Here's some ways I actually think, sometimes, deep down, that I'm ashamed of and might try to explain but certainly won't defend. They're hard to get over and I think quite a few men think this way, so for reference:
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The other day my wife called me up to ask me for help moving something; she was receiving a new iron bedframe with headboard and footboard, made of recycled iron fence, (probably pretty cool looking though I didn't get a chance to see it), shipped in a wood box about 6 feet by 6 by 2, and she didn't find out until too late that she had no means of moving it from the lobby of the complex to her apartment. She knew I was out of work and might be available to get it shifted. I headed straight over to her place (about 1/2 hour drive), and got it into her apartment. We chatted for a short time and she seemed very grateful and happy; I excused myself quickly due to my cat allergies (when she got cats is when I really knew it was over), and headed home. Frankly I felt pretty good about myself that I'd cheerfully on a moment's notice do that for the woman that was divorcing me, expecting nothing in return.
That night I had a dream that we reconciled; it turned sexy. So was I really expecting nothing in return? Maybe I was; maybe seeing her and having her be so friendly just raised old feelings. Maybe I wasn't; maybe somewhere in my subconscious I was motivated by the "do nice things for the sexy woman" motive.
Whichever it was, the dream showed me that the old training of my imagination is still in force; she's still the sexiest woman in the world to me. Probably a good thing; there's still several months before the divorce will be final, and I don't want to be seriously looking around yet (hard as that is).
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I don't so much think, or fear, that women don't like sex, that they're the "no sex class"; I'm more likely to think that they don't like sex with men. I remember how Melissa Etheridge used to affect me; of course songs like "The Way I Do" were her singing professionally, but her marvellous presentation made me think that perhaps there was some real meaning to it. Then she came out as a lesbian, and that depressingly resolved the mystery in my mind; there was real feeling, but it was about other women. Deep in my heart I thought, Of course. Now it makes sense. When looking on the Web for women who talk about liking sex, I found lesbian or bi women first. Sometimes women seem to me to be the only sexually attractive entities in the universe, even to other women.
I KNOW this is wrong. I haven't had any particular shortage of experiences that demonstrate the appeal of men in general or me in particular. And there are plenty of women on the Web doing a good job explaining all about the appeal of men. It's flat-out ungrateful of me to continue to feel this way. But still, I know women like men in my head but not my heart. (That, BTW, is what faith means to me; faith is when you know in your heart as well as your head.)
After writing this part, I happened upon Hugo Schwyzer's "Of Never Feeling Hot" via Rogue Bambi's "Vital Bodies" section. There's a lot more said there. Interestingly, I get more compliments than any of the men in my friend group, and making the point much better, Hugo was apparently rated as "America's Hottest Professor". But we both have this deep, difficult to shake feeling that we cannot be truly sexually desireable to women because we are men. I have, like one of the commenters on Hugo's post, felt sexually desireable to a bi man; I have felt valuable to women (as in the frame-moving thing), but never so desireable as when that bi man hit on me.
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Ugh. This one is going to get me in trouble. It's EXTRA wrong. But I'll still explain it, because I think it's a valuable admission.
But thinking about what I said above, I realized that I'm actually sometimes somewhat jealous of women, of what in my imagination is women's privileged position in the world. I feel like I can never be as desired as a woman is. I will never be treated with the kindness and politeness that I offer women, and that doesn't mean just pretty ones. I will always be treated by strangers with the reserve and automatic suspicion designed for the potential rapist (which I totally support and think is the right way for women to behave, in a world full of acquaintance rape).
I've often thought how nice it would be if I could do my life over as a woman. (Virtually all men apparently would like to come back as man.) Now, I feel like a man down to my core. Saying I sometimes feel like a woman in a man's body isn't something that would be a problem here, but I don't feel that at all. There's a big difference, that I think gets lost occasionally, between "It would be great to be X" and "I feel that I am X". Though sometimes I think being a woman would be easier and better, I never think I am or should be one.
