view towards the pitfalls of promiscuity? And Ms.… Read more »
And to clarify, I DO believe that women have it worse than men when they are “slutty” and I DO believe that this double-standard is sexist and unfair. But, as been said, it’s there and to pretend it’s not is pretty foolhardy.
PM says: “And to clarify, I DO believe that women have it worse than men when they are “slutty” and I DO believe that this double-standard is sexist and unfair. But, as been said, it’s there and to pretend it’s not is pretty foolhardy.” PM I do admit that when a slutty man and slutty woman are both ready to commit to LTR’s the man has a definite advantage. But, I don’t think this is a baseless double standard that society imposes on us. What I mean is this double standard doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it happens within dating/hookup… Read more »
Oh Jesus, not this “locks” BS again.
That crap is just a way for men to control women’s sexuality. It’s not our fault that your desperation for sex makes us the choosers and you the beggers (GENERALLY speaking), but please for the love of Christ stop trying to pretend that the double-standard against women makes any kind of logical sense. It clearly does not and such moronic analogies, while good fodder for low-rent, not-ashamed-to-use-recycled-material ‘comedians’, it has no place at all in serious discussions.
It’s a simple concept. Being the seeker isn’t about sex–it’s about companionship. I have seen several women ON THIS WEBPAGE detailing how they never asked men out (even the ones they preferred who looked like good LTR material) and only settled for the men who ASKED THEM and were now in their 40’s and childless. Since men have to prove themselves worthy, then the man who has done this before MANY women must indeed be a catch. It’s a simple concept. If a car wins awards from many publishers and review companies then it is a good car. The double… Read more »
Ok JohnD, so I am a woman and what I want is to be sexually satisfied and happy to enjoy sexual fun while I keep my eyes open for a “keeper”.
You’ve WAY oversimplified things, John. The lock & key analogy is severely lacking. And women DO hit on men, we just gotta train our eyes to see it when they do it.
I am sure that women do hit on men. However, in this RARE instance it is typically men who A) have demonstrated the ability to generate desire in women and B) have bedded many women. Even in the rare instance that women hit on men, it is usually a ladykiller they hit on. Which still makes my point. Women think that men who have bedded many women are HAUT! because they have proven themselves worthy. When a man must prove his “worth” to get female companionship (even if she initiates because he is worthy) then it makes a man who… Read more »
John D, you and I have had the discussion before and so yes I’m one of those women you are referring to. And yes I have told you that I feel like I wasted my younger years on guys who didn’t want to commit, but the problem was, for whatever reason, those were the guys who wanted to date me. Looking back on my life, I can’t think of a ONE SINGLE man who I can say, wow, I should have pursued him because he was great marriage material. Of course, yes, I can think of guys who were great… Read more »
Jill, While part of my point was women don’t initiate, I was mainly responding to ohforthelove (at the top of the thread) regarding the double standard of male s1uts being acceptable, but female s1uts aren’t. I was pointing out the irony that WOMEN define for themselves what is attractive in a man. Women can cry about this double standard all they want, but they are really only fighting their own desires because it is women THEMSELVES (or at least a large majority) who are attracted to ladykillers who have lots of past lovers. As long as men have to prove… Read more »
Look at the incidence/prevalence rates of chlamydia and herpes if you need help with the facts.
A lot of people who believe they are in committed monogamous relationships contract various STIs!
Newsflash – the operative term here is “believe”!
Some stats:
Every year, 1 in 4 sexually active teens contracts an STI.
More than 25% of New Yorkers are infected with genital herpes.
There are approximately 19 million new STIs each year — almost half of them among people 15-24.
The cost of STDs to the U.S. health care system is approximately $16 billion annually.
Or the proven consequences for children of broken families and fatherlessness. Or female fertility rates in delayed marriage. Or the degree to which multiple partners correlates with failed marriage, and hence the aforementioned consequences. Etc, etc
In between all the finger-pointing accusations as to ‘who’s to blame for our hookup culture,’ has either side bothered to say why casual sex has suddenly become a bad thing that needs to be explained, diagnosed, and stamped out?
Hookup culture doesn’t have to be a “problem” in need of fixing. What happened to letting people pursue their own interests and do what they find enjoyable and satisfying?
word
Agreed, Copyleft, well said.
Amen!
