Jaclyn Friedman
Last week, Jaclyn Friedman wrote a post for Feministe which immediately went up on Jezebel as well. Thanks to the readers who sent me the link. Entitled My Sluthood, Myself, it generated quite a bit of buzz and many very interesting comments on various blogs. Ms. Friedman cites numerous personal motivations for writing the piece, many of which reflect a truly tortured history with sex and relationships. However, she also wants something from the reader:
I’m telling you this because sluthood requires support….A slut needs a posse who finds her exploits almost as delicious as she finds them herself, who cares about her safety and her stories and her happiness but not one whit about her virtue…even if you don’t ever want sluthood for yourself, you’re going to be called upon to support a slut. I’m telling you this because when that happens, I want you to say yes.
That’s asking a lot from other women.
Why? Because the current sexual marketplace prioritizes casual sex over relationship sex. Women predisposed to hold out for relationship sex wage a steep uphill battle. Fellow blogger Ferdinand Bardamu explains this quite succinctly:
Now, if most guys who can get laid with regularity are prone to reject girls who won’t give it up within a reasonable time and cost, wouldn’t this mean that good girls…would be much less likely to be the targets or victims of these men? In a world in which sluttiness is not stigmatized and sex is much easier to obtain, looser women would suck up most of the attentions of men with good game, thus leaving the monogamous girls alone.
Women who understand the power of sex, the incredible chemistry of it, women who know that sex is not casual physiologically speaking, women who do not embrace a life of sluthood, are indeed left alone by many men. That’s a good thing in some ways, but terribly disappointing in others. Very few women embrace the notion of receiving zero male attention once word gets out that they are not slutty. They cannot compete with determined sluts in the marketplace among these men. Sexually discriminating women have every reason to withhold support from sluts. Sluts are wreaking havoc on the supply side.
Ms. Friedman touts the healing powers of sluthood, a way of burying past traumas and protecting oneself from undue emotional distress. I will now proceed to deconstruct her argument, and demonstrate that it is not only fallacious, but dangerous for women. I’ve tried to present a fair representation that honors Ms. Friedman’s intentions.
“I’m telling you this because of something else that’s also true about me: I’d really like to be in a long-term, probably monogamous relationship. That’s right, folks, I’m a slut who craves a stable, loving, committed relationship. File me under “Lookin’ fer luv: ur doin it wrong.”“
The only remotely self-aware statement in the piece. On her own website, she describes herself as “a queer Jewish writer, performer, and activist.” She is widely known and respected in the feminist community, having co-written Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power & a World Without Rape with Jessica Valenti.
That’s the story we get sold, right? That women who sleep around are destroying their chances at True Love. Something to do with bonding hormones getting all used up? Or is it that we have so little self-esteem that no one could love us? Or maybe it’s that we’re all used candy wrappers or dirty masking tape. I can never remember. Thing is: I’ve done it the other way. Until my mid-30s, I was largely a serial monogamist.
She is around 40, and confesses several ill advised relationships that resulted in a torrent of emotional distress. Taking refuge in snark is a favorite maneuver among feminists. “Something to do with?” “Getting all used up?” Snark, snark. Sneer, roll eyes. Ms. Friedman’s piece was hailed for its bravery, but this is a cowardly move.
Thing is: Relationship science is hard science. Oxytocin is not some disinformation cooked up by the evil patriarchy. It’s a chemical that floods your body after sex, during breastfeeding, and through the early months of motherhood. Men also experience it, though its effect is tamped down somewhat by testosterone. The effects of sex hormones are bound to reside on a spectrum. Some women may produce less, which leads to less emotional attachment. Some men are suckers for oxytocin, and love spooning after sex. Anyone who regularly dismisses a large body of peer-reviewed academic studies in this area is as ridiculous as a member of the Flat Earth Society.
As for self-esteem, the answer to her question is yes. One may love, and pity, a person with low self-esteem. But a healthy, robust, falling in love experience with such a person is surely impossible. How can we fall in love with someone who is wearing a big virtual sandwich board that says “I’m a lemon! Damaged goods! Everything in this bin is 50 cents!”
After [a] year and a half of nothing [no sex], I went to bed with a woman I barely knew on our first date. Nothing wrong with that, we had a great time, and seriously, did I mention a year and a half? The problem came the next morning, when it became obvious that she was much more into me emotionally than I was at that point. Did I tell her that? And potentially get exiled back to my affectionless desert? I bet you know the answer. What followed was a two-year relationship in which we were unhappy for about the last year and a half.
Ms. Friedman made a calculated decision to spend two years in a relationship that she did not feel emotionally invested in. She believed, as so many women do, that any relationship has got to be better than no relationship. Two years is a long time. It’s a longer time in your 30s than it was in your 20s. While you’re halfwaying it, emotionally stable people are lookin’ fer luv and finding it.
Fast forward through a few more relationships to last fall. As I crawled out of the acute grief stage of my breakup and into the Land of Reboundia, I launched myself somewhat full-throttle into dating. It was comforting to me to find that there were other people I found appealing who felt similarly about me. But each person I’d meet, if there was any kind of a click at all, I’d throw myself at them whole-hog, wanting so badly for them to be The One that proved I wouldn’t have to do die alone with a shriveled-up vagina and no cats. (I’m allergic.) And then (sing this with me if you know the tune), when something would inevitably go wrong, however silly or minor, however nascent the connection was, it would feel overwhelming. Like I was dying. Like I was broken all over again.
Red flags? Let me count them for you:
- Fast forward through a few more relationships. Rapid fire serial monogamy is a clear indication that something is wrong. Ur doing it wrong. You might be choosing the wrong partners, or behaving the wrong way, or conveying that you loathe yourself.
- I launched myself somewhat full-throttle. Again, the prevailing drive is impulse, perhaps even compulsion.
- It was comforting to me to find that there were other people I found appealing who felt similarly. Seeking relationships as a form of sexual validation works in the very short-term. It’s a house of cards, though, as Ms. Friedman learned.
- If there was any kind of a click at all, I’d throw myself at them whole-hog. Ouch. Not a good strategy. Leads to shouts of “Psycho! Leave me alone!”
- When something would inevitably go wrong… it would feel overwhelming. Like I was dying. Like I was broken all over again. This is painful to witness. I do understand the profound need that Ms. Friedman must feel to be healed, and loved.
And then a miracle occurred. Via the unlikeliest source of miracles ever: Craigslist Casual Encounters.
OMG! As a parent who still worries about what time my now adult kids come home, my heart was pounding as I read this. In the 70s, when one-night stands were still novel in mainstream America, women met men in bars and went home with them. Bad stuff happened. The 1977 film Looking for Mr. Goodbar was based on the true story of the murder of a NYC schoolteacher who picked up a handsome guy in a bar.
…one Friday night last fall, after having been blown apart yet again by some minor rejection that felt so huge it sent me to my bed. I hadn’t showered or shaved or left the house in days. And so, glass of wine in hand, wearing a robe and dirty sweatpants, I posted an ad just so I could watch the replies come in and feel like I had some kind of choice in the world. That somebody wanted me, even if they were gross and I’d never want them back.
And then B. responded. He was smart and charming. His picture looked cute. He seemed like a grown-up, and not like a psycho. He knew how to banter. He made a funny joke about punctuation. And, after a few emails were exchanged, he wanted to know if I’d like to meet him for a drink. That night. Then. And, to my great shock and terror and excitement, I found that I did.
The next hour was a blur of furious grooming, during which I kept up the following internal monologue: I’m going to get axe murdered. I’m going to get axe murdered. You don’t have to do this, you can call it off. No, I want to. I can handle myself, I have good instincts and great training. Oh, god, I’m going to get axe murdered.
She knew. She made a decision to risk not just another profound emotionally devastating experience, but her life. Her need for validation, the need to “have some choice in the world” was so enormous that she eagerly ventured out to meet a man about whom she knew only one thing: his explicit desire to keep sex casual. No emotions, no history, no mess.
As an aside, note the switch to men. Though Ms. Friedman identifies as queer as of today, she went trolling for heterosexual sex. She says that her trauma history means she “still has triggers to manage,” and she states on her site that she was sexually assaulted in college. I’m in no position to untangle this skein, but it certainly raises questions about her motivation in seeking men on Craigslist.
I left my roommate a note telling her what I’d done and where I was going and to call me at 11 and if I didn’t answer to call the police.we spent a lovely hour chatting over a couple of glasses of wine, he used the phrase “male hegemony” critically in a sentence (entirely unprompted by me), and then he asked me if I wanted to go back to his place, which was nearby. And once again, to my shock and terror and excitement, I found that I did.
When, oh when, will feminists learn that men are usually spouting complete BS when they throw around phrases like male hegemony, patriarchy and heteronormative?
Driving home late that night, I was overcome with an uneasy feeling. What had I just done? What did it mean? What would my friends think? Was this who I wanted to be? I sat in my parked car, paralyzed, for ten minutes that felt like an hour. And then I climbed upstairs, slid into bed, and fell into a troubled sleep.
I woke up the next morning feeling unmoored. Like something inside me had been knocked loose, but I didn’t yet know if it was a part I needed, or something that had been in the way. At brunch with friends that day, I nervously let slip about my little adventure, and exhaled as they cheered and pumped me for details. Emboldened by their lack of judgment, I told a few more friends, found more wicked delight.
I’m telling you this because sluthood requires support.
She drove home with an uneasy feeling (after three rounds of good sex). She slept uneasily, and woke feeling unmoored. It was not until her friends let out their war whoops and clamored for details that she felt validated once again. Why wouldn’t they cheer her on? Even if they would never even consider the same behavior, we all enjoy a good train wreck, especially if the victim seems unhurt. We may marvel at their ability to come out unscathed, with no idea of the slow internal bleed that’s begun.
In other ways, too, sluthood isn’t always pretty, and I’m not always good at it. Whether from years of habit or something more intrinsic to my personality, my heart seems to want to attach, and after a couple months of playing together casually, and having long, rangey talks naked in bed together between rolls in the hay, it started to with B. Neither of us handled it particularly well. There were tears; there were accusations.
Of course there were. She bonded with B after a “couple months of playing together casually.” Woman, know thyself! That’s your oxytocin speaking! I think we all know who shed tears and made accusations.
Sluthood saved me. Sluthood gave me the time and space to nurse a shattered heart. It gave me a place where I could exist in pieces, some of me craving touch, some of me still too tender to even expose to the light.
I’m telling you this because, as scary and dangerous as my sluthood is, it’s built on privilege. I’m cisgender and able-bodied and relatively mentally healthy for now, which makes these assignations a lot easier to manage on multiple levels, I would imagine.
I’ve also had some obstacles to overcome. Fat girls don’t have the same pick of partners that smaller women seem to, though I’ve been pleasantly surprised and moved that there are more people out there who are attracted to me than I’d thought. Being a woman who’s “pushing 40″ doesn’t exactly expand the pool either.
FYI: I had to look up the word “cisgender.” It means being comfortable in the gender you were assigned at birth. Apparently we now need a way to express that we are not transgendered. In this way, we can reassure ourselves and those around us that we are not heteronormative.
I don’t have the heart to flag the other troubling expressions in this excerpt, but her desperate need for something real sounds like a scream.
Meanwhile, via CL and other sources, I’ve had emails and dates and crushes and flings, and one thing that looked like it might get serious and then quite abruptly disappeared.
And yes, I still want love. Make that Love. The brass ring. The whole enchilada. A partner in crime, a permanent teammate. A mutual admiration society of two. Someone who feels like home, and who feels the same about me. Someone to catalogue my wrinkles as they form. Whatever you want to call it. When I think about it, it involves monogamy, but who knows. Maybe I’ll find it with someone. Maybe I won’t. I can’t pretend I don’t care. But most days, sluthood helps me be patient. It keeps desperation at bay. It reminds me to enjoy the life I have now, instead of waiting for someone to come start it. It helps me know my heart better, and my libido. It makes me better at communicating about both of them, and much less likely to confuse the two. To my mind, far from ruining me for real love, sluthood is preparing me for it.
It’s a choice we should all have access to because it has the potential to be liberating. Healing. Soul-fulfilling. I’m telling you this because sluthood saved me, in a small but life-altering way, and I want it to be available to you if you ever think it could save you, too.