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Me saying that I know I'm wrong about some of these isn't meant to muzzle people. If you feel like telling me why I'm insane to be jealous of women's desirability, please go ahead. I expect I'll agree with you; it's a confession not a manifesto.
Poor thing. I am not going to dish out some truths about being a woman - you're obviously well aware of them.
ReplyDeleteThis is, I think, a part of the same problem than with orgasms. The women's valued exotic flowers and the men's comic relief. When I first read Hugo's post On never feeling hot it felt so right to me. Yes. This is what needs to happen.
On a personal level, I really don't see any difference in the way I treat my husband and the way I've treated women I've wanted to sleep with. (I, too, am one of the bi's of the interwebs. Damn. But I still love men, too.) I want to cherish him. I tell him every day how beautiful he is, I caress him and hug him and do little things for him like write a poem on the fridge door or buy a flower or massage his feet. But I haven't been like this with other men. I think the biggest difference is that he expects it. He is by no means expecting to be the bed carrier, quite the other way around. I am the one feeling my worth is in something I can do, not that I'd be valued just as is, because I'm a pretty woman.
Women are not free to express their willingness and lust and admiration because we are seen as the gatekeepers of sex. That's what's wrong. I'd so wish it wasn't. I give what I can to all who are safe to be around - my male poet friends for example. We even had a discussion in which I said I'd fuck my friend J in the ass, and he promised to do the same for me - if we weren't both attached. It was more like saying "I'd go out with you" to make someone feel better (because he wasn't getting butt action in his relationship(s) and I am not getting to try pecking even though I want to try).
I think the real key to it, and to a happy second marriage, is that you have to start valuing yourself just because who you are. You don't have to get validation out of helping or doing or bringing home the bacon. You are good the way you are. Worthy of lust and love. There are women out there, who are not afraid to show it. I know. :)
It's your blog, man. Here it really is all about you and I don't see a single reason to jump on you for any of this.
ReplyDeleteYou're also right in that one consequence of gender-roles-as-they-are is that men get this role as the passionate desirers and women get the role as the desirable objects. Being desirable is fun, being an object isn't really, and being associated with passion and action can be fun, whereas always feeling like you have to be DOING something to be worthy of attention and affection kinda sucks. The upsides to either role don't make the downsides not-real.
There's something wrong with feeling like sex, love, attention, etc. are something you're entitled to. Nothing at all with feeling like they're things you're missing and would like.
Thanks, Rogue Bambi (pasthurt)! I don't really feel like a poor thing though. The problems I talked about here are problems of my own belief and attitude, problems in my own head. They are common enough that they are presumably socially influenced, but they are still a matter of internal attitude.
ReplyDeleteIf I didn't have any female friends complimenting me, maybe I'd be a poor thing. But I do. I've got some very nice friends who say very nice things about me, including about my looks. They've already told me all I ought to need to hear. The thing that I'm ashamed of is that, although it's wonderful when they say those things, my attitude is not permanently corrected.
(Also I'm ashamed that I spelled "Rogue" as "Rouge". Fixed now.)
LabRat, I'd like to suggest that perhaps a woman feeling like she is regarded as an object is somewhat of an unreal social construct, in the same kind of way as a man feeling like he is regarded as undesirable; though there may well be more reason, e.g. the whole PUA movement pretty much really does treat women as objects.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in my experience, men in general are much more about how a woman behaves than how she looks. True, they are especially interested in one kind of activity, but it's an activity with a lot of potential for subtleties and communication; it's not a passive thing.
The women I've known that had every man around panting over them were the ones who evinced a confident, active interest. A man could tell sex was something she'd do with him even more than he'd do with her. If you see what I mean. Not like an object at all; like a person who was interested in sharing an experience. Women who'd look much better in a still photo, who'd make a better 'object', didn't get a tithe of the attention.