The hookup culture is a problem to these angry beta males that feel left out because they cannot hookup with the supermodel they feel entitled to. 🙂
Oh perhaps because a lot of people, especially women, are vastly unhappy in it. Does that count for anything?
Not really, when they have the free choice to participate or opt out as they prefer. Freedom’s a wonderful thing.
You’re being deliberately obtuse. We are talking about a social phenomena, a societal shift here, not a game of opt in and opt out. If you really think it’s that simple, you’re in denial.
I don’t personally know of a single person who has “opted-in”. No, seriously. I don’t know a single family member, a single friend, or a single friend-of-a-friend who has played and got burned by the hookup game. The only one that even comes remotely to mind is my mother, who’s almost 50, but she doesn’t go out binge drinking at clubs and bring guys home for one night stands. Not that there’s anything wrong with that either. For some young people, the pressure may be there, but I don’t think it’s at pervasive as everyone thinks, and it’s definitely not… Read more »
You are obviously living in an echo chamber of sex-positive dogma, surrounding yourself with like-minded people. My blog exists only because women and men flock to it to describe their dissatisfaction and unhappiness directly attributable to hookup culture. There has also a great deal of attention given to the negative aspects of casual sex in the culture in studies, films, books, etc. All of this has been covered in depth in the mainstream media. Yes, some women do enjoy it, but as Neely says they are a small minority. They should not speak for all women, or defend a culture… Read more »
Agree completely. Just because one doesn’t personally know anyone who has been burned by it, that does not mean those people do not exist. They clearly do, and the backlash to this culture has already started (thank goodness).
Well put, Susan. I’m just glad I realized this and was able to be honest with myself at 22 as opposed to 32.
Susie, no one is stopping you from wearing a purity ring, ok?
Most institutions are actually in favor of your bride-mentality. Why are you upset? Oh yeah, because that doesn’t make you happy either… smh.
Please identify the alleged ‘harm’ being done by people freely choosing to live and love as they please.
Too many women aren’t being honest with themselves about what they want. They’re freely and gladly getting into unrewarding, sexual relationships with men who have too many options who would never in a million years commit to them, but for one night. And these lies being perpetuated by sex positive feminists or egalitarian feminists that “women want to have sex without any promise of commitment just as much as men do” further enables this phenomenon. A lot of t women actually believe this until they’ve suffered enough emotional pain to change their course of action. Some realize entirely too late… Read more »
Diem I believe your line one captures a great deal of the debate here. The problem I have is the willingness to blame “sex positive feminists” or “egalitarian feminists” for the problem that many women (and men I might add) are not honest with themselves when they are in their 20s. I also agree with you that we can’t divorce people’s decisions from the society in which they live. Another pertinent shift that has occurred in our society in the last couple of decades is a shift to longer time periods in post-secondary education, longer time periods of people in… Read more »
Ahh, so women need to have their relationship options narrowed FOR THEIR OWN GOOD. Thanks for clarifying that women who make choices you disapprove of are really helpless victims of brainwashing who don’t understand what they’re doing.
Are there medals for accomplishments Radical Feminist Theory, or is there some sort of plaque and awards ceremony?
Freedom doesn’t guarantee happiness; but servitude pretty much guarantees unhappiness.
Excellent post, Neely, and a fascinating juxtaposition of views. The Sexual Revolution was the child of the Women’s Movement and the Pill. Four decades later we’re reeling from the effects of all those unintended consequences. Thank you for speaking honestly about the very real pain that most women suffer when they adopt a regular diet of casual sex. It’s something I hear every day.
Lumping criticism of sex-positive feminism as “feminist-bashing” is sickening and way off base. The sad reality of modern feminism is that it has become a vehicle for anti-male hatred and anti-marriage legislation throughout the country. From feminists fighting against joint custody legislation to feminist legislation forbidding boys from playing on girls’ sports teams in schools, the deep-seated hatred of males and just about anything traditional that is the core of much of feminism is finally becoming apparent to many. The dogmatic knee jerk reaction that is reflexively given to just about any criticism of aspects to feminism is beautifully illustrated… Read more »
Can you explain what joint custody legislation feminists are fighting against? OR the case of a boy being prevented from playing on girls’ sports teams? I pay attention to news and both of those are pretty new to me.