Most of the comments online have been from women who said they cried, they were so moved. Many offered humble and profound thanks.
Leah, from Not a Dirty Word writes:
Jaclyn’s honesty was so raw and pure…My Sluthood, Myself left me holding back tears and whispering “thank you.” …an act of bravery both fierce and shocking…
I am censored. I am voiceless. My Sluthood, Myself gave me, and women like me, a voice. We do not have the freedom to explain how sluthood can be healing, uplifting, empowering – or to explain how women that ultimately are looking for love and monogamy can still find periods of sluthood fulfilling.
And here is where I have to stop. I can no longer continue to write how I feel. I cannot type the words that explain why her words resonate so deeply with me, and elicit such an emotional response from me. As I am typing this right now, I am starting to cry.
Jaclyn Friedman has clearly struck a chord among women with this piece. I imagine that many women cried with relief. Someone with a media platform has gone on record describing her pain, her littany of hopeful but poor decisions that make love always elusive. They cannot see that as she proclaims her detachment from sex, she gets emotionally wounded every single time. They take heart from her proclamation that sluthood is a healing thing.
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Welcome, J, thanks for entering the fray. That’s an interesting theory – I do think she wrote the piece to garner personal support. Interestingly, many of her fans are extremely protective of her, which is admirable, though blindly accepting of her piece, which is not.
For the record, this is not my view. This is a matter of personal preference in men, and women have no control over it. Many young women do engage in casual sex, and go on to have healthy and fulfilling relationships.
However, JF admits to mental instability and a desperate need to feel accepted. She has sex as a way of soothing herself. It’s a coping behavior. As I said in the piece, I think she telegraphs her unsuitability for a relationship by demonstrating self-loathing. The premise of her argument is that casual sex can assuage those painful feelings. I’m not buying it.
Thanks, Mike, your support means a lot, as always. Arguing with Amanda Marcotte on Twitter, at one point she told me to calm the f*ck down. I replied that I was calm, even enjoying myself. She retorted that she wasn’t surprised I would enjoy pointless bullying. Lots of name calling going on – but it comes with the territory.
I feel like I walked into their echo chamber. Heather Corinna, the founder of Scarleteen (a sex positive sex ed site) jeered at me for having far fewer readers than she has. I replied that’s just why I started blogging – other voices are needed in the conversation. Women can only make an informed decision of they understand their choices. Emulating JF is a choice. A very bad choice, IMO.
That’s pretty interesting that both meek males and dominant females were found unattractive.
Lots of troubling information right in that one quote:
1. Sex was the only way that JF could feel OK about herself. Casual sex enabled her to feel hot, wanted, powerful. This is the trap that so many women fall into. They use casual sex as a way of boosting self-esteem. The problem is, it’s a very temporary fix. In fact, women often crash the very next day. When JF sought her online encounter, she felt so terrible driving home she had to sit for ten minutes to get her bearings before exiting the car.
2. Her desire and enthusiasm was an asset in getting her laid. She’s already acknowledged that she has a history of going “full throttle” and “whole hog” which never works out. Going whole hog during a random encounter with a stranger may work once. But the minute she tried to bond emotionally, he bolted.
3. Confusing desire and affection with something deeper? Like what? It seems to me that adding the affection in would go a long way toward having sex one might actually feel good about. She’s looking for something deeper, yet she finds her affection rebuffed at every turn. Her strategy is not working.
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I believe that JF is a very troubled woman with a tortured emotional history. I pity her. However, her personal life is her business. But when she goes online and makes a request: support and embrace sluthood? No. She is proselytizing, seeking affirmation for her own choices. She may be able to get that from her friends at brunch, but her approach is both harmful and ineffective for young women. It cannot go unchallenged.
If Jaclyn Friedman is in a position to influence a single young woman’s choices, and I’m afraid, she is, then she needs to be willing to hold her ideas up to public scrutiny and debate. In writing this piece, asking for the support of women for sluthood as a way of being, of healing, she did that. Many rational people believe that her ideas are very destructive. She is clearly an example of her own failed experiment, and I shudder at the thought of anyone following in her footsteps. It’s not about her personal choices – it’s about her wanting other women to support her. She’s asked for approval. I’ve refused to give it, and I urge others to do the same.
ENY, I agree. It makes me appreciate the generally civil discourse we have here. I’ll step up and battle them when I have to, but I wouldn’t want a steady diet of the slings and arrows.
I believe The Onion cleaned this up a while back:
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http://www.theonion.com/articles/women-now-empowered-by-everything-a-woman-does,1398/
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and when you’ve been cleaned by The Onion, it’s really time to leave the stage.
Healthier, less emotionally destructive, and certainly less validation-seeking anyway.
Yes, but there’s been a good reason for this historically—see my comment above. I’m not saying it’s fair, but it’s not as if this came along from just out of nowhere. There was a reason behind this.
Just adding context.
Hi Susan,
I used to work in adolescent mental health. One trend that emerged among the young women that I encountered who were chronically “slutty” and couldn’t grow from their mistakes was a history of abuse. There was a huge drive among those women to relive the abuse, but this time, with themselves in control. The attempt at seizing control and changing the outcome is what was “empowering” and “healing.” Jaclyn’s language, her need to act this out over and again, her need to “prove something” with this behavior, and her history of abuse all cry out to me that she has some unresolved issues. The need to systematize and universalize the problem is actually the need to protect herself fromthe trauma intead of dealing with it directly. Her IQ gives her a way to buffer herself; she isn’t dealing with the personal pain of having been raped because she is busy with the larger crusade of “empowering women” or “reclaiming sluthood.” We see the same dynamic elsewhere on the net among men who can’t or won’t deal with the pain of a divorce and instead perserverate on “men’s rights.”
It’s sad because the best revenge is moving on and living well. Jaclyn’s rapist still has power over her because the rape still influences her life profoundly. I would wonder to what extent her history of relationships with women and transgendered men is a result of the rape. Perhaps her recent escapades with “cisgendered” men is an attempt to edge back into heterosexual sex in an emotionally safe way. Her career is clearly a reaction, for better or worse to, that rape.
Likewise, there are many men out there whose playerhood is directly to some poor relationship with a woman. A common theme in the manosphere is “I used to be a beta chump but my ex done men wrong, so now I’m a mighty alpha.” It’s the same counterproductive dynamic from diverse sets of people with ironically the same objective–all looking for love. It’s painful to watch (and yet I can not look away.)
The “so what” is that you name-dropped the hot subfield, but you don’t even know what it means or who works in it. You put your Wharton degree on your blog prominently, you cite Evo Psych, and you talk about oxytocin. But your readers should not believe that you actually grasp these things or report them accurately. In the case of behavioral economics, you don’t even know what the field is. In the case of oxytocin, it’s poorly understood even among endocrinologists, and has as much to do with breastfeeding as with intercourse, yet nobody claims that women who breastfeed will lose their ability to bond with subsequent children. In the case of evolutionary psychology, the field has been riddled with poor science and just-so stories, and has been even more disserved by antifeminists misreporting findings to support essentialist nonsense about gendered behavior — in fact, almost all human behavior is a mix of biology and culture that is extremely difficult to disaggregate, and out physical dimorphism far, far outstrips our behavioral dimorphism. I recomment Pink Brain, Blue Brain for a real rundown on the science, and people treating slight differences as polar opposites instead of natural variations has a lot of drawbacks.
The answer to your question is the subfield you don’t understand. Incentives affect all behavior, but in ways that traditional economic models fail to accurately predict. The entirety of behavioral economics is the study of the ways in which traditional economics misunderstands behavior.
“Likewise, there are many men out there whose playerhood is directly to some poor relationship with a woman.”
A poor relationship with the mother seems to be also regularly implicated.
Haha, wow such responses! I’m honored.
It takes a slut to defend a slut, you say? Haha. Okay, sure. I’ve had plenty of casual sex. I’ve also had plenty of not casual sex. I have found all of it healing, fulfilling, absolutely lovely. So you can throw data around all you like. I’m not saying I believe your “studies,” or even that I’ve bothered to check them out – because I haven’t and I don’t really see the point. You can tell me what the chemicals in my brain are doing, but the simple fact of the matter is that my personal experience – and if you actually read and listen to Jaclyn’s words, her experience too – proves otherwise.
Casual sex has been a great addition to my life. I am a happy, successful, well-adjusted individual. I’m sorry if that makes me seem to be an anomaly in your “research.” The truth is that I’m not the only one who feels this way, and so maybe the “chemical” proof just doesn’t mean anything. If that’s the case, boy howdy, your credibility is shot!
Oh, and you’re right that I didn’t bother reading your bio. Why should I? I don’t know who you are – why would I? Are you under some sort of delusion that you’re famous? You being married doesn’t really have a bearing on what I said either. Married women can just as easily be afraid of the scary sluts coming to steal their husbands.
Boo!
She doesn’t admit to “mental instability,” she admits to not finding happiness in traditional romantic arrangements. She has sex as a way of enjoying her life and keeping her horniness in check so that she can tell the difference between wanting to fuck and wanting to engage emotionally with someone. I think you’re reading all these things (desperation, instability, self-loathing) into the piece because it’s your perspective that hooking up often leads to those things.
Last comment.
1. Sex was not the only way she could feel OK about herself. Sex was a way she could express a side of herself that was being neglected. You keep talking about the one encounter; the piece is about changing her state of mind. She’s also not claiming it’s a permanent fix; she wants to find her one true love. But for now, she doesn’t have to go without sex while she looks for it, which can feel stifling and lead to desperation.
2. She has a history of going “full-throttle” and “whole hog” into *relationships*. The piece is about avoiding this turn of events. You seem to be willfully confusing the state of things pre- and post-sluthood. You did this in the piece as well, which is why I questioned your reading comprehension.
3. How about love and commitment? If sex is only available in a relationship, it would be pretty easy to confuse the desire to have sex and the affection for a person with the desire to commit to that person and love for that person. She’s describing a very common pitfall for young people and displaying remarkable self-awareness. She’s looking for a person with whom she can share something deeper, and she hasn’t found that yet. That doesn’t mean her strategy isn’t working unless she’s turning off the people who would be suitable partners.
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I think you are reading other people’s experiences into Jaclyn’s piece. You claim she is this near-tragic figure, but she describes all these great things in her life and her line of reasoning for them; you just don’t believe her. From what I’ve read on your site, you describe the lay of the land and give advice on how to navigate it. Jaclyn is talking about changing the landscape. I don’t know why you insist on denying her experiences; I would venture a few guesses, but I don’t know you, and it would be dumb to psychoanalyze someone based on reading something they wrote on the internet.
(get it?)
Sure, but the point remains the same. It’s hanging on to the past and killing the present and future because of it. At some point, people need to confront their vulnerablities and move on.
Indeed, no discussion on that.
I wonder if the study differentiated between men who were modest about real acccomplishments and men who had no accomplishments and therfore didn’t have much to brag about. I find the former very attractive. Competance without narcissism…yum.
I don’t see how making Jaclyn Friedman out to be some villain representing a destructive force in our societies sexual culture is informative or beneficial to women in any sense. I cannot understand the positive outcome of publicly criticizing another person for their “own” perspective. You each have your respective mediums and a sincere interest in providing information and support to the ideals you subscribe to. When did it become crucial to your cause to attempt to discredit another woman’s earnest attempt to provide the same service, but with a different perspective. You certainly have every right to disagree, but specifically attacking “her” beliefs and then condoning responses to opposing opinions like “river troll” seems somewhat petty and lacks genuine integrity. That’s just my opinion though.
Hello,
First time reader, first time poster. I stumbled upon this article as a result of my interest in the writings and work of Jaclyn Friedman. Now, I don’t really have enough time or energy at the moment to go on a point by point dissection of your piece, as others have already done that quite well. However, I will respond to certains passages that insulted me.
1) This whole “Oxytocin” things bored me to death and pretty makes people sound like homogenous, powerless, easily dissected lab rats. I don’t deny the legitimacy of science. But I do tout the power of individual personalities and socialization to determine the end result of that chemical reaction. We have self determination. Your devotion to such a point lacks imagination and recalls to mind the accepted science of “The Four Humors”. Such a concept was then used to control people, women in particular. Food for thought.
