We’ve talked before about hegemonic masculinity, the constant societal drumbeat of nonsense about what a man is supposed to be. Tall, successful, competitive, into sports, violent, et cetera ad nauseam. What I’ve been thinking about lately is how this fits into another incessant social narrative, one I’m going to call hegemonic heterosexuality, because the alternate name would be the Cult Of Shitty Relationships. I started down this train of thought when I saw a billboard for some godawful by-the-numbers romantic comedy coming out on Valentine’s Day, which makes sense because Valentine’s Day is that holiday when guys do romantic gestures for their girlfriends like taking them out to romantic comedies because men hate romantic comedies and it’s romantic to do things you hate because wait what the fuck everything in this logic chain is both wrong and horrible.
Hegemonic heterosexuality is the model for straight relationships that carries as many damaging, ridiculous, impossible assumptions and requirements as does hegemonic masculinity. Shall we list a few?
Relationships are about finding The One you’ll spend the rest of your life with. Naturally, a jealous and possessive form of monogamy is a strict requirement. It is necessary to hate all of one’s exes, because they were not The One, and one must also be jealous of all one’s partner’s exes, because they touched your property before you even got there.
There is a list of Things Women Like and a list of Things Men Like, and they have minimal overlap. To engage in correct heterosexuality one must do things on the opposite-gender list, to please one’s partner. You will not enjoy these things. Men make sacrifices like pretending to enjoy shopping or theater, because those are what women like. Women make sacrifices like pretending to enjoy sports and action movies, because those are what men like. If one’s partner likes anything on the “wrong” list, that is excitingly transgressive in that they might actually enjoy it, but ultimately it’s kind of weird and makes them not The One.
Men don’t have emotions and women don’t have a sex drive, so relationships consist of a transaction: the performance of sex acts for the performance of emotional intimacy. Men hate emotional intimacy and women hate sex, so this is a fair trade all around. There is a narrow range of “normal” sex acts that are permitted; anything outside those bounds is weird and gross, especially if there’s any hint that it might be driven by some form of female sexual desire, which is by definition perverse. Men sometimes want “extreme” or “kinky” sex acts, which a woman may perform in order to please her man, but if she is not appropriately compensated for this sacrifice, the relationship is unfair.
It goes without saying, of course, that men are primarily valuable for their worldly success and accomplishment, with some secondary value derived from conformation to a standardized concept of physical attractiveness. Women, conversely, are primarily valuable for their conformation to standardized physical attractiveness, with some secondary value derived from worldly success and accomplishment.
At all points and in all ways, the man must take the initiative. He must be the first to approach the woman and ask her out, he must be the first to propose sex, the first to propose each escalation of the relationship, and, obviously, the first to propose marriage. The woman’s role is to get the man to do each of these things in the appropriate order without ever directly asking for any of them. If she expresses a desire out loud, she loses points and may be demoted from The One status. Instead she must silently manipulate the man so that he follows these steps in the right order at the right time as though of his own initiative.
Proposal and marriage must be performed in accordance with a very strict and specific set of rituals and traditions. This constitutes a victory on the woman’s part, as men hate marriage, so his proposal means that she has won. Once married, most married couples hate each other. This is normal.
There’s a lot more weird requirements and assumptions built into this routine, but I’m sure you all recognize it by now. This is the model of straight relationships that informs every article in “men’s magazines” and “women’s magazines”, the model that informs every “battle of the sexes” joke, every half-assed romantic comedy, and for some reason every single episode of Friends I ever saw, no exceptions. Also Ally McBeal. Also… shit, throw a dart at the TV, it’ll hit an example.
One might say that this is just heteronormativity, but I think it’s different; it’s even more restrictive. It’s perfectly possible to say “There’s a million different ways for a man and a woman to love each other!” which is heteronormativity, but not hegemonic heterosexuality. The Cult Of Shitty Relationships defines “normal” down even further, into realms of pointless, purposeless unhappiness.
At its core, it’s based on two ugly stereotypes and one ugly model. The stereotypes can be distilled down to this: Men are stupid and women are crazy. Offensive as hell no matter how you slice it, ain’t it? As to the model, it’s kind of even worse: conflict. Men and women’s interests and goals are at odds with each other, so all we can do is try to come out on top.