I can definitely tell you from the inside that that's how I think.
Yeah, it IS more feeling/social construct than it is absolute reality, and I probably should have clarified that. I was actually going to use PUAs specifically as an example before I finished reading your reply. It's the converse to feeling like the opposite sex would never truly desire you, only give you what you'd earned; from the other side it can feel like being a carnival prize, or like a prey animal, in which who you are and what you do doesn't have anything to do with how you are desired, which can be as threatening a concept as liberating. I'm not trying to make this thread now about ME and women's issues, by the way, just trying to clarify what I originally said.
ReplyDeleteI actually have had a pretty happy history with friendships and relationships with men, so it probably speaks to how deep that social conditioning goes that it can still feel like the world might really be like that from time to time.
(At this point I admit to using your comments for mental scratch paper. I do apologize.)
ReplyDeleteSo turning it over more in my mind, there's not only these mirrored and distorted social constructs that affect our perceptions of the opposite sex, they also affect how we relate to our partners and how we perceive what is in reality a thoroughgoing mix of desire, affection, appreciation, and admiration. It's reinforced in what socially acceptable tropes exist, too.
There's the "she's crazy but she's so hot" stereotype for men, but take the same situation and swap the genders- a very attractive but assholish/nutty man with a woman- and her justification likely won't be "he's so hot but he's so crazy" as it will be some variant of "but there's so much good in him/I can help him".
Take those same stereotypes and apply them to fairly normal people in fairly normal relationships, and the unhealthy thought pattern for the woman is to ascribe an unrealistic amount of her partner's attention and affection to him just lusting after her, with the underlying fear and insecurity that he'll leave/cheat on her for a hotter woman because his value on her is in her hotness and he's merely tolerating her "crazy" for it. (Read: her normal human flaws. All of us are flawed, nearly all of us know it, and when feeling insecure we tend to see them as unacceptable craziness.)
You've already outlined a corresponding unhealthy thought pattern/insecurity for a man, with the basic fear that she'll cheat/leave for someone "manlier" who can satisfy more of her wants and needs and generally do more with less effort.
As a related side note, I wonder how much this also shapes what we tell our loved ones? It's already more or less outlined for us that men praise (and sincerely mean) their partner's loveliness and women praise (and sincerely mean) their partner's admirable qualities and behavior, but how much of what we say is what we're really dying to hear and believe ourselves? "You're fantastically hot and drive me crazy" versus "You're so good to me"/"I can always count on you"?
Hell, lose my self-respect and find an agent and I might have the next gimmicky relationship advice book.
LabRat said...(At this point I admit to using your comments for mental scratch paper. I do apologize.)
ReplyDeleteHey, they're comments. I just try not to do that with the main posts.
I'm not trying to make this thread now about ME and women's issues, by the way, just trying to clarify what I originally said.
It was about women's issues as well as men's all along. The two are inseparably intertwined, as we can see from your relationship advice book thesis; which thesis is a good point.
The thing is, I think the men's image problem is not only not caused by women, it's actually impractical for women to correct outside of the big media. I found and returned a lost dog this evening. The second sentence out of the owner's mouth was, "You're handsome." I get enough compliments for a reasonable person. Hugo Schwyzer won a friggin' national award. And we both still feel that we are inherently undesireable.
Know what made an impression on me as almost totally revolutionary? A little subplot in the Babylon 5 episode "GROPOS", where P.F.C. Dodger (Marie Marshall), just passing through, tries to sleep with Garibaldi Jerry Doyle just because he's hot. And Jerry Doyle is good-looking, but no Jude Law or Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. He turns her down because he's concerned with a real relationship. I never saw anything like that on TV before. I felt suprised that the actress was willing to be portrayed that way. Later in the series, the relationship of Marcus Cole and Susan Ivanova perfectly fit my preconceptions; where Marcus flirts with Ivanova, who finds it a mild annoyance, and he basically pines for her until he eventually actually dies to save her life without her knowing until afterward. I thought, yeah, that's how it really goes.