2) “When, oh when, will feminists learn that men are usually spouting complete BS when they throw around phrases like male hegemony, patriarchy and heteronormative?”
Wow, now you’re just being an asshole. Criticize me for using the language of an ill informed, internet board troll, but the immaturity and unspecific generalization you made with that statement really undercuts your credentials (I have no idea who you are, I assume you have them) as as serious thinker. That statement is a direct insult to me, and to the growing number of men out there who are beginning to look at feminist, queer and gender equality theory as influential and central to the way they date, love and consort. You basically just dismissed an entire demographic without so much as an anecdote, much less any actual study or statistical information. As sure as you are of yourself, your argument (which is rather unrelated to the topic) has no backing, no basis besides your word for it. I have no clue who the balls you are. Excuse my British.
3. “FYI: I had to look up the word “cisgender.” It means being comfortable in the gender you were assigned at birth. Apparently we now need a way to express that we are not transgendered. In this way, we can reassure ourselves and those around us that we are not heteronormative.”
I think it’s safe to say you read the first definition you saw, made a judgement and no further attempt to understand why some people use this term. I don’t, personally. But you know what? No one if forcing you to use it. You don’t have to be a dick about it. Have some intellectual curiosity for christ’s sake. Is this the standard we hold to our columnists and talking heads? Sarcastic dismissal? If it’s not related, don’t mention it and waste my time (Your article in general was not terribly easy to read. And I read textbooks for fun.). Or, if it is related, friggin’ go into detail and debunk it. Give us a reason to beleive it’s something negative, besides your mild annoyance and your faux victimhood.
That’s all. I need to get back to work. I don’t get paid to attack made up dangers to the sacred virginity of our girls. How’s that for a sarcastic dismissal.
Best,
Some Asshole
P.S. Feel free to read my blog! It’s irrelevant, but I make no apologies about being a self promoting bastard! This business is a hussle!
“We have self determination.”
If nature “wishes” to impose herself with her full force, all the talk about self-determination is moot. Luckily most times nature isn’t that forcefull, so that we get a large group in the middle of the extremeties. That group can be skewed to one of the sides by way of nurture. But all the love and nurture of the world won’t be enough for a really die-hard sociopath to get him to feel empathy.
This sounds like human exceptionalism to me. While we are exceptional – no other species on earth is able to harness nurture to the amount we have – we aren’t that far from other animals. We aren’t as rational as we should be to live with the technology we have now (for example: people live for the short term, not the long term; it can be very easy to fool people).
That’s a fair point. That being said, my point still stands as you accept that nurture is a factor and that we do have a significant amount of self control. I simlpy say that we’re not homogenous, and that it’s worth taking into consideration the individuals who don’t fall into line of what we beleive human nature is.
“One trend that emerged among the young women that I encountered who were chronically “slutty” and couldn’t grow from their mistakes was a history of abuse. ”
Far more prevalent than abuse is father-absence from the family. Which often occurs, and is maintained due to the mother’s actions.
I can’t tell you how many of my daughters’ teenage friends are growing up in de facto single parent families due to divorce and a maternal need for tax free child support for 18 years.
Thank you, feminism.
Susan concedes (in her comment of Aug. 3 at 7:14 a.m.) that, “Many young women do engage in casual sex, and go on to have healthy and fulfilling relationships.” So the the idiosyncracies of Jaclyn Friedman’s situation are therefore irrelevant to the issue of whether sluthood is good or bad for the women who engage in it, no? Surely, there is no one-size-fits-all mold of how best to conduct one’s sex life. Surely, every woman is capable of deciding what works best for her — whether it is abstinence until marriage, sluthood, or something in-between — without a lot of finger-wagging and shaming. Most of us don’t need a blogger or a scientific study on oxytocin to figure out what kinds of sexual relationships work for us.
I strongly disagree with Susan’s thesis that slut-shaming is good for women by somehow making life easier for those women who prefer to refrain from casual sex. ANY woman can be slut-shamed. I don’t care how chaste you are, there have been many times and places (including the present-day U.S.) when people who don’t like you for whatever reason can have you ostracized and shamed for showing too much skin (with again, the goal posts frequently moving) or being too friendly with members of the opposite sex or walking in too “provocative” a way or just for having rumors spread about you. Slut-shaming is a powerful weapon against women, and there is no way of following the invisible rules so perfectly that you will be forever shielded from it.
My 68-year-old mother was one of the “nice girls” who followed all the rules. She well recalls the stress of trying to control her stride as a teenager out of an intense fear that her hips were swinging too provacatively, the sense of sexual shame that her mere presence on the street was somehow a provocation. She recalls being slut-shamed by a doctor when trying to get birth control (and this was after she was married). She recalls the vicious rumors spread about her during her 20s by those who resented her for being attractive. I am sorry, but as a married woman who might possibly qualify as a “nice girl” too, I don’t want to return to those days. I support my slutty friends’ right to navigate a variety of sexual choices without shame.
Please don’t make assumptions about my relationships or sexual history. You don’t know me and you don’t know what I have or have not experienced.
For the record, I have been (and am currently) in love. I’ve also had a lot of “mind-blowing” sex, both inside and outside of monogamous long-term relationships. Is that the case for everyone? Absolutely not. My experiences don’t determine what works or doesn’t for anyone else, only me.
Similarly, Jaclyn isn’t trying to say that what makes her happy will make everyone happy, she’s just describing what works for her and asking for people to trust that she knows her needs and wants and support her in that. If she says it’s working for her, who are you to question that? And how does your decision that sluthood isn’t working for her mean that sluthood, in general, for ALL people, is a “failed strategy”? The only thing you can say about all people when it comes to sexuality and relationships is that all people are different, with different needs and wants and comfort levels and boundaries. Deciding that sluthood is a bad choice based on Jaclyn’s experiences is akin to me deciding that marriage is a “failed strategy” based on someone telling me that they occasionally argue with their spouse. It just doesn’t make any sense.
No, it’s based on her height and earning capacity….
Note to Rick: Starting off with “Listen pumpkin” isn’t the best way to have a honest/mature discussion on feminism and sexuality. Kind of makes you instantly loose cred…
My own experience is that being funny, smart, and confident is a winner for both sexes. The good news is that confidence is the most important thing and you can fake that. My success rate with men turned around right away as soon as I started pretending I was confident. Sure, looks and financial stability matter too but they aren’t the be-all and end-all for most people, despite the sour grapes of some.
Assumptions that are offensive to me:
“Sluts make it so non-sluts get no attention from men.”
“Men only want sex, not relationships.”
If a man is not interested in a LTR with anyone, he is going to be more interested in sluts, sure. Why would a non-slut female who only wants monogamy want attention from men who aren’t interested in LTRs? Wouldn’t attention from men only seeking sex be detrimental to the non-slut’s search for a man who is interested in forming a relationship? If there were no sluts, would these sex-seeking men be getting in relationships with non-sluts out of the desperate hope that they might get laid some day? I would think that non-sluts wouldn’t want attention from men who are more interested in sex than connection.If there were no sluts, and non-sluts were receiving attention from both LTR-interested men and sex-seeking men, wouldn’t they have a higher rate of disappointment due to having a higher rate of sex-seeking men getting into relationships for the wrong reasons? Men who are interested in LTRs are going to be interested in girls who want the same. Period. Men who want casual sex are going to be interested in girls who want the same. Period. And in my experience, there are plenty of men looking for relationships, even in college.
“No man wants to get into an LTR with a slut.”
I’m sorry, are you saying that men don’t like women who have had a lot of sex? That a man who is ready for an LTR could meet a slut, and maybe find out that she’s ready to be in an LTR finally, but he would turn her down because she enjoyed casual sex? If she’s ready to be monogamous, why should her sexual history prior to this man matter? It sounds like you’re saying “once a slut, always a slut,” and I have to call bullshit on that. Women who like casual sex when they aren’t in LTRs are not automatically incapable of having LTRs, and they aren’t automatically bad at being in LTRs. So what should prevent men from wanting a LTR with a slut who is ready to give up sluthood for an LTR with this specific man? The statement makes no sense, and in my experience and the experiences of those around me, this is blatantly false.
There is an implication here that most sluts are damaged headcases, and this is what I find most offensive.
I have had casual sex. No strings, very enjoyable, casual sex. I was not damaged. I love myself. At points in my life where I wasn’t interested in a relationship, casual sex fulfilled physical needs and gave me connection when I wanted it. Casual sex was most fulfilling to me, most fun, when I was in my most stable headspace. I imagine this is true of all sex.
I was something of a slut when I met my current SO. I was not ashamed of it, and I’m still not. And we clicked, and we fit, and for us, my sexual history was irrelevant to our chances of having a successful relationship. In the days before I met him, I was content being single and having casual sex. And then I met him, and I wanted a relationship with him. Specifically with him.
Here’s the thing about me, my relationship, and my sluthood: I really enjoy relationship sex with someone who knows me, loves me, and respects me. But when I was single, I really enjoyed casual sex with people who treated me respectfully, whether or not they knew me very well. And if my relationship falls apart someday and my SO and I aren’t together, I imagine I will probably enjoy casual sex again.
Here’s my question; if some people find comfort in sluthood, solace, if it allows them to make connections and be sexual without the emotional risks of a relationship, if it makes them HAPPY, then why is it so important to you to condemn it?
As a tall, wealthy man brimming with self-confidence, I have to disagree.
I wanted to call time-out for a moment to say ‘hello’ to all the new commenters. It’s always nice to hear from new blood.
i also wanted to thank everyone whose shared their opinion and to Susan for hosting this blog. there’s nothing I find better than different points of view to keep me from getting too locked in to what I believe (as well as giving me some new blogs to check out).
I’d also like to thank the Academy, but they haven’t given me anything yet. Nobody recognizes my genius.
Take care, all.
Wait, are you saying you are or are not successful in attracting romantic or sexual partners?
Considering the individuals who don’t fall into line of what we believe human nature is, is indeed very important. Feminism may have transformed itself into something odious (the manosphere has enough horror stories, but that’s not what interests me at the moment so I’ll skipp over it), but it was part of the broader movement that liberated us of the pressure to adhere all to a preset set of expectations (a work still in progress). Now men who are more nurturing in nature can take care of children on a much wider scale while women who are more “hunters” can climb the greasy pole.
But the problem with sex and many of our reactions to it is that it is a rather primeval element in our life. Sex is something that has been with us for a long time, evolutionarily speaking. Nurture is not really good for evolutionarily old things (nature works better and more, although it is not the sole hegemon – i.e. nurture has a limited role because not everything is so old or standardized to make it into an instinct) – it is fantastic for evolutionarily new things (such as reading and whatnot). Nurturing ourselves out of the bonding effect of oxytocin (or whatever hormone actually effects bonding) is painful and, dare I say, somewhat counterproductive. Self-control in matters sexual is important, but taking it too far, or in a direction for which nature (i.c. ones genetics and such) hasn’t intended someone, has negative effects. A subset of the female gender will be as happy with continuing casual sex as men in general are, but the majority will tend to want a relationship after some time.
Man we have to find a better looking way of doing the comment. My eyes get lost in all the boxes.
I’m curious to know what research you’re basing your statements on. As an anthropologist, I must have missed the memo that we’ve rejected the idea of gender as a social construct.
Men have a very old fear of being cuckolded. The history of sluts suggests that they are rather like men in liking sex (i.e. they want much sex from different sources) – and while men like women who like to have sex with them, they are afraid of women who seem to be at a higher risk of having sex with other men. Bear in mind that during the time this instinct was formed the only way to be really sure that a kid was yours (as a man) was to forbid the mother to have sex with another man. Paternity testing is quite recent.
At what number this anxiety kicks in is difficult to say in general, but having more sexual partners than the man in question is going to have some problems.
It seems that sluts are formed by two mechanisms: either they have much testosterone (a predominantly male hormone), or they have had a trauma which creates a deep and essential self-doubt. This self-doubt is to be assuaged by having lots of sex: it indicates that one isn’t as worthless as one thinks to be.
The first group is obviously not going to need traumata of such – they enjoy sex much like men (you may be interested in this: http://roissy.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/of-manjaws-and-furry-forearms/ ). The second group is the problem-group, which by the way is also the one that will turn up most in psychiatric and psychologic contexts. So maybe it’s rather selection bias.
