Imagine for a minute that you’re a medieval European peasant. If it helps, I can wait here while you cover yourself with shit, have several children, and watch half of them die.
All set? Great.
Now, I’m not asking you to be stupid here. You’re one sharp peasant. You know all the prayers and hymns at church by heart, you have a startlingly accurate mental map of every farm and hillock for many miles, and nobody has ever out-dickered you for a sausage. You are on the ball, or would be if balls were widely available in your century. You are not, however, capable of being an atheist.
You have grown up in an environment where the absolute authority of the Church is taken for granted as an axiom of existence. Not only would you be offended or confused at the suggestion that the Church lacks authority, you’ve never met anyone in your life capable of formulating that suggestion. At your best and cleverest and most rebellious, you could think that quite possibly the Church is wrong in some way about the nature of God. But you can’t yet formulate the question “What if it’s all just made up?”
Not because you’re stupid, not because you’re not trying, but because you have a lot of stuff on your plate to deal with, and there are a lot of unspoken assumptions you absorbed from the cradle on. You don’t even know you have them, much less that they might be wrong.
It is my contention that this is the position many people are in today with regard to the market-transaction model of male-female relationships, wherein women are the effective sellers of sex and sexual intimacy, and men are looking to bid or buy.
This model is the intrinsic, usually-unspoken basis for every relationship-advice column Cosmopolitan and Men’s Health have ever published. It’s the basis for almost every dating joke in every sitcom and romcom you’ve ever seen. It’s the basis for “traditional marriage” and all its defenders. It’s the basis for all pickup-artist models, with their bizarre alphanumeric classifications of value. It’s the basis of every upset MRA who feels he’s been outbid for the sex he thinks he deserves. It’s the basis of an awful lot of feminist thought, too, and certainly a lot of sorta-feminist women’s literature. It’s the basis of Figleaf’s two rules of desire. It’s the basis of the lies about libido that I’ve ranted about in the past. It’s incredibly pervasive, and if you can go 24 hours without being exposed to it in some form, I have one question for you: what’s the rent on a Skinner box these days?
Here, then, is what you need to be asking yourself: What if it’s all just made up?
I cite the medieval-peasant example for a reason. I want to take away all the easy justifications you might have for believing, even implicitly, in the market model.
“If everyone believes it, there must be something to it, right?” Wrong. Entire societies have firmly believed flatly wrong things before. Indeed, that is the norm throughout human history.
“But there’s all these elegant models with Greek letters constructed on this basis, and their theory is very persuasive!” Put together all the world’s writing on pickup dynamics and beta males and all the rest of it, and you’ll still be nowhere near the brilliance and beauty of the writings of Thomas Aquinas or Teresa de Cartagena, or even fucking St. Augustine. If they could be wrong, I’m sorry, but so can the Situation.
“But it explains that thing that happened to me that time!” So what? People got healed at Lourdes. People are getting healed by miracles and faith healers right now while you’re reading this. Unless, of course, you don’t believe in faith healers, in which case something else made them better and they happened to connect it to a model they already believe in. Humans are prone to doing that, after all.
“But that model explains everything about male-female relations!” Okay, dude, seriously?
If you’re willing to ignore enough of the data, you can prove anything. In this case, if you throw out all the human experience that doesn’t fit the transactional model, the remaining collection of bad dates, TV commercials, and antique comic strips will, in fact, support your thesis. Congratulations.
So yeah. Take a minute to think about all the ways that basic buyer-seller model of relationships has influenced your life and your thinking, all the ways that you’ve tried to command or offer a higher price for sex, and ask yourself: What if it’s all just made up?
Here’s a counter-theory: every human being is a complex combination of drives, inhibitions, neuroses, and rationalizations. No two are alike, though many are similar. The potential number of combinations and interactions between any two or more people comes close to infinite. Short version: every person wants what they want. Under this model, two people who want to have sex with each other just… do. Both profit, because both get what they want: sex!
The thing about this counter-theory is that it can contain all the data that seems to support the old, wrong, transactional theory. Does the new model predict that you’re going to get some people who behave the way the old model thinks they should? Definitely, especially if we assume that those people are thinking in terms of the old model. The old model, however, cannot account for all the people who fail to fit it. It cannot account for me, or Holly, or Ozy, just to cast one eye around this blog. It can’t account for any non-heteronormative people, so gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans folks have to be deleted from the dataset. It can’t account for polyamorous married couples, it can’t account for millions of nights of passion and joy, it can’t account for this chart or this one or almost anything on this one.
It is very hard to detach yourself from something you know to be true on so deep a level that you’ve never even thought about it. It’s very hard to let go of a model that’s part of the basic conceptual vocabulary of your culture. It’s nearly impossible to admit that you’ve been flat-out wrong about something that’s been part of your thinking for your whole life. Nobody wants to say that all those people worked for decades and centuries to build a beautiful cathedral in honor of nothing at all.
But sometimes, it really is all just made up.
[If you’re a Christian and you’re upset by my example, please assume that I’ve been talking about medieval-era Taoism this entire time, which has even more and better writing about even weirder rituals. If you’re both a Christian and a Taoist, I don’t know what to tell you. Forgive me and go with the flow.]