Title IX allows for “positive discrimination” against boys in many states. There, girls can play on boys’ teams, but boys cannot play on girls’ teams. In California, women’s groups have fought against presumptive, rebuttable joint custody legislation, and lobbied for move-away laws that would allow a custodial parent, the vast majority of whom are mothers, to move away from the noncustodial parent with minimal limitations. Also in CA, the state funded shelters for decades that only accepted female victims of domestic violence while allowing male victims little or nothing in terms of resources. Thankfully, after much legal action in the… Read more »
I’ve actually read a number of columns about high schools preventing boys playing on girls teams even though there are examples of the reverse allowed in the same system. Of course I get a lot of my news from mensactivism d0t 0rg There you will see all the stories of men as villains played out in reverse. You will see lots of stories of women killing their own children, women killing or maiming men, and many MANY false rape accusations in which the accuser is not punished, even though the man she accused was likely to get 10 years or… Read more »
Why would a boy want to pay on a girl’s team? I’m just curious. I’m having trouble understanding why their would be any demand for that at all. And if enough boys want to switch over to play on girl’s teams (maybe because the competition is weaker and they win more), now you’ve got a boy’s team, or at best a co-ed team.
Some sports (volleyball, field hockey, cheerleading) are not offered to boys at all.
Fair enough. I guess my concern is that if the men on the team can out-perform the women, it kind of defeats the purpose of having a women’s team. I don’t think it is sexist to acknowledge that women are generally physically less strong than men. Certainly there are some women who are extremely strong and athletic and could hold their own against a male player, but having a guy on the team could definitely be an unfair advantage as well as taking the place of a girl who would otherwise have the opportunity to play. If a boy wants… Read more »
Jill says: “Fair enough. I guess my concern is that if the men on the team can out-perform the women, it kind of defeats the purpose of having a women’s team. I don’t think it is sexist to acknowledge that women are generally physically less strong than men.” The sexism part applies when these same school systems let girls play on boys teams when there is already a girls team (I remember reading an article on this in which an EXTREMELY tall girl wanted to play on the boys basketball team to up her game because she dominated the girls… Read more »
PM says:
Some sports (volleyball, field hockey, cheerleading) are not offered to boys at all.
Badminton, tennis, swimming and many others are disappearing across the country (for boys).
Now there is talk of inflicting title IX on high schools too.
Ridiculous.
The feminist bashing in some of these comments and the blatant blaming of feminism as the root cause of the sexual revolution (that’s right, there was actually a revolution about sex all on its own people) makes my stomach churn. I am not a women’s studies scholar but I am a feminist human sexuality scholar and pro-casual sex, sex-positive educator. I concur with Jocelyn on the mirriade of individual differences missing from this conversation. Beyond that, lumping feminism as if it is one thing and one thing only also gravely concerns me. Believe it or not, there are feminist scholar’s… Read more »
You can wait until after your 30s, but there’s this thing called fertility.
We’re not allowed to discuss its decline with age in feminist circles, so you may want to look it up on the internet and educate yourself….
Options: adoption; fertility technologies such as in vitro if you are keen on giving birth, surrogates if you are keen on spreading your own genes but can’t give birth; god-forbid some of us would be happy “just” being great aunties or *gasp* step-mothers. We all know there are lots of divorced men out there by the time they hit 35 with kids 😉
You are certainly free to spend thousands on fertility treatments later in life, Privileged White Affluent Feminist Single Mother by Choice.
FLASH – male and female biology are not the same!
Newsflash: Not all of us want kids.
Newsflash: Some women want kids. NOW has censored groups like ASRM in the past from informing women about their decreasing fertility as they age.
Those are not great options. I think most would agree that having children,naturally, when you are younger is better. I’m 45, never really wanted kids but still sort of wanted to keep my options open. When I turned 40, I realized (from watching friends of mine go through it) that all of the options at that point – adoption, in vitro, surrogacy, etc. – are very tough, and expensive, and that I no longer have the energy for babies/small children and I don’t want to be 60 when my child graduates from high school. So I concluded that that ship… Read more »
Krystelle says: “As I am to read this conclusion, Neely is willing to tell us that searching for a man to love when we are in our early 20s so that we are married with children before we are in our early 30s is the proper, non-politically aligned, course towards female happiness.” Clearly you’re free to make any choices you want. But if you are going to delay building a LTR and family building until your mid to late 30’s then you should at least admit that you may be sacrificing your long term happiness for your career. (or for… Read more »
That photo of the “Afghan girl” shows a woman who has led a hard life. I see a woman who still has beautiful facial features (look at the perfect shape of her lips) but she has a lot of surface skin damage from many years spent in refugee camps in the sun and freezing wind of Afghanistan. It also looks like her nose might have been broken at some point. According to the article, she doesn’t know her age but she may be only be 29 or 30 years old in the “grown up” picture. So, I’m not sure why… Read more »
Jill, I’m not mocking anybody. I also agree that the actual changes to the afghan girl’s face are tiny, but they are numerous. I was pointing out that for women who want to fill their 20’s and 30’s with “fun time” men or a career, be prepared because things change for the worse for women. I believe that the best things for both genders is to marry young, but then WTF do I know. I’m just some random slob ranting on the net (attempt at whimsy). Society has been harmed immensely by radfems shopping no-fault divorce across the country. It’s… Read more »
Wow. Really? You think the fact that many men are shallow and care about looks more than anything else is news to any girl over the age of 12?