I’m a fan of clarity and not a fan of disingenuity. Here were those tweets:
SusanAWalsh @heathercorinna I say in my post there’s a spectrum of hormonal profiles in the pop. In 1.5 yrs of writing I’ve had 2 women express ur view
In response, because those of us who make our work in sexuality know that 1.5 years of a personal blog and reading its comments tends to give very limited, anecdotal information, what I tweeted back was:
@SusanAWalsh Some of us have been working in sexuality for a lot longer than one and a half years, and with far more readers/clients.
I was not, for the record, only referring to myself, nor was I jeering. I was suggesting you consider, as credible people in any field tend to, that you may want to check in with others who have done broader work for longer before making broad generalizations like stating only 2 women have found casual sex not to be damaging, a claim that looks ridiculous to those of us who have done that work and also work with others who have, all of whom know better.
Susan, I disagree. I think you’re too harsh on her. I went and read the original piece and I think for her it is the step forward she claims it to be.
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You say, “Ms. Friedman made a calculated decision to spend two years in a relationship that she did not feel emotionally invested in. She believed, as so many women do, that any relationship has got to be better than no relationship. Two years is a long time. It’s a longer time in your 30s than it was in your 20s. While you’re halfwaying it, emotionally stable people are lookin’ fer luv and finding it.”
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And it’s true, she did waste that time. But now, it seems, finally she is starting to get honest with herself and not waste any more time. She acknowledges that she really wants a good relationship. Having casual sex probably won’t help her get one, but it helped her to realize what she wants and that is a step closer to getting it. I think she really is healing like she says. I’m not saying she’s there yet, but she is better than she used to be.
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The one thing I agree with you on, is that she shouldn’t be glorifying sluthood. Instead of asking for support, she should be saying, “This is my story, but don’t try it yourself.” And then she should take the next step forward.
” I must have missed the memo that we’ve rejected the idea of gender as a social construct.”
Maybe they left you off the distribution list because they feared you would be overcome by the vapors if you read it, much like that female academic who claimed to almost pass out when Larry Summers gave his fateful talk.
Agreed. What i find disturbing is that initially on the first casual encounter she felt regret – until her friends egged her on. That doesn’t seem to have been fully her decision to continue this behaviour then.
The whole thing screams of being self-destructive and it just makes me feel bad for her.
But to each their own I suppose.
JPG, I totally agree with you. Susan has been writing a lot lately on the benefits of slut-shaming and how “feminism” is destroying the SMP. It’s so silly, and this is coming from someone who has never had sex.
“I was something of a slut when I met my current SO. I was not ashamed of it, and I’m still not. And we clicked, and we fit, and for us, my sexual history was irrelevant to our chances of having a successful relationship. In the days before I met him, I was content being single and having casual sex. And then I met him, and I wanted a relationship with him. Specifically with him.”
From what I understand, this was the case with Ms. Walsh herself when she met her husband. I don’t believe this is in fact an unusual situation these days at all. Condemning promiscuous women (if I can avoid using the word “slut,” I generally do) does not help anyone, for the reasons JPG states. It only fosters and perpetuates the oh-so-notorious intra-female hate and jealousy (I think a good example of which was that post Susan wrote about the girl that was killed, or was it beaten?, because she stole someone’s boyfriend). Instead of making rash generalizations about whose sexual choices are better, why don’t we, as women, just try to respect each other and be confident in the fact that there are men out there who will want to be with us because of, in spite of, or regardless of, our pasts? Why is that so hard?
Am successful.
Romantic, sexual and romantically sexual.
Part of the premise here seems to be that if a woman is demonstrably faithful, low-number or virgin, in her youth, she will marry a man in her youth who will value and stay with her into her old age.
This is how I was raised, and it is false. Men get bored and leave those women. And those women have children and no marketable job skills. And half the children left with no Daddy are men.
No doubt a lot of people on this blog think if the women would just be obedient, sweet, and be a good helpmeet, the man would not fall out of love with her and leave.
This is how I was raised, and it is false. Men do get bored and leave those women. Feminism tells those women to get a marketable job skill so they can support themselves and if need be, the full support of any kids.
Lots of people on this blog probably think that without those marketable job skills, the wives who were docile, unworldly virgins and married in their youth would be forced to stay obedient and supportive, therefore preserving the marriage to the man which she depends on economically. This is false. Men leave those good obedient virgin religious wives all the time. If you want to go back to the 50′s, men can’t divorce this kind of wife. Even if she gets kinda boring and the women at work are all sassy and worldly looking and catch the husband’s eye.
Sorry I sound old-fashioned. It sounds like people on this blog think a woman being “good” will win a man’s love. In some cases it will. But not enough to depend on. That kind of “love” a man has in his youth for the virginal woman, can die and there’s no social stigma to his leaving her and the kids. This “value of shaming” works both ways. There used to be shame for a man leaving a woman and housefull of kids that he married and sired in his youth.
Okay. So next question. Do you know whether it is your height, your wealth, or your self-confidence, or a combination thereof that accounts for your success? And have you accounted for other factors? Do you have a hot body, intelligence, kindness and a great sense of humor? Those factors matter too!
(My husband is short and poor. I picked him for his hot legs, his wit, and his obvious affection for and kindness towards his mother.)
Am I understanding correctly? Serial monogamy is slutty, but sluthood is some higher, more enlightened way of being? Wow, that’s really splitting hairs.
In any case, the notion that the complete separation of emotion from sex can be healing or healthy for most women is not true. If JF is an outlier, that’s fine, but she and other sex pos feminists need to recognize and accept the many studies that indicate women are just not made that way. And she needs to stop recommending an approach to love and relationships that would be very detrimental to most women.
Perhaps I misread him, but I think he was making a joke (to contradict your original point) to the effect that he gets much more mileage from his height and wealth than he does from his self confidence.
You may have noticed that I have far more male commenters here than any feminist blog. I respect men for who they are, which includes a strong preoccupation with sex in the age range I write for. Women should not blame men for trying to get ass – it is the most natural thing in the world.
Notice that men TRY. Women GRANT ACCESS. That’s the way mating works. Appreciate the differences! If you can’t, at least accept them, because they’re hard wired.
I suppose there is a small number of men who actually believe the sex-pos stuff, perhaps even some who hope to marry a woman with an extraordinarily high number of past sexual partners.
Has Susan (or the commenters) suggested that women should not have careers? I must have missed the connection between “not a great idea for most women to pursue one night stands with strangers on craigslist” to “all women should be virgins at marriage and remain barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen waiting for hubby to come home.”
Agreed. The sexual double standard is biologically determined. That makes it neither bad nor good, just nature. Women need to live with it, and they ignore it at their peril.
Vincent Ignatius has openly stated this is the case with him. In general, I think parents don’t fully understand their power in shaping our ability to relate emotionally and sexually. Also, research shows that children of divorce are far more likely to engage willingly in no-strings sex. They avoid relationships at worst, or simply have no model at best.
Sunday school is actually more forgiving than a lot of the posters on this topic.
Sunday school (if done right) says you can start over and be forgiven. Sunday school (if done like Jesus, whether he was real or not) says “neither do I condemn you; go and don’t do it any more.” Sunday school says even if most men won’t have you, or don’t like you, you’re more than just what men think of you. Sunday school (if done right, which is difficult, that’s why religion always goes off track) says you’re worth more than whether or not you’re a hottie, and that even if you’re not a hottie, you are worth the person you are inside not the outside. Sunday school says you can reform and be forgiven and then you forgive others. Sunday school says even if you never marry it’s not all hopelessness and loneliness and cats. Sunday school says God forgave humans time after time after time. Religion gets used a lot to enforce what people’s inner animal brain wants, and for some people their inner animal brain wants women who made mistakes or were haughty in their youth to be punished the rest of their lives. But Sunday school (if done right) says if you get old and not as hot you can say “Whoa, I have been haughty and promiscuous and now I’m miserable…I think I will reform” Sunday school says you can reform and find better happiness and company than you would have married to perhaps some unforgiving person. No one wants to envision themselves old and alone finding solace in religion….but I’m THERE, and it’s not all sadness and cats. I think the best way to end up living the dire picture painted for older people who have made mistakes in relationships is to let one’s self get bitter. I know lifelong bachelors who are happy as bugs in rugs tinkering in their garage all day or reading their alphebetized stacks of books and yes, one of them has seven cats and two dogs. He’s happy as a bug in a rug. Sunday school says that picture they try to paint when they say “It’s cats for you because you did not do what I wanted you to when you were young” … well a lot of what goes on in Sunday schools is just as fear-based. But if Sunday school is done right, it teaches you NOT to fear something like that because your whole happiness does not come from your social status or who is on your arm or even being coupled. Sunday school done right should teach us to be better than our animal brains because we are not just animals. That includes not doing it in the road, with an eye on the short-term, but it also includes being able to forgive and not let bitterness from envy take over and turn us into small bitter people.
I find it funny that Evan is acting shocked and appalled by what he reads here. Imagine if he read Roissy’s blog. They’d find him catatonic in the fetal position.
For women, my dating advice is this. Be outgoing and project confidence. Ask men out. (Yes, it is scary as hell, but after the first few times it become easier.) Don’t be afraid to argue; men love arguing just for the sake of arguing so if you like it too, you are golden, especially if you can do it in a playful and fun way. Don’t pretend to be interested in things you aren’t interested in, but do display interest in the man. (For example, I have always been open about the fact that I have zero interest in professional sports, but I was always willing to talk to men about what sports they follow and why and what their favorite sports mean to them.) Perfect your wisecracks — as long as they aren’t mean-spirited or hurtful. Be kind.
Contrary to popular myth, looks are secondary. As long as you are presentable, these tips will garner a woman virtually any man she wants. I chose a short, poor man because I fell in love and I knew I would earn a good income on my own anyway, but I dated pretty much anyone I wanted. Men love a woman who is direct and smart. And men need validation too, which is why they generally take well to being asked out.
It doesn’t matter what you call the study of human behavior. The point is, it’s transactional. Incentives drive behavior. Decisions are influenced by many factors, but always boil down to some form of cost/benefit analysis. You suggested that economics can not be applied to human relationships. I suggest that is nonsense.
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Oxytocin is not poorly understood. We may not know everything about the role of hormones in attraction and mating, but we know a great deal. BTW, I’ve never claimed that oxytocin is a finite supply – don’t know where you get that. The role of oxytocin is to promote bonding, including with sexual partners. A woman’s body is flooded with it during sex. What causes a failure to bond over time with many partners is the repeated experience of being pumped and dumped. Women experience attachment, and find it painful when they are subsequently rejected. It’s the constant rejection that takes its toll and makes women cynical and jaded. This is how women are biologically different from men. There may be outliers, women who don’t attach for some reason, but it’s unusual, and certainly not something that women should strive for.
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Evo psych is on the front burner, Thomas, and it’s not going away. The notion of gender as a social construct is losing ground rapidly. Less than 10% of women in college identify as feminist. Fewer still consider themselves sex positive. Sex-positive feminism is predicated on assumptions about human biology and behavior that are invalid. That is where the poor understanding is most pronounced.
This disqualifies you from engaging in informed debate.
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My reading of Jaclyn’s article tells me that the Craigslist casual sex was a disaster rather than a miracle. It led to tears and accusations after two months. Please name one single positive casual sex experience described in the piece.
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Haha, I don’t care if you read my bio, you came here! I’m calling out JF for bad policy and bad strategy. I don’t care what she does, or what kind of sex you have. I do care if you proselytize it. Because you are an outlier. Surely you have a sense of that? Do you imbibe any media other than feminist sites? Rachel Simmons bravely came out against casual sex, citing the many letters she receives from readers of her column.
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Also, for the record. Sluts don’t steal anyone. Only a tiny percentage of men want a LTR with a woman with extensive sexual experience. (Individual numbers may vary.) You may have one of those men, or may be fortunate enough to find one. But you’re swimming in a tiny pool. As is Jaclyn.
Susan: “Am I understanding correctly? Serial monogamy is slutty, but sluthood is some higher, more enlightened way of being? Wow, that’s really splitting hairs.”