Start hanging out and meeting women in places other than clubs? Cuz seriously, the dynamic you describe I don’t see in my daily life AT ALL, in any of the places and groups I hang out in. But I have seen it in clubs, the 3 or so times I’ve ever gone…
So last night I went out again. And in the club I went to, the standard dynamic was palpable. I looked around myself and I saw women trying to demonstrate availability while being gatekeepers and guys demonstrating restraint while trying to get lucky. Let’s not stop this discussion here. Assuming *it is all made up* yet still real for everyone – what do we do with that knowledge? How do we go about it. Explaining to a woman that she’s actually not a gatekeeper and should really chase me/some guy probably won’t do the trick. And neither will telling guys… Read more »
That many teen heartthrob performers aren’t traditionally masculine just makes me wonder if women or men are the ones that have the most say in “traditionally masculine” and whether age has anything to do with it. Androgyny has been popular for a long time, the Italian Renaissance, Ancient Greece. In this following paragraph, I’m using the popular press, and general internet majority for sources of what men and women think. It’s probably inaccurate. But it’s what I’ve personally observed as well. What men say they think women are attracted to, and what women say they’re attracted to don’t line up.… Read more »
@Noah: Johnny Depp is maybe not a burly muscleman, but he is still clearly masculine. But then again, he was never really a teen heartthrob.
This is such a thought-provoking blog. I really love it.
@Chera What I was getting at with Madonna and the flappers is that trends for gender non-conformity come and go. Madonna and Lady Gaga both used sexuality as a shock tactic to attract attention to themselves – I don’t think there is any weight behind their antics. I don’t think gender non-conformity is getting much better in the mainstream – and I was trying to show that by showing that Madonna did essentially the same thing 20 years ago and … things still stink. Flappers cut their hair short and bound their breasts almost a 100 years ago, and things… Read more »
Cheradenine:
You might want to consider finding the results of your search by date. He clearly was more “non gender conforming” a few years ago.
@EasilyEnthused: Ah, you’re right, Justin Bieber being a teen heartthrob does prove a new phenomenon. Back in the old days, teen heartthrobs were burly, macho types like Johnny De… hm. Well, in the 80s, you had George Micha… hm. I guess before him there were the Bay City Roll… hm. Well, before that, there was Davey Jo… hm. Well, those are a bit over-marketed, what about a naturally talented heartthrob like Paul McCart… hm. Surely the little girls of the “Greatest Generation” must have adored a big muscular guy like Frank Sinat… hm. Maybe if we go a little earlier,… Read more »
@Clarence: “justin bieber looks like a girl” = 138,000 hits in google. Whether you confuse him with one or not — and sure, he’s no Andrej Pejic — way to move the goalposts. It’s not about whether you think he looks like a girl or not, it’s about the fact that he very clearly is non-gender-conforming enough to trigger thousands, if not millions, of people’s gender-policing reflexes, while still being both enormously popular and considered highly attractive to girls in the mainstream. It’s about people saying, “yes, he’s a boy, but he shouldn’t X” (where X is some “girly” trait,… Read more »
I agree with Easily Enthused as far as Lady Gaga. Even people who like her- and I know many- don’t want to be LIKE her. Lady Gaga is an interesting and popular “freak” whose popularity is, in part, based on her ability to be the new David Bowie, to twist “gender” and sexuality, and to do so in interesting ways to the younger set who mostly haven’t seen this stuff before, and the relatively small “queer” contingent of the larger culture. I like 3 of her more popular songs, but if I was to go to her shows it wouldn’t… Read more »
Trans people get their own theories of “gender” , Valerie, that somewhat overlap with the mainstream theories and sometimes don’t.
As I’ve said before, any way you define “the mainstream” it’s too small to consider. There is no one “mainstream” that the people in this thread are not part of. If you divided the world into “people who gender conform” vs. “people who don’t gender conform”, which group would be larger would depend largely on how strictly you defined “gender conform”. If we’re talking “cissexual”, then yes there would be more people who gender conform than don’t. If we’re talking “perfectly follows their gender role circa the 1950s”, there would be many, many more people who don’t gender conform than… Read more »
*sighs* Once again trans people get in the way of a grand theory of social construction of gender… shall we just show ourselves and our non-conforming brainstems out?