In other words, hegemonic heterosexuality is the vast cultural conspiracy to describe all heterosexual relationships as the unending war between stupid people and crazy people. If that’s really the model of love you want to aspire to, then okay, you have that right. But don’t piss down my neck and tell me it’s raining, and don’t show me toxic relationships and tell me they’re normal. I reject this model and encourage others to do so as well, and I’m pissed off enough that I’m putting together some more pieces on this. Be prepared for gravity of thought, levity of expression, and swearing.
This the american version of ‘shitty’ but I have for years used the terms ‘shitties’ to refer to those who feel the need to follow this set of unwritten rules. The only different with the british version is that it involves even more alcohol and binge drinking to get things started and it’s a matter of the woman reforming the alcoholic lad of a man to the point where he no longer feels the need to go out and get drunk at ‘chase pussy’ every weekend.
Yes! Ghaa, this drives me crazy! I have friends stuck in this pattern of entering pre-scripted relationships that don’t suit them, that pit the “partners” against each other in some sort of competitive zero-sum pantomime of a relationship, and then break up and wonder what could possibly have gone wrong because they followed all the right steps. These same people will, embarrassingly, give me and my gentleman friend well-meant warnings about how we’re doing it wrong because I proposed, because we’ve never bothered to celebrate anniversaries, and because I’d throttle him if he spent our money on something as useless… Read more »
At last, an intelligent discussion. I for one have been convinced of the effect of the media on the definition of especially heteronormative. The images of John Wayne, Cary Grant etc. One individual has likes and dislikes yet most are unexamined for how they came to be. Yet then are so judgmental about what is normal or not. I believe in the normal of one. There is a range of acceptability that as long as no one hurts anybody else then what anyone does is or should be considered normal.
This is a very nice synopsis of the chain of stereotypes that absolutely *do* pressure and mold people trying to make their way nowadays. Thanks for it!
Nudge nudge, wink wink? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7HycFnH26U
@ Noah,
My comment was tongue-in-cheek, but yes, it’s not exactly A Modest Proposal.
Aaaaaand that’s the satirist’s dilemma, right there: if you throw in a nudge and a wink, it ceases to be funny; if you don’t, people think you really do want the Irish to eat their children.
@Ed: …does “I reject this model” count as a nudge and a wink? Do the adjectives “shitty”, “ugly”, “offensive”, “wrong”, “horrible”, “damaging”, “ridiculous”, and “impossible” count as a nudge and a wink? Because they strike me more as a large blunt object to the head. Possibly people nudge harder where Mr. Hart comes from.
I’m not going to deny that I can be accused of many sins as a writer, but I’m going to go ahead and say that oversubtlety is not one of them.
@Daniel Vela Hart
The actual sentiment seemed to be clear for the vast majority of the participants in this discussion. Also i’m kinda curious what makes the (yes, very palpable) irony chauvinistic.
Now obviously you did not consider it clear enough, but I’d say that if you gave even a cursory look to the rest of the comments, you’d find that making the point you are trying to make is simply unnecessary. Noone else read it the way you seem to have.
So let it be that no-one else feels the same way – your blog has so few readers. I disagree with you, but who else gives a fuck? G’night.
I don’t know if you are male or female; gay or straight. I’m guessing male given your name! But I don’t so much care where your politics lie or what your actual opinion is; it is so swathed in chauvinistic irony the actual sentiment isn’t clear. So it is more about how you come across – which is offensive, sexist, crass and judgemental.
What you are saying here is so sadly subjective – and hateful. “Men who don’t like the stuff Men Like simply do not exist. Sure, there are probably a few Sensitive New Age Guys who won’t pressure women into doing it, but they all get off on anal sex secretly. The ones who don’t get points, the way that men who like cunnilingus get points.” This is not true in my experience as a man. I’ve never been interested in anal sex, loathe sport and competitive masculinity, and I do prefer to give – do you speak for me, or… Read more »
@Daniel Vela Hart: Um. I think a closer reading will reveal that Ozy and I are not, in fact, advocating the positions to which you object. In fact, we object to them in the strongest possible terms. That’s kind of the point.
I tried to read irony into it, imagining it as some Brooker-esque kind of rant, but all I saw in your writing was unfunny, stupid and extremely sexist judgement about people that bore no relation to anyone I have ever known or indeed could recognise. A closer reading does not make your opinion any smarter. That’s kind of my point.