Athlone: As you said before, Susan:
” Rapid fire serial monogamy is a clear indication that something is wrong. ”
She dove into short sexual relationships in very quick succession because she was focused primarily on sex. We can both agree that this isn’t healthy, and it can certainly be called slutty.
Her “sluthood”, in my opinion here, isn’t really sluthood as we understand the term. She calls the embracing of her sluthood a turning point, but her actual turning point occured when she was at her least slutty(her nearly serious but still casual multi month relationship with B). It was when she actually slowed down on the whole “slutting it up” thing that she actually started to feel better about herself. I think thats the actual ironic but more accurate description of her journey here.
Susan: “In any case, the notion that the complete separation of emotion from sex can be healing or healthy for most women is not true. If JF is an outlier, that’s fine, but she and other sex pos feminists need to recognize and accept the many studies that indicate women are just not made that way. And she needs to stop recommending an approach to love and relationships that would be very detrimental to most women.”
Athlone: I completely agree with this. What I’m trying to point out here is the potential for JF to have actually unwittingly [proven your point with her piece. Like I said before: Her earlier behavior was her “sluttiest” stage(rapid fire serial monogamy with no real rhyme or reason, focus on sex, nascent connections, short relationship lifespan, etc, etc). Even her early monogamous relationship with the other girl showed a lot of these bad symptoms(save the short lifespan).
When she came closest to actually embracing a more monogamous lifestyle with someone she liked(although she met him in a very dubious way), she started to see improvement. She probably wouldn’t acknowledge this(hence her use of the term “sluthood” to describe a process that, as I just said, began by embracing significantly un-slutty behavior), but I think her story shows that in her case monogamy(or at least something close to it) was a lot better than indiscriminate serial encounters with no actual meaning(read: sluttiness).
Her story, ironically, shows that even sex positive feminists who seem to do nothing but praise slutty behavior can benefit more from establishing more stable, long term monogamous pairings. Granted, hers was not actually perfect given where she found the guy(he only wanted casual sex so the relationship couldn’t last too long) but even then she managed to form some sort of bond over the span of their relationship. If she really tried to find a relationship in a more reasonable place than Casual Encounters, I actually think she might see even greater benefits. Again, she probably wouldn’t say that, but I think her story unintentionally indicates this.
is it?
“Contrary to popular myth, looks are secondary. As long as you are presentable, these tips will garner a woman virtually any man she wants.”
You know that isn’t true! You are a woman, so yes, that does seem to be the way that women view men. However, men definitely do not view women the same way. Men usually don’t want to settle for a fat woman even if she has a great personality. The only way that what you wrote is true is if “presentable” in interpreted to mean “attractive.”
Here’s what you haven’t managed to get:
I don’t care about her experience. I don’t care whether she’s happy or miserable. I don’t care if she’s gay or straight or cis or un-cis. Here’s what I care about:
She’s recommending a strategy that goes against everything we know about female psychology. In fact, she’s recommending a strategy that probably demonstrates abnormal psychology. Requesting, even encouraging, other women to embrace sluttiness/sluthood defies rational thinking. If one’s objective is a loving long-term relationship, then surely Jaclyn Friedman has hit upon the worst imaginable strategy.
She is free to share her experience. She is even free to urge other women to join the slutty sisterhood. And dissenting voices are free to point out what a total life mistake that would be.
Sex positive feminism is a destructive force in our society’s sexual culture. Jaclyn Friedman is a self-appointed spokesperson for living one’s life as a slut. Dissent should be welcomed in the marketplace of ideas. If JF’s piece can’t stand up to scrutiny (and I don’t think it can) she should be called out for writing this claptrap, and certainly for attempting to promote it.
I didn’t attack her beliefs. I criticized her recommended strategy for healing, and pointed out that her choices do not appear to represent healthy self-esteem or behavior.
It’s not about Jaclyn’s life. It’s about the way of life she’s trying to sell other women. She makes this clear – her piece is written as a request. It’s disingenuous of you to pretend otherwise.
Wrt to condoning comments, please. Have you seen the things Amanda Marcotte let stand on her post about me? The femosphere is notorious for having the meanest, snarkiest comments on the web. You guys are worse than the Drudge Report. FWIW, I have deleted at least a dozen comments on this thread, because they focused on JF’s personal appearance. Calling someone a river troll seems mild by comparison.
Some of us don’t “settle” for fat women. We desire them.
For someone who doesn’t care about those things (or know much about some of them), you sure have spent a lot of energy focusing on them ad nauseum.
As I said in my other comment here, I’m a fan of clarity, and not a fan of how disingenuous you seem to continue to be here.
Jaclyn didn’t recommend any strategy, nor was she at all prescriptive. It seems like this might be hard for you to grok, because it seems as if you don’t know how not to be prescriptive yourself. But as other commentors have stated, either you are simply refusing to acknowledge what was actually written, or your reading of this piece was not so great.
In the case it’s the latter, here’s the part in that piece you may have missed from Jaclyn that makes your claims she is being prescriptive seem either foolish or manipulative: “I’m not telling you this because I think you’re a slut, or should be a slut. I don’t know you. I don’t know what you need, or what you have access to.”
Not only was she very clear there about her motives, I’d say if you did miss that last sentence, so much of what you have said here makes clear you could really stand to try and digest it, perhaps even giving a shot at applying it yourself.
No, I was referring more to the above commenter….I am not sure if I can see the exact passage while I’m in this comment box…Rick.
Rick and some other commenters on this blog seem to think that if a young woman does everything “right” and forms a marriage while she is young and desirable, and is a “good” wife, the husband will stay with her and she will avoid the dreaded cats.
I grew up in a very strict sect with virginity until marriage for both genders, and doing everything “right” and getting married when young is no guarantee against being alone when you are old and not hot anymore. And in many cases being alone would be better.
“In the case it’s the latter, here’s the part in that piece you may have missed from Jaclyn that makes your claims she is being prescriptive seem either foolish or manipulative: “I’m not telling you this because I think you’re a slut, or should be a slut. I don’t know you. I don’t know what you need, or what you have access to.””
Sort of like “Look, I’m not saying you should buy this stock, and I certainly wouldn’t presume to give you investment advice. All I’m saying is that I have some pretty credible information that great news is coming on this stock, and I (and every smart investor I know) is going way long on this baby! But, hey, the choice is yours.”
I won’t pretend to be able to speak for Jaclyn, but having read the post several times, it is clear to me that she is merely encouraging women to support each other in ALL of their choices, including the choice to engage in casual sex. The post is not entitled “Why everyone in the world should only engage in casual sex, ever, because IT IS TEH ONLY RIGHT CHOICE”. That’s not the agenda here.
I also completely love the string of generalizations in your second and third paragraph (and I’d almost be mildly flattered at being called a Girl Gone Wild, except I know the difference between sex-positivism and sexism; my suggested reading here would be Levy’s “Female Chauvinist Pigs”).
I have got to wonder: If most/all men are focused solely on getting no-strings-attached sex, why in the world are you so worried about losing those men to us sluts? One would assume that you’d rather be with the men who are interested in long-term commitment, and those would hardly be in danger of preferring sluts.
And lastly, I’d be very interested in your source for the figure of those 80% of no-strings sex.
No, not at all, unless you’re projecting something radically different unto her words than what she actually said. Which is clearly happening a whole lot here.
I saw how fast they circled the wagons on Twitter, and they are still circling! Man, their oxen must be getting tired. You struck a nerve, Susan.
Seriously, though – never get involved in a land war in Asia. I did the Twitter thing once with Ms. Marcotte et al. Never again.
Our oxen? Good gawd.
Grerp: when someone attacks and/or nonconsensually psychoanalyzes a friend and respected colleague of yours, puts words in their mouth, and so forth, do you just sit idly by? Or do you stand up for and support your friend? And if in doing so, they also state inaccuracies you know to be inaccuracies because it’s work you’ve been doing for a long time, work in which you find accuracy important, do you still sit silent?
“Oxytocin is not poorly understood. We may not know everything about the role of hormones in attraction and mating, but we know a great deal. BTW, I’ve never claimed that oxytocin is a finite supply – don’t know where you get that. The role of oxytocin is to promote bonding, including with sexual partners. A woman’s body is flooded with it during sex. What causes a failure to bond over time with many partners is the repeated experience of being pumped and dumped. Women experience attachment, and find it painful when they are subsequently rejected. It’s the constant rejection that takes its toll and makes women cynical and jaded. This is how women are biologically different from men. There may be outliers, women who don’t attach for some reason, but it’s unusual, and certainly not something that women should strive for.”
Ouch. A lot of “scientific” statements being thrown around inaccurately (and probably the result of bad reporting/popular media interpretations of science that trade on ratings/view-grabbing via sexing up what would otherwise be a dull lab report to many). The oxytocin explanation stated here (and in other popular media) isn’t representative of the hard science/endocrinology involved in this emerging area of research.
Oxytocin secretion is upregulated in both genders, not just in females, in response to many stimuli, not just sex/mate selection. It is not the automatic button (nor is it something that can be “used up” as it’s been stated) that drives bonding (among other things) in the way it’s been pitched in the popular media, and our current understanding of the role of this one thread in the vast complexity of the endocrine system and the interplay of hormones/physiology/brain function is still very limited despite some good work in progress–the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. There is also a striking amount of variability in any biological trait in any species, and overgeneralizations about what is “normal” in any one population seem to focus on the center point of a wide distribution and ignore the ranges that overlap more than they differ.
While, we’re talking about science, evolutionary psychology is viewed quite skeptically by the scientific community because there is little to no evidence available to examine as to what kinds of social, sexual, and gender interactions our prehistoric ancestors engaged in…the fossil and artifact record is not informative when it comes to interpersonal behaviors. Extrapolating from zero data means conjecture, and usually that conjecture is biased towards our current beliefs or guesses as to how the past informs the present (the distant evolutionary past, not the relatively short period of human history documented in art, writing, documented history, etc), hence the wealth of contradictory “findings” with little available hard evidence with which to compare them.
The disciplines of evolutionary biology and evolutionary anthropology are more centered around actual data, particularly examination of genetic markers and how they have shifted throughout the time period for which we have that information, The field of psychology is starting to address that much of the research has been done on college undergraduates, the population most accessible for study, and is limited by the observation that these findings may not be accurately applied to other populations, such as middle-aged adults, members of other groups. The sexual and mate selection behavior of college students is most likely fundamentally different than that of older adults. Additionally, the fact that the average lifespan of a middle-class adult in the US has expanded by near 15-20 years means that modern adults spend more time in sexual maturity/sexual relationships and thus it is no surprise that many people are delaying marriage and permanent relationships until later in life as well. Marrying and starting a family right after high school may have been normative in the 1950s, but as our society shifts, so does mate selection and marriage behavior (as it always has). Simply taking into account the time required to train for modern employment (college degrees, trade school/apprenticeship, the shifting of the job market (from manufacturing to service/high tech, from domestic to globalized commerce, from stable employment to “at will”) means that delaying permanent mate selection, marriage, and childbearing is a rational adaptation.
Not every man is going to be able to score a supermodel, and those who can probably attract many supermodels, not just the one. So other qualities are more important if the person is going to spend any significant amount of time with you such as dating or a relationship.
Sure looks are important. (And men who think that looks aren’t important to women are deluding themselves, especially now that women don’t have to rely so much on men for financial support. That’s why metrosexuals are the new thing. Men know they have to start putting in some effort.) But once you have hit the baseline of attractiveness, then the whole thing becomes more personality driven.
It’s very clear that women overall have suffered considerably as a direct result of the Sexual Revolution. I believe that many of these consequences were unintended, but that doesn’t make them less harmful. Betty Friedan and others clearly went on record to decry the advent of casual sex. In truth, feminism has achieved the important goals. Sex-positive feminism is an unfortunate branch of feminism that has unfortunately had a profound effect on the sociosexual environment, to the detriment of women.
I am not suggesting that we return to the 1950s. Indeed, even if I wished it, it is not possible. However, the availability of no-strings sex, particularly on college campuses, has put considerable pressure on young women to have sex they really don’t want to have, and has virtually killed off relationships. Women in their 30s and 40s really cannot know what this scene is like, but it’s a dynamic I have become very familiar with.