I actually have had a pretty happy history with friendships and relationships with men, so it probably speaks to how deep that social conditioning goes that it can still feel like the world might really be like that from time to time.
It's sad to realize that that social conditioning is largely independent of how real people treat us.
My face is actually kind of relevant to some of the points I'm making. Anybody think I should post a picture?
ReplyDeleteI feel like I can never be as desired as a woman is.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for all women, but I gotta say I don't think I feel "desired" in the way that you're imagining women feel desired. I mean, guys like me and/or think I'm attractive sometimes, but so much of the male attention I get amounts to "I am trying to stick my dick into something warm. Would you be that something?"
Then again, I've never been the kind of girl that guys will buy drinks for, open doors for, etc. (once I was actually walking down the street crying and covered in blood and nobody, male or female, stopped to ask me if I needed help...long story). I don't know why, but I just don't inspire chivalry in people. I think if guys did get all helpful and solicitous with me, I probably would get this feeling of "desirability" you mention; albeit "desired" in the sense that someone covets a shiny pretty object.
I suspect only conventionally attractive women and/or women in certain social groups get the full benefit of strange men being nice to them all the time. The rest of us, not so much.
And I think your sex dream about your wife happened because she is currently the only person in the world you're "allowed" to have sex with, not to mention your most recent experience of sex (and memories make so much better wank fodder than theoretical stuff like porn). It really may be just as simple as that - no ulterior motive, just "I like sex and she's the person I associate most with it".
perversecowgirl said, I can't speak for all women, but I gotta say I don't think I feel "desired" in the way that you're imagining women feel desired.
ReplyDeleteI don't imagine women feel desired. I know they are desired. I imagine they don't feel nearly as desired as they are. Hiding desire is the primary male politeness trait.
I hope this is not rude, but "woman with purple mohawk" will experience social conventions totally differently than "woman". "Purple mohawk" is the primary impression, not "woman". "Mohawk" says "Don't mess with me", but it also says "Don't dare imply that I need help". I'm sorry to say that given no knowledge of the person involved, I would probably refrain from opening the door for the purple mohawk woman out of fear of a lecture on how demeaning it is. If you find yourself visiting the Philadelphia area, however, let me know and I'll open doors for you.
I believe I am significantly more likely to open doors for women who are wrinkled and tottering, or carrying something, than conventionally attractive. I suspect there's actually a cutoff point where I stop opening doors for women because I am too busy hiding desire.
And I think your sex dream about your wife happened because she is currently the only person in the world you're "allowed" to have sex with... Thank you, and I'm sure that's a big part of it. But the timing is suspicious; I'm not having a lot of sex dreams about her (or, actually, any other sex dreams that I can remember.)
For a minute there I was Rouge. That's nice. I'd like to sign off with Rogue Bambi here too, but the comment application doesn't let me. I'm glad if you call me Rogue Bambi anyway. :)
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean that you'd really be somehow in a really poor situation because of being a man. It was just meant as a symphatetic exclamation. I symphatize with the whole situtation. All boys having to grow up without recognition from girls. Obviously the girls have similar if not even more devastating growing up to do with older men keeping us as play things and objects for unwanted attention. And that's why all the good guys have to suffer too.
It's never the same to be politely complimented and to be lusted after, wanted and courted. That's the thing. And I don't think anyone can shield from the social constructions, except maybe in a relationship. Then only the couple's rules apply.
Rogue Bambi, I understand. And I think everybody suffering under these constructs, the undesirability and the objectification, needs some sympathy. And that's everybody.
ReplyDeleteI guess I just want to say that I'm not someone who is particularly deserving of it. My friend who has had severe rheumatoid arthritis since birth, whose skeleton is twisted and who has severe skin diseases resulting from the same inborn autoimmune problems, he wants to feel desirable too. And thinking of him, I feel bad if I feel like I'm playing for sympathy.