I don’t recall anyone saying Lady Gaga was a revolutionary new gender-bender, @EE. By citing other examples, you’re just confirming, rather than rejecting, my point. I still see plenty of guys meeting more traditionally masculine definitions of attractiveness. This whole “feminisation of men” thing strikes me as yet another myth and definitely hoists warning flags when I hear people mention it. You might be gawping at Lady Gaga as a sideshow freak, but the Little Monsters disagree. You don’t get that intensity of fandom without relating. But “freak” or no (and that’s pretty offensive), her tent definitely isn’t in the… Read more »
I’m really surprised Lady Gaga is being considered some revolutionary gender bender. Really? Is she revolutionary? http://tinyurl.com/3zut36c Really? Is she anything new? http://tinyurl.com/43qffdp Justin Bieber is just a result of the feminization of attractive men in mainstream media. The days of “attractive men” being hairy, bearded, balding men with box-like torsos is over – and Justin Bieber just happens to have the benefit of extreme young age to help him pull off the “new hotness.” And Lady Gaga is uber-femme, not gender bending. She’s a parody of feminization – but let’s not forget – she is a character – she… Read more »
@TomeWyrm: Of course Lady Gaga’s personal life experiences are different by definition. I’m not discussing her life experience. I’m discussing the preferences of her fans, the fact that she is adored by many many millions of mainstream people. An even better example might be Justin Bieber (“is justin bieber a girl” = 46,000 hits). It’s on-topic because if you ask a random collection of teenage girls if they’re attracted to boys who look like girls, they’re probably going to say “no” because angst over homophobia is high amongst that population (“if I say I like girly-looking boys, will they think… Read more »
Brian, I’m going to abstain from further debate on this topic. Thank you TheAverageOutlier. I’m not much of a cat person, pretty much the whole family except me is allergic to them. Adiabat, Thanks for the clarification. I wasn’t aiming at you specifically, merely the people using the term interchangeably and with varying degrees of precision. I do like typical and mainstream better. @OP, Ozy, Noah, and Hugh What about human social behavior and the models used to predict them AREN’T social constructs? Why are social constructs bad? So what if the model doesn’t apply to 100% of the population?… Read more »
It’s interesting that Lady Gaga wasn’t suspected for being a man because she was masculine in any way. It seems to stem from her over the top performance of feminity more associated with drag queens.
To all the people saying variations on a theme of “By the very stint of being a commenter on this blog, YOU ARE NOT NORMAL”… Please. Stop. For several reasons: 1. I’m well aware of this, thanks. Try to remember I’m the person who wrote an article at least partly on this very subject and have been making points along those lines even in the discussions while the blog was being set up. 2. At no point have I argued that I, or my personal preferences, kinks or experiences represent the mainstream. I thought I made that clear, so let’s… Read more »
@Noah Here’s the thing, though: you can’t possibly argue that the set you just described, the set that we’ve previously established is the only one where the market model can be said to have any predictive value, is anything other than a social construct. I think perhaps I wasn’t understanding what you meant by “all made up.” I thought you meant “doesn’t make sense.” If you meant “socially constructed,” then I agree with you. Though in that sense, all human ideas about sexuality are made up. In other words, as I said in my original post, despite the pervasiveness of… Read more »
So many comments… @Cheradenine: Unless you’re claiming that the ‘mainstream’ people who attend your events make up a significant proportion of all mainstream people then I can’t see what your observation adds to the debate. That there are people who pretend to be mainstream to fit in, but secretly are part of a subculture? I’m sure there are, but unless you’re arguing that this applies to most mainstream people I fail to see its relevance. A mainstream still exists even if there are people who pretend to be mainstream but aren’t. @Anthony: “Purely descriptive models can’t really make predictions about… Read more »
Oops. The missing part of the last sentence in the first paragraphs should be:
…they lounge on their favourite sofa (which in my experience is the most common behaviour among domesticated cats 🙂 ).
Brian: Interestingly that you want to exclude mating and childrearing behaviour in cats when talking about behavioural differences between them, and that in a discussion which very much is about mating in humans. I am pretty sure no-one here argued that there were any biological dependent behaviour differences of men and women when Cats and dogs have very different behaviour by gender when in heat and mating so to use them as an argument that there is no biogical dependent behavioural differences between men and women (in the context of mating) would rather seem to bolster the opposite of your… Read more »
@EE Do you all realize who you are? You’re people on a Web site dedicated to gender issues – you’re already a TINY PORTION OF THE POPULATION THAT REALIZE GENDER ISSUES EXIST. Beyond that, you’re the even smaller portion that realize men have a stake in things. Let’s not forget this – just because no one true hegemonic male/female might not actually exist – it doesn’t mean there isn’t a vast majority of the population that comes damn close. I know, I work and live with them every day. This. Let’s face it, the percentage of people who are so… Read more »
@Noah Brand, I’m having trouble believing that a concept of “mainstream” is so outlandish to you. For instance, I’m sure you have a concept of “gender normativity,” and a concept of “vanilla”, which are related. I’m using the word “mainstream” to refer to people who are closer to the average, or who are similar to the majority of people (or at least, largest minorities). As for “gender-typical,” for now let’s just say “gender conforming.” Maybe it’s just me, but most people seem to mostly be gender-conforming, while a minority of people seem extremely non-conforming. I think many people here will… Read more »
@Hugh Tipping: That’s a weird subculture you just described, but sure, I’ll buy that it’s what’s presented as “normal” in mass media. Here’s the thing, though: you can’t possibly argue that the set you just described, the set that we’ve previously established is the only one where the market model can be said to have any predictive value, is anything other than a social construct. The White Boy Shuffle is not genetically coded, I’m sure we can agree. In other words, as I said in my original post, despite the pervasiveness of the market model and it’s being aggressively presented… Read more »