Heather, welcome, I’m glad you took the time to weigh in. I do not consider myself an expert on the subject of sexuality. I consider myself a student. I have read widely and in great depth on the topic, including much material at Scarleteen. Though hookup culture is really just beginning to be studied in depth on campuses, research already shows a clear disconnect between what women want from sex and what they are getting from sex. Bogle and others have spend considerable time and resources conducting research and submitting it for peer review. The results are conclusive. Hookup sex is profoundly unsatisfying for most women, and emotionally damaging for some.
I have stated in numerous comment threads that exactly two women have professed enjoying hookup sex on this blog, and I’ve probably heard from a few hundred women who are struggling with it. FWIW, I also hear quite regularly from women who are consistently shamed for maintaining their virginity. I have always acknowledged that this is not only a small sample and anecdotal, but that anyone who finds my blog is self-selected to a certain degree. Some typical search terms that bring people to my blog include:
“I gave him a BJ why doesn’t he call”
“Had sex with 6 guys don’t know who gave me chlamydia”
etc.
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One of the most disturbing things I’ve ever read on the topic was on your site. A woman wrote in with the following question:
I’m 16. I’ve gone through 8 sexual partners in the last year. And 5 of them only in these past 3 months. I’ve only had one boyfriend in my life. I cheated on him. Twice.
Your response began:
If any of us feels personally empowered by, say, self-identifying as easy, a slut, a prude or any number of other words we might use to broadly classify sexual behavior, I’m down. I don’t think that anyone else has the right to tell someone how to identify themselves or what words are or are not okay to do that with. But if you’re applying those words to yourself and they make you feel bad, I’d ditch them. Making yourself feel bad on purpose is never helpful.
I don’t think there is a “right” number of partners or that we can determine how many is too few or too many just by number or our age.
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A 16 year old with 8 partners in the last year. And you encourage her to abandon any words or thoughts that encourage her to consider the negative emotions her behavior is causing her. Rather than suggest that her behavior is making her feel bad, you suggest that it’s society’s tendency to shame sluts that is the problem. It’s incredible, really. In fairness, you give a long response, some of which is quite reasonable. Still, the damage is done early on. I doubt any 16 yo would go past the first 2 paragraphs.
http://www.scarleteen.com/article/advice/working_it_out_when_hooking_up_isnt_working
Anni, if she had said this, I wouldn’t have needed to write a post about her.
$$$ and certasin anatomical peculiarities.
Word gets around.
I live in Southern California where a woman can guess the size of your bonus and equity package simply by sniffing your business card.
It is a brutal transactional environment we live in.
Maggie, don’t look for advice in an echo chamber.
Kurt above is giving you a perspective from the other side of the table – it is a valuable one.
The capacity for self-delusion among American women is terrifyingly infinite – this is a case in point.
Two years ago I would of felt overjoyed and possibly to in tears after reading an article like that outlined by JF. I would have rejoiced in the fact that my behaviour was being normalised and that being a “slut” was in fact a way of healing. I have to say now that two years on, some intense therapy for a rape and a few Gender Studies papers later – I am disgusted that someone would find joy or healing in allowing multiples upon multiple people (from Craigslist whatever that is) fuck you meaninglessly. I used to think and act just like JF however I was a newly turned 18 year old that got raped her first few weeks away at University not in my mid to late 30’s. Because of a rape that left me feeling demoralised, dirty, and losing all respect for myself the last thing I had on my mind was worrying about if the men I was sleeping had any respect me for me. I can’t say I was happy at all for that whole year of embracing my “sluthood” – trying to find validation in every sexual encounter I endured – trying to find validation that I could just not care about sex the way that the guy who raped me seemed to have no consideration about having non-consensual sex with me and my body. JF talks about how she was sexually assaulted in College – I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she finds comfort in something that she once lost control over. Unlike JF I realised early on that casual meaningless sex didn’t give me any type of validation or control in fact it just made me miserable – I had nothing left for myself because I had shared something that I had valued so highly to anyone and everyone that would have it.
Now however I feel empowered to know that I worked through my “issues” and am no longer a “slut”. I am empowered that I know I regained the respect of many people – mostly the men in my life – by in fact becoming maybe as some would say a prude.
I would like to say to all who disagree with what Susan writes in her blogs – that it’s just one of many opinions on the subject. However coming from the “sluthood” and then reading Susan’s blogs I prefer to read her encouragement rather than others opinions of banding together in their need for validation in being slutty. I think that sexual awareness and identity doesn’t come with or from being a “slut” I think being have meaningless sex with anyone in fact does the opposite. I can’t say that I found love or support or (god forbid) healing in any of the men I had casual sex with I was just left feeling dirty and meaningless to them – just another hole for them to relieve themselves. You may say that Susan is backwards and trying to tell young men and women that sex is about supply and demand but from where I’m standing that is exactly what it is. She isn’t trying to repress our sexual identities she’s just trying to help people who are sick of playing the slut game to find a way to get around all the chaos that is the dating world today. I actually enjoy reading her articles and applying them to my own life now that I am issue free and have respect for myself – because they WORK! I wish I could of found this blog earlier so that I could of started my healing sooner!
Everyone is so up tight about this whole sexual revolution thing – do what works for you. If being a slut works and is healing – go for it. But I’m a believer in the other kind of healing which happens to involve mutual respect, love and support in monogamous relationship. I can’t say that any women wanting to be part of the “sluthood” is happy within themselves truthfully about sharing bodily fluids with dozens of different people. I’d almost say they were so low in self respect for themselves that they feel the need to want to do this to their bodies and souls – cause yeah something isn’t right! They are unhappy. I’ve been there and done that it’s in whole entirety and I’m thankful that I discontinued my membership with the “sluthood” because it wasn’t a very enjoyable experience – how can anyone say that it is?
Well, the young people who come to Scarleteen DO read our answers to them. Since you don’t have a background in educating young people, not sure where your assumptions about what they will or won’t read are coming from, but with what we do, we know from our stats and their feedback that a) more young people come to us about sex than to any other sex ed source online, and b) our website has more pages read per user in a day than most sites do, including those for adults.
I also know this user DID read what was written, and I’m not going to defend what I told her, because if you or others also read the whole post, I think it’s pretty clear that yet again, you’re not being very honest with your own words.
I’m honestly just done with you, because I have just run out of patience, and have to put my time and energy elsewhere. But what I’d implore you again to do — which I imagine anyone working in this arena would — is when you’re talking about something in which you, admittedly are, a new student, a) to ask some more questions of those of us who are not at all new to it (not just myself) who have not only done all the reading you have and more, but have more work/direct experience b) make sure you’re listening to young women like you say you are, since even in this thread, I’ve watched you dismiss plenty of them out of hand, and c) watch the authoritative statements you make (like calling new and limited study “conclusive”). By all means, casual sex can be traumatic, damaging or dissatisfying for young women: but so can sex within LTRs and sex in any context. I don’t know if you have done any work at all with DV/IPV, but if not, that might be something else you should consider spending some time with. Same goes for working in say, birth control, abortion or sexual health for married hetero women or couples in their 30s and 40s. All pretty illuminating ways to round out the bigger picture. From one of your comments, sounds like you could also stand to do some work with disability awareness as well as with non-hetero and/or non-gendernormative populations.
There are not pat, simple answers to any of this, no one set of rules, no one way of doing things to guarantee good results (not even just for the heterosexuals you seem to exclusively talk about, discounting anyone else exists). There are certainly things we know do and don’t help people get to a place where they can have healthy relationships of all types, and make their best individual choices, but the way you’ve been talking here and the things you have been saying just aren’t them. If they were, a lot of my colleagueswho are sex therapists serving couples who followed all the rules of the 50′s would be out of work, instead of being overextended.
No, but I think Snowdrop has something of a point. A lot of the male commentators on this blog seem to have a preference for low- or no- number women, when in reality, having a low number is really not the only thing that gets or keeps a man. I’ve seen marriages work between two formerly promiscuous people and marriages fail between two virgins. There is no one single prescribed formula that makes a relationship work, and despite the player mantra “look at what women say, not what they do,” there are ample differences between what men say and do as well, make no mistake. You may say “I only want a rich virgin who looks like Angelina Jolie” but let’s face it you’ll end up marrying the middle income girl with cellulite whose probably been around the block a few times. And you will love her too.
Angelina jolie point is more a comparison of goals vs. reality but I see where you are going. BTW the mantra is “look at what women do, not what they say”, and it was created for the argument women have that they want a good guy as they cry on their beta’s shoulder. Which is really dick the more I think about it.
But anyway, most likely this is coming from bias as I am a child of divorce and am constantly looking for a marriage that works, I have noticed 2 types of marriages that last. 1) Where one of the partners has “relationship power” over the other and can maintain it for long periods of time. This is not necesarrily a bad thing like domestic abuse. Basically one person hold the pants in the relationship and does over a long period. Or you have those crazy couples who are always trying to play games with each other to gain the upper hand. And 2) where both people in the relationship truly give up their own goals, power ideals, and control issues to put the relationship first. And that is increasingly rare in our culture. And with the next generations coming up I see it happening less and less.
Personally I can only see the first option truly working out in my direction. But many men don’t even want to considering the repercussions it can have in terms of alimony, child support, potential legal issues. Naw. Just not worth it.
Ah, the do/say thing was a typo, my bad. I’m curious about the second kind of relationship, what do you mean? We’re coming from different perspectives, because my parents have a great marriage for over 20 years, and I’m not really sure I can say that anyone ‘wears the pants’ in it. I think the best marriages are either highly egalitarian, or highly skewed towards a dominant/submissive archetype. I notice that children of divorce usually cringe at the idea of marriage, and tend to favor casual encounters over long term relationships. That’s never really been my thing, though. I’ve never even considered the possibility that I might get divorced some day. That just seems so weird and alien to me. I often hear it said that marriage minded people should look for people that come from intact families, and there is basis for that. If you are considering alimony/legal issues before you’ve even married, marriage is def not for you.
Wow. This has been very enlightening. Susan, this topic has demonstrated to me just how woefully pathetic the new “Sex Positive Feminist” is at forming (or defending) a logical argument with the given propositions. NewSpeak has moved Reason itself beyond their grasp. I give this movement another two years before it mercifully implodes on itself. I fully expect cannibalism to be the “dominant normative construct” in their self-induced cataclysm.
Great Blog! Now, back to lurking, here and at Grerp’s.
I agree with most of what you just wrote. However, your previous comment seemed to indicate that a presentable woman could get just about any guy and I don’t think that is true. An exceptionally attractive woman can pull this off, but most women cannot.
Yes, I work with teens and young adults, but I am also a young adult myself, and only finished university a couple of years ago. I’ve been to the parties and the games and the bars (at two different universities, in two different countries no less), and my experience has been very different from yours. It is impossible to make generalizations about an entire generation of young adults based on your experience or my experience or anyone else’s personal experience, because a)that isn’t a large enough sample and b)usually doesn’t account for the enormous diversity of the human population. (Not to mention, the number of young people who go to university or college is actually a rather small proportion of the whole – so even if college students all acted the same, it STILL wouldn’t be possible to generalize about all teens and twentysomethings on that basis.)
As for your statement regarding gender as a social construction, in between all the partying I did in university, I did actually manage to get a couple of degrees – one in biology and one in anthropology. Biological sex doesn’t create or maintain gender roles any more than biological differences in skin colour create racism.
You ain’t said nothing slick to a can of oil when it comes to marriage not being for me. But your parents in the 20 year marriage are the second type of relationship that works that I was talking about. SInce you’ve never noticed the dominant/submissive aspect in that relationship, they seem like the type that puts the relationship above each other. Focus on them instead of “I” or “you”. But I can’t continue this talk further. Back to screenwriting.
Nonconsensually?
Honestly, I wouldn’t circle the wagons and I wouldn’t advise anyone else to circle the wagons either. Because there are no Indians. It’s unproductive. Look, let’s be honest. Nothing I write here or anywhere else is going to change your mind. You’re not going to change Susan’s mind. Neither of us are going to change Jaclyn Friedman’s mind or the minds of the rubberneckers over there at Pandagon. You believe what you believe and I believe what I believe, and never the twain shall meet. We are at an impasse.