I want to talk about these self-image problems not because I want sympathy for myself, but because I want people to know that many, or almost all, men feel this way.
I hope this is not rude, but "woman with purple mohawk" will experience social conventions totally differently than "woman".
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. But, dude...I wasn't born with this hair, y'know. For a good chunk of my adult life, it was wavy, brown, and down to the middle of my back.
And like most women, when I was debating whether to cut it (initially I got a pixie cut, nothing too radical, but it still meant chopping off two feet of hair) I went through the whole "OH GOD I'M CHOPPING OFF ALL MY SEXINESS" panic attack. But then I remembered how men didn't treat me chivalrously or decorously try to pick me up in public places anyway and I figured there was nothing to lose.
The 'hawk makes an excellent filter for PUA types in clubs (they FEAR me now. It's awesome) and makes lovely genderfluid boys (and girls) want to touch my headstubble. It hasn't had any effect on the in-between guys (the non-douchey but non-alternative ones) that I can see.
Interesting points about male politeness = hiding desire and the idea that you'd be more likely to help out old ladies than pretty ones. I love how good you are at articulating your feelings and experiences.
But hey, wait...why be jealous of how desired women are when, by your own admission, they don't even feel it or know it? If it doesn't affect us, it might as well not be happening; there's nothing to envy.
perversecowgirl said, I wasn't born with this hair .... But then I remembered how men didn't treat me chivalrously or decorously try to pick me up in public places anyway and I figured there was nothing to lose.
ReplyDeleteI felt sure you must have had that mohawk from early on, just because you said guys didn't treat you chivalrously. Your writing makes me think you're very sexy in person. I'm don't know what's up. Speculating seems a bit impertinent, so I'll shut up on that unless you ask.
I love how good you are at articulating your feelings and experiences. Thank you!
But hey, wait...why be jealous of how desired women are when, by your own admission, they don't even feel it or know it? If it doesn't affect us, it might as well not be happening; there's nothing to envy.
That's a good question. The thing is, though, hiding it isn't the same as eliminating it. It creeps out in ways that I'm pretty sure most women are not aware of simply because it's never missing; though I've met those who do notice and enjoy it. Knowing about it from the other side, I imagine I would see it and enjoy it in ways that women usually don't; like a merman given legs might enjoy running or dancing, or a diver given a fish's body might enjoy the water.
I felt sure you must have had that mohawk from early on, just because you said guys didn't treat you chivalrously.
ReplyDeleteAh-HA! Your bias revealed! [Points at you dramatically.]
What I did have from early on was social awkwardness and and low self esteem. That's what it was about me that kept good/chivalrous types from paying attention to me! How odd that I didn't realize til now. And then by the time I became comfortable in my body and confident in my demeanour, I expressed it by shaving off chunks of my hair, hence driving off still more potential knights in shining armour.
Mystery solved.
Your writing makes me think you're very sexy in person.
Depends on one's idea of sexiness. :) I do know that I seem to attract far better people than I used to, so I must give off good vibes.
Speculating seems a bit impertinent, so I'll shut up on that unless you ask.
Your speculations amuse and flatter me. Hypothesize away. :D
What I did have from early on was social awkwardness and and low self esteem. That's what it was about me that kept good/chivalrous types from paying attention to me!
ReplyDeleteThat may have but should not have been the case. A man isn't chivalrous at all if he fails to be so for the socially awkward and low in self esteem. Chivalry is supposed to be especially for the people who need it more, like opening doors for old ladies more than young, fit hotties; and the low in self-esteem do need it more. Sometimes I assume everyone is the same as I am when it's not really justified. I've been working on the impression that if you did not experience chivalry, it must have been due to a "I don't need help" vibe, which is why I blamed the mohawk; but perhaps the men around you just offered no true chivalry.