@Daniel Vela Hart: Er… what do you believe that opinion to be?
freerer? I don’t even know what I was going for there. My apologies.
It’s funny because straight, monogamous relationship models were never something I ever put much thought into despite the fact that I was practicing that exact thing. Once I started expanding my horizions and started to see what a big ole world it is and that there are way more kinds of relationships than I had ever dreamed, I started to break free from the preset notions of what a relationship *should* be and I started to look for what actually makes me happy. Since I’ve worked on breaking out of the of the “only one person in the world for… Read more »
“Hegemonic heterosexuality is the model for straight relationships that carries as many damaging, ridiculous, impossible assumptions and requirements as does hegemonic masculinity.”
That’s a good definition but I have to confess somethng quite different came to mind for that term. What I thought of was heterosexual people being hegemonic. Maggie Gallagher for instance. And gay people trying to model their relationships on the toxic straight ones they grew up with.
This is great. Keep up the good writing.
@JD: Just about every woman in my family acts this way, so yes, there’s truth to the trope. Though I want to say that the women that do this, in my experience, don’t just do it to their male partners, but rather everyone close to them.
I’m in my twenties, and more than once have had a conversation with a straight female friend about how “no, he does not know what you are thinking, just tell him how you feel already!” and so I think the bit about women expecting and being expected to silently manipulate their partners persists to some degree. I agree its cliche for ‘female lead character’ to storm off stage insisting that she’s “fine!” when what she really wants is for ‘male lead character’ to ask her how she is four more times, there are indeed people who still do this. Not… Read more »
Marvellous. Thank you for this. If you’d written it a year ago I could have shown it to my, now ex, wife.
“You just described my life! I have tried to be clear, not to manipulate and to be honest but sadly this seems to up the stakes on the manipulation/I win game for men. It feels like the Simpsons cartoon dog level of hearing. I say I like my house, the wardrobes are full of clothes I like don’t expect this to lead to you moving in. they hear mwa mwa mwa you moving in? I despair……” Well, the problem there is…why say this? If someone is with you, they might try to mind-read into what you said, to find some… Read more »
I’m thinking debaser71 had never lived in the rural midwest (where I was raised). This describes that environment PERFECTLY.
Just my perspective. I honestly hope I’m wrong and simply was a bad observer.
This is all a bit obvious and derivative…if anything, the idea that people genuinely act in this way is the only real stereotype here. Also: a little patronising. Some of these behavioural characteristics are typical of any human relationship/interaction in our society – OP: do you really think that you’re outside/above of that? Having said that, it’s a pretty neat summation of many bullshit pop-culture representations of relationships. Also; it raises the point that most people seem to believe that OTHERS act in this ‘stereotypical’ way, while they themselves are taking part in a PROPER relationship, not tainted by social… Read more »
You just described my life! I have tried to be clear, not to manipulate and to be honest but sadly this seems to up the stakes on the manipulation/I win game for men. It feels like the Simpsons cartoon dog level of hearing. I say I like my house, the wardrobes are full of clothes I like don’t expect this to lead to you moving in. they hear mwa mwa mwa you moving in? I despair……
I think a lot of the rom-com guff is simply the power of cliche. It stays that way not because anyone has any real attachment to it, but because doing something else would require originality. Although you could get surprisingly far just by ripping off classic Hollywood rather than last week’s mediocrity…
“There is a list of Things Women Like and a list of Things Men Like, and they have minimal overlap” – hell, there’s whole books that lay this out for you, with titles like “what women want” or “men’s secrets that women should know”
I do concur, but are you sure you ever watched Ally? Yes, she finds herself buying into this model, and she is portrayed as an idiot for it. In fact, all across the show there are characters who don’t fit into neatly circumscribed societal roles, either suffering as they try to force themselves or thriving as they find non-“traditional” paths. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the whole point of the series is a dialogue about exactly these issues. It’s not always the case that when you see an attitude expressed in the media it’s being held up as… Read more »
I know a lot of relationships like this, if the term can be applied. Usually the ones where the girl is ‘in love 4eva’ after a few weeks. I am very glad to say me and my chap are nothing like the above. He’s into musical theatre (which, shock horror, I now actually like!), watches Americas next top model, and enjoys being romantic! I’m a nerd of fluid sexuality, who doesn’t know which and of an oven is up, much less do I desire to. This does not make me the other hollywood stereotype, the business woman who rules the… Read more »