What we are fighting over is the ability to influence the upcoming generations of young women. JF didn’t write her article as a confession; she’s an evangelical and her religion is sex positive feminism. That’s why there’s an uproar. Because we over here don’t care if you all get dragged down into the abyss, but we’d prefer you not take Gens Y and Z with you. Leave them out of it. If you want to skip down the wide, wide path to dysfunctional relationships and lonely old age, fine. But don’t try and convince the girls I love that that path is primrose strewn.
And for the record, Jaclyn is not a martyr and hers is not a “brave stand.” She may get vociferous disagreement on her opinions, but she’s still out there living and breathing, having meaningless sex, and pulling in a paycheck. It’s sort of her job as an activist to be shocking and overshare. And that’s what she’s doing.
Heck, a lot of us male commenters, even those of us who are happily married, would more than likely be fairly skeptical about recommending marriage to the younger males in our lives. It’s pretty clear that our current culture does not value marriage: it’s seen as something akin to fashion, just to toss away if it clashes with the tastes of the day.
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As for preferences to low -or-no count women, I can only comment on my own case, it is a preference based on my study of various women over time. Low count, in my opinion, correlates to future-time orientation, and self-control. And since we’re all tolerant and non-judgmental, those were qualities I was looking for because they mattered to me. Other qualities may matter to others. Did I possibly miss some great high-count women? Perhaps, but at least not the ones I ran into. Is it possible that low count could have it’s own problems? Yes, but I did what I would recommend any man to do: observe what what she does, not what she says. And be patient…we’re not forced to marry these days, at least not yet…
“slick to a can of oil”…I don’t know what this turn of phrase means. I didn’t mean YOU personally when i said that, it was a general “you”
“Slick to a can of oil”, “preaching to the choir”, same term.
Athlone, this is a very astute and insightful analysis. As usual, you deliver and add considerably to the discussion. Thx.
Yes, it is.
http://tinyurl.com/datingisatransaction
Goosebumps. Beautifully said.
Just as a side note, more about form than content, I’m glad to see all the new commenters appear but I do detect certain telltale patterns appearing in the “feminist-minded” comments:
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1. Bland assertions of authority, ie “I have more degrees than you” or “I’ve done more work” (whatever that means) without providing any new facts or content.
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2. Changing the subject away from facts/contentions about the world (“This is/is not likely to be a good lifestyle choice”) and onto unknowable personal motivations (“You don’t like sluts because you don’t want them to steal your husband”).
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3. Long declarations that everyone is different, no generalizations can be made, etc. etc.; despite the obvious fact that the original post and Susan’s response depend on the possibility that some generalizations can usefully be made.
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4. Micro-fine hairsplitting criticism of imprecise language as a way of avoiding the main logical argument of a post.
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These are all standard patterns that one sees in internet discussions, across all subjects; and to me they are all indicators that the author has a weak logical hand and is doing their best to compensate with tactics. Anecdotally, watching these exchanges confirms my previous impressions that the writing and reasoning of academic feminists is really pretty weak in general. And that’s a shame, because Susan could really use a good challenge from the left!, so to speak, but I haven’t seen one presented here so far.
Oh please. Your condescending tone is ridiculous. As ridiculous as your advice to a 16 year old girl with at least 8 partners, who wrote to you because she is feeling badly about herself. You just encouraged her to slut it up. Where do you think she will end up, after having had sex with 100 men?
As I said to you on Twitter, the fact that you have so many readers, courtesy of PC agendas in the schools, only demonstrates the need for more sane and reasonable voices. In my own school district, the high school sex ed program includes a two-day session on fisting. What a load of crap.
For the record, and the umpteenth time, I have never recommended a return to the sexual mores of the 50s. I believe that women can and should own their sexuality. It’s a powerful and precious thing, and should not be squandered lightly.
KHanna, welcome. This is an awesome comment. Thank you. If you’re not familiar with my blog, you should know that I began writing it to meet the needs of college women feeling dissatisfied with the college hookup scene, in particular the scarcity of relationships. Surprisingly, over time I have developed a regular following among guys as well.
I recognize that hooking up is not the norm at say, 35. In fact, JF’s experience at age 40 has little relevance for most of my readers. I am particularly sensitive to the needs of these young adults (18-26) because they are at an age that will color their view of sex and relationships for the rest of their lives.
It’s true that never before in history has there been a period of 15 years between menarche and marriage, on average. This has enormous implications. It means that nearly all young people will have sexual relationships before they marry. It stands to reason that the quality of those experiences will influence future relationships.
What I’m seeing, and hearing, and reading, is that the quality of those early relationships is sorely lacking in terms of what women need and want. This is very evident on every college campus, in the mainstream media, and in fact, increasingly addressed in the feminist media. Just a year ago Jessica Valenti claimed there was no such thing as hookup culture. Today Rachel Simmons states that hooking up is devastating young women.
The debate is happening. It’s on. It should be interesting.
Sasha, this comment from you has made the entire experience of this post worthwhile. Thank you. I have so much respect for your choices, your honesty, and your determination to overcome that devastating experience. I don’t see how any sex positive feminist could read this and not get it. Who knows, a few thousand people may read this comment. Several may be moved. One or two may change their lives. Your sharing this is a profound gift.
Thanks, Anon for the positive feedback. Glad you commented. Don’t be a lurker in future!
Esau, you’re a great addition to my blog – you challenge me frequently in ways that make me speak more carefully and reconsider my assumptions about sex and relationships. This support from you means a great deal. Thank you.
JF made a clear appeal for women to support sluthood. It’s an evangelical plea. She’s also clearly seeking validation from the reader for her choices. As I said, she’s clearly a hot mess.
BTW, you keep referring to other commenters. Have you read the comments of women who have spoken from the heart about their own devastating experiences in the slutty sisterhood? Most of them are new commenters to this blog, not recruited from the feminists trenches. No politics, just real emotion.
Doesn’t matter what’s morally right or fair… fact is, most guys consider high numbers to be a dealbreaker when looking for long term prospects.
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I can forgive a slut for her past, but there’s no way in hell I’m stupid enough to risk making any kind of commitment.
Come on, you know perfectly well that sex pos fem’s are heavily invested in other people celebrating casual sex. I’ve written posts about women, e.g. UC Berkeley sex columnist, who came under considerable scorn from women peers when she decided to abstain from sex for a while.
Love love love Levy’s FCPs. Highly recommend it.
I’m not worried about losing men to sluts. First of all, as I’ve already stated, I’ve been married for 26 years. No swinging, no cheating. 100% monogamy all the way.
Men don’t want relationships with sluts, but they are happy to hit it and quit it, one night at a time. Commitment used to be the price men paid for access to sex. Now the value of sex is close to zero. Stats on how surprisingly rarely either sex orgasms during hookups prove it (M:44%, F:19%).
For relevant stats on who’s having sex with how many people per year, I suggest you start with the CDC. That’s where I’ve gotten much of my data.
Anatomical peculiarities? I am reminded of the scene in Shallow Hal where Jason Alexander reveals his tail.
Chili, for the record I was not “something of a slut” when I met my husband. It is true I had casual sex with him – after crushing on him seriously for nine months. I had bonded emotionally to this man before I even kissed him. He was not initially interested in me, in part because my behavior (hooking up with a few guys at parties) indicated that I was not interested in a relationship. He pounced on me because he thought I was a sure bet for sex. It took months for him to reconcile his conflicted feelings about that. I was on an emotional roller coaster during that time. I don’t recommend it as a way to start out, though in my case I did get the happy ending. Who knows how it would have gone had I not been telegraphing my willingness to hook up?
Chili, I’m curious about something. As a virgin, how many men could you name on campus who would jump at the chance to go on a date with you, hold your hand and kiss you on the cheek at the end of the evening?
I wouldn’t go as far to say that casual sex means a girl isn’t quality, period…. she just isn’t a quality LTR prospect.
I must say, reading through the blog entry again, and especially a lot of the comments being made not just in general about the blog but also from person to person, it’s disheartening the attitude that a lot of people have taken. I know that even as I type this there will surely be some combative comments made, and I open myself up for people to throw a lot of things back at me. But I believe these things need to be said, even if a lot of people (as shown previously) will not be willing to really hear the views before they begin typing a response.
Susan, as you describe yourself earlier in the comments as more a student than a teacher/ educator of sexual and sexuality education, I hopefully can say without hurting your feelings that you’re not as well known in the field as many others. I will say that I am glad to see you’re beginning to open yourself up to the idea of sex outside of relationships, but I do feel as though you’ve got a long way to go if you wish to become a true educator. An educator, especially in an area so taboo and which often people are embarrassed to talk about openly, must be someone that the people can trust, especially young adults who often don’t have the support. As a young adult myself, I have noticed easily the way in which you often in comments have disregarded the statements and opinions of young adults posting to you. As you said in an earlier post earlier, a couple (though it was a few, not a couple) women came and offered opinions on casual sex. But seeing such comments were met with a fight, rather than really listened to (including might I add making a connection that one had never been in love – something you couldn’t possibly know without knowing her, and that obviously upset her to have such assumptions made about her) it’s difficult to say such young ladies, feminists, would make a connection to a friend in need that you are a reliable source that can be trusted and that will accept such people as they are.
Feminism, a way of empowering women to succeed – be themselves – and help others to come to accept them as they are and as equals is a very important thing. So many other countries still struggle with this type of equality today. And even as you point out sex-positive feminism as being a bad thing, there’s other countries where women aren’t able to say “no” to sex of any kind. Here, women come to understand about being in charge of their bodies and the decisions that they make about them. That wanting sex is perfectly okay, in whatever form they wish, are comfortable with, and find fits them. A woman *should* be in charge of her own body. And wanting sex should always be an ENTHUSIASTIC yes where anyone involved is actively involved and wants that and feels comfortable with it. A woman, such a Jocelyn, shouldn’t be attacked for her choices. Not ever experience everyone goes through in life is a positive one – but they shouldn’t have a character attack waged on them for that either. You say that you wrote this blog to help her? How? You say about other resources having information that’s hurtful, when you obviously know little of them. And instead of learning from the people that ARE well known in the field, and HAVE helped so many people, you spend the time you could be learning from the example they’ve set waging wars that need never be started.
Please understand I’m not saying any of this as an attack on you, and I honestly hope that you can recognize that. You said you don’t know a lot about some things here, that you’re a student yourself. So what I’m asking you now it to listen and be receptive to learning. Some of the women that you’ve been attacking over the past days are women that have learned how important it is to listen to people. Women that help SO many, by listening, through acceptance, and mostly through being able to separate themselves from some of the biases that are shining through so clearly from you. These women have a lot of knowledge, and a lot of compassion for those they work with. While a blog like this doesn’t only attack and hurt the person it’s about, but so many people that have been hurt before by others.
~S
Why does everyone assume that I’m recommending a return to the 1950s? This is not a choice between Jaclyn Friedman and Betty Draper. Women have been liberated! How about we smart, accomplished, feisty women hold out for love? How about we stop letting our bodies be used like a roll of Bounty? Why are we constantly selling ourselves short?
Women of the world unite! Put your knees together and don’t open them until you have whatever commitment you require! If it’s breakfast tomorrow, fine. If it’s lifelong matrimony, fine. How about every woman decides for herself, without any interference from sluthood evangelists?
BTW, I’m not telling women not to have casual sex. I’m telling women to understand the pros and cons of indulging in casual sex. You owe it to yourselves to make an informed choice.
“Susan, as you describe yourself earlier in the comments as more a student than a teacher/ educator of sexual and sexuality education, I hopefully can say without hurting your feelings that you’re not as well known in the field as many others.”
Well, Hitler was well known in the fields of governance and social policy. HA! I’ve put an end to this entire comment thread by virtue of Godwins Law.
P.S. Yours and others constant appeals to your worthless credentials are pathetic, frankly. Your academic discipline has no merit, given the way dissenting voices are treated.
I think it’s true that a lot of the regular male commenters appreciate women who have been very discriminating in their sexual behavior. I would imagine they are more conservative than average, because they themselves are not into casual sex. I think that’s a reflection of the good character of the guys here – very few manwhores find this blog.
I’ll agree with this. My own marriage is very egalitarian. We tussle over minor issues, but we’ve always approached our relationship, parenting, finances, etc. as a team of 2. Works for us.
You are correct that the children of divorce are far more oriented toward casual sex than children of intact families. Research has demonstrated this consistently.
What Esau said.
You really do see a clear pattern in the “argument” these types utilize, and I use the term argument loosely. It really is more of a blend of emotional invective/ad hominem/ and pleas that do not address the core logical issues presented.
There are a few other points I want to bring up that I have yet to see mentioned which I think are critical although doubtful we’ll get honest answers.
A good number of female commenters have mentioned they have successfully cycled back and forth between phases of “mind-blowing” casual sex and committed monogamous relationships. I do not doubt the veracity of these claims. But we need to dig deeper. I don’t know, but I would be confident postulating these women are behaving in exactly the way standard Game theory suggests.
In other words, I think it would be fascinating and instructive to assess the difference in SMV between the male partners they had their casual sex phases with versus the SMV’s of their boyfriends. Yes, I’m generalizing but I’d bet a decent amount of money that the SMV of their casual sex partners are probably on average 2-3 points higher then the SMV of their committed boyfriends. In other words, they fucked the alphas who would not commit and for whom these women likely would have no hope of getting committment, and then for relationships they are with betas who have no other options in the sexual marketplace. I won’t hold my breath waiting for any confirmation on this, because this would require a level of introspection I suspect few of these women have judging from their comments.
The other point is the issue of the double standard, and whether a previous promiscuous lifestyle/very high number count rightfully warrants caution for men who might commit.
Roissy had a post today that I think it relevant here:
http://roissy.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/the-depedestalization-shall-continue-until-morale-improves/
“AshleyMadison.com, the dating cheating website for married people, had the second-largest number of sign-ups on the day after Mother’s Day this year.
Momlogic has exclusively learned that 31,427 women signed up for AshleyMadison.com yesterday — which is over ten times the average number of women who typically sign up on any given Monday.
Now here is the operative question. What is the correlation between women who engage in a ton of casual sex/are highly promiscuous and those who eventually cheat either in a committed LTR/marriage? I don’t know, but the answer of ZERO correlation is preposterous. If you put a gun to my head, and forced me to bet, I’d bet a great sum that cheating/infidelity has a pretty tight correlation with either a somewhat low count versus a super high count.
This has been a fascinating thread to read. I am convinced there must be a reeducation camp somewhere, where these people have their brains and any remaining common sense removed, and replaced with a standard brain processing unit that operates on lexicon like cisgendered and heteronormative.
Susan, I think Grerp nailed it that you don’t want to waste too much time and mental energy engaging these types.
Stephanie, welcome, thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.
I began blogging precisely to provide a much needed voice of dissent to voices in the sex pos branch of feminism. These women plow ahead with a political agenda without any regard for collateral damage. HOOKUP CULTURE IS HURTING WOMEN. Geez, is that not a cause you can get behind?
I am not an educator. I have no wish to be an educator. Most sex ed curricula are horrendous, including lessons in fisting, BDSM, and many other practices in no way relevant to middle schoolers.
I am a facilitator. I encourage young women and men to step back and assess whether they are happy with their sexual practices. If so, good for you. If not, why not? What’s missing? How can you change that?
The women you hold up as paragons of good listening and counsel are without a doubt the most snide and sarcastic women I have ever encountered. It’s Mean Girls age 35+. Real conversation and debate is impossible. Their attitude toward any kind of dissent is to accuse the wayward woman of stupidity and ignorance, just as you have done here.
I said I am a student. I didn’t say I am without knowledge. I am very, very good at what I do. I hope that I will always be a student, learning from my readers and other bloggers. Indeed, I learned something from Jaclyn Friedman.
If only the women you admire were open to new knowledge. Heather Corinna tells a 16 year old girl who has sex with 5 guys in 3 months not to beat herself up by thinking she’s easy. She knows she’s easy! Society and guys tell her she’s easy! Ms. Corinna’s “expertise” and “acceptance” of that young woman’s demonstrations of self-abasement are criminal. Anything I can learn from such women only increases my disrespect.
And just to be clear, I think a guy with a super high count is more likely to cheat as well.
Yeah, orgasms are absolutely incredible. That is why, by the time I was 21, I was all burned out of oxytocin and can’t ever love a man. All of my receptors were destroyed in a teenage masturbating frenzy.
Oh, wait. That is totally and completely NOT what happened. There is nothing more insane than claiming that bonding is dependent upon something that (prior to my now 6 year long relationship) was mainly a solo activity.
Karyn: “It is impossible to make generalizations about an entire generation of young adults based on your experience or my experience or anyone else’s personal experience, because a)that isn’t a large enough sample and b)usually doesn’t account for the enormous diversity of the human population.”
Athlone: You saw differently? You saw a college aged population where actual relationships of some length were the norm, where dating wasn’t dead, where boozed up frat “bros” didn’t rule the college roost? Really?
Because literally EVERY SINGLE college aged individual I’ve met from the ivy League to frikkin oklahoma State has confirmed the notion that dating in college is no longer a norm and that casual sex is the new rule. I’ve read it here, seen it on the news, seen it in documentaries, seen it myself, and heard it confirmed by just about every peer I’ve met who is currently in college. I’d call that a big enough sample size. Never mind the actual studies, some of which Susan has linked to on this blog, that just further confirm what I’m saying. You ought to take the time to look through some of this blogs archives later on.
Yet here you are trying to tell me that none of that is real? Dating is the norm in college, kids don’t hook up most of the time, casual sex does not dominate the university scene and frat bros don’t rule the college social scene at least a majority of the time(in the US)? That is what you claim to have seen?
Sure you did.
I have a unicorn in Iceland to sell you if you’re interested.
Karyn: “As for your statement regarding gender as a social construction, in between all the partying I did in university, I did actually manage to get a couple of degrees – one in biology and one in anthropology. Biological sex doesn’t create or maintain gender roles any more than biological differences in skin colour create racism.’
Athlone: When children are conceived, it is the women who carry them and birth them. It is the women who are biologically equipped to nurse them to health for their formative years.
You’re telling me that this fact, combined with the obvious observation that men lack these capacities/functions, has absolutely NOTHING to do with the establishment of gender roles with which we are familiar with today? That it is nothing more than trivial association?
You also want to tell me that male physical strength and testosterone levels have nothing to do with the general forming of their role worldwide as “providers”(bringers home of bacon, so to speak), among other things?
This logic is just mind boggling. To compare the association between blatantly obvious and biological differences and gender roles such as those outlined above(an association tied very strongly to the most crucial biological and genetic sex variations in behavior/physical makeup endemic to the entirety of the human race) to skin color and racism(something which has far more minimal rooting in general human DNA and chemical composition, limited primarily to skin tone and smaller phenotypical factors) is to present an entirely disingenuous argument. The former goes far deeper than the latter(in fact, the former can even be said to encompass and supersede the latter, as biological sex and its relations to gender roles transcend skin color and racial boundaries-they can be seen in every race and ethnicity). That is in no way a strong analogy.
The argument is ludicrous.
Passer_By: Of course you would be the first to prove my point on the narrow-mindedness of some people, and their inability to truly read and hear a message before responding. I’d also like to note that nowhere in my post was there a *single* appeal of my credentials, and not knowing me from anyone else you can make no such comment about any of my credentials with any knowledge what-so-ever.
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On a side note – your use of Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies, if you truly understood them, means that the poster who mentions Hitler or the Nazis loses all debates and or discussions they had in that topic, and their insults are nullified.
And those 5 to 20% are probably all complete jerks who no self-respecting woman would want to date. I have never met a guy who cared about numbers who treated women decently at all and every single one of those guys had trouble finding/keeping a relationship. I have never personally met a woman who thought that “cares how many people I’ve slept with” was anything other than a red-flag for jerky behavior.
Oh man, awesome cultural volley. I read that Tina Fey taught her toddler the refrain from that Amy W. song. Adorable.
1) Susan does not date. Cause you know she’s married.
Being married does not automatically mean that you don’t date. I mean, you’re on the internet, this can’t possibly be news to you.
Stephanie as a young adult myself I find that Susan doesn’t shut down any of the young adults comments or questions about casual sex. In fact I have commented about myself participating in casual sex many times on this blog and have never been meet with a fight.
I believe when you say that feminism is a way of women to empower themselves to succeed – that’s correct. However empowering yourself to succeed in having lots of casual sex with lots of random men and women I don’t find empowering at all. Especially from Jocelyn’s point of view considering she seems to use it as a way of almost self-harm for most of her adult life – still seems to be!
I myself do not judge Jocelyn for her life choices towards being apart of the “sluthood” but what I do disagree with is advocating such behaviour to possibly others who are finding themselves stuck as to whether being “slutty” is morally right for them or not. As I said if I had read something close to this two years ago I would of continued self-harming myself with casual sex because someone normalized it for me. I don’t think it’s right that someone of her supposed position should be normalizing such behaviour that – I’m sorry – isn’t normal!
And Stephanie as you pointed out sex-positive feminism is a good thing, and there’s countries within “sex-positive feminism” where women aren’t able to say “no” to sex of any kind either. What you seem to think that those of us that grew up post the sexual revolution seem to have some different advantage to those poor women who still don’t get to say YES enthusiastically to casual sex?
Susan didn’t write this blog to help people like Jocelyn – or possibly yourself – because you seem to lead your life by what works for you – that is if casual sex empowers you and puts you in charge of your body. However I like to read this blog to help empower me and my body! You yourself are making a huge generalisation that Susan is attacking “sex-positive feminism” because being sex-positive doesn’t mean the same to you as it means to me. The term can mean something different to everyone and for me who has been to the “sluthood” and back this blog works for ME!
I don’t wage a war against any of you sex-positive feminists because I am sex-positive. I just don’t believe someone that is happy within themselves honestly can seriously enjoy the prospect of having casual sex with someone they picked up from Craigslist. That is not being empowered – it’s wanting to punish yourself. Shouldn’t being sex-positive be promoting safe, healthy and loving sexual encounters with someone who respects you?
Where does this misguided belief about oxytocin being a finite supply come from? Jaclyn claimed it, a couple of others have claimed it, and now you say the same. Is this some sort of deliberate misinformation being circulated in feminist circles?
Oxytocin is not like your eggs. You are not born with a finite supply. It is a hormone. Your body manufactures it rather readily.
Furthermore, you are the second sex pos woman to claim on this thread that there is no physical difference between an orgasm achieved via masturbation, e.g. solo or hookup, vs. with a partner you’re crazy in love with. That is tragic, and I’m not engaging in hyperbole here. If your partner is no better than time alone with your Rabbit, hmmm.
Athlone, I can’t be certain of the age of the sex pos feminists commenting here, but I’d wager it’s mostly 30+. Perhaps very +. These activists are so entrenched in their position, they’d rather not know what’s going on at just about every college in America. If I can figure it out at 53 without leaving home, surely they can open their eyes to it.
And those 5 to 20% are probably all complete jerks who no self-respecting woman would want to date. I have never met a guy who cared about numbers who treated women decently at all and every single one of those guys had trouble finding/keeping a relationship. I have never personally met a woman who thought that “cares how many people I’ve slept with” was anything other than a red-flag for jerky behavior.
Wow. You might want to reread my comment. Either you read it fast or lack reading comprehension skills. The 5 to 20% number is the PERCENTAGE who would NOT care about the number for LTR purposes.
Look, some of you women are just plain stupid. You really think any guy with decent Game looking to get laid is going to let any of this come through in initial interactions (rule #1 is show no signs of being judgemental at all even if you think the girl is the dirtiest slut walking the planet). We are alot smarter then you apparently believe. The guy can treat the women “decently” long enough to get the laid and then move on if he thinks she isn’t LTR material. I don’t want to give you a brain aneurysm, but I’d almost suggest you read Roissy to see the playbook of how the most devious and intelligent approach the objective of getting laid quick.
I’ve got a guy I work I with who I’ve told Susan about previously. I think he just crossed 200. He calls himself the “pied piper of sluts”. Do you really think any red flags went up for jerky behavior? Most likely not. Today, he was showing me naked pics on his phone of one of his latest conquests. She is moving soon so when I asked who he was hitting up tonight, he said he wasn’t going to “beat it up” with her the next few days and then move on. BTW, he has a married chick chasing him at the job.
Lisa, I think you’d be very surprised to know exactly what the vast majority of