It’s really sad that some men have so completely bought into the idea that women want money, and men want young, pretty things (not people, mind. people (and not things) have more value to them than what they look like).
So, men being immature and thinking with their little head is a travesty, but women being immature and thinking with their cl1t is a myth?
Wow, sexist much?
Where did I say that immature women didn’t exist? WTF? I said all women know that shallow men only care about the way women look, this is not news. At all. And yeah, shallow women only care about how much men earn, I’m sure you won’t be blowing anyone’s mind with that nugget of wisdom, either. While we’re on the subject, do you mention that super rare secret about women liking money to men as advice regarding their choice of careers? Or is such consideration of shallow idiocy only something you think women should be reminded of as if it’s… Read more »
If you’re trying to tell people that it’s outrageous to blame feminism for the sexual revolution, it’s probably not a great idea to turn around and tell us that you think the sexual revolution is totally awesome because you’re a feminist in the very next sentence. Just sayin’. For future reference.
I’m a feminist sex researcher… but I encounter feminists who don’t believe in anything I have to say about sex and relationships. My POINT is that there is diversity in everything. Here, I always thought the Good Men Project was teaching us more and more about the beauty in diversity. Yet, the ongoing discussion to this piece is leading me to believe that diversity is beautiful as long as you aren’t a feminist because we all know there is only one brand of feminism.
Great comment. Voices like yours are sorely missing from these “discussions”!
From : http://www.sexlifecanada.ca/users/jocelyn-wentland
“She is currently exploring definitions of various casual sex relationships (booty calls, friends with benefits) and is also examining how modern technology is changing the way we date. ”
I look forward to aid in identifying highly sexual women and helping them with their orientation.
We need more booty calls and FWBs – thanks Jocelyn!
Feminism has destroyed the woman’s ability to be feminine and only left her with sex as the opportunity to get in touch with that femininity. It’s broken down the structure of marriage and given men the opportunity to technically spread their (blank) seeds without having to take care of the woman.
Peeps are lonely. Thanks feminism!
Sorry to break it to you… peeps were lonely long before feminism, in and outside of marriages. Never heard of The Awakening? You ought to read it.
Thank you for starting this dialogue, Hugo and Neely. Feminism and hooking-up is a very cool intersection to explore and I look forward to further posts on topic. I have to take issue with one of the stats that Neely presented in her piece: “I was told, by the 10% of women who are capable of effectively and consistently compartmentalizing their emotions when it comes to no-strings attached sex, that emotions were overrated, anathema even, and could easily be separated from sexual acts with another human being, to unapologetically unleash my inner slut (there’s that word again)” Being a sex… Read more »
Thank you!
Excellent!
I noticed that difference between Hugo and Neely; the “highly sexual” vs “less sexual” aspect wasn’t taken into account in either side, and it disappoints me to see both of them to more or less assume that the vast majority of people of either/any gender have the same, if not similar levels of sex drive, and compatible sexualities, which just isn’t true. I’d wish one of them would have acknowledged that men can and do often get burned by hookup culture as well.
I strongly agree with all of this!
Sex-positive feminism has a lot to do with hookup culture.
Blaming the hook-up culture on feminism is naive. The hookup culture existed in the 1970s ( it was probably stronger than now ) and nobody blamed feminism for it. At the beginning, SATC was loved by gay men because it’s gay men that behaved like the female characters of SATC. It’s only after that some feminists praised it because feminism was dying at the end of the 1990s and they thought that by saying that the female characters of SATC were empowered they would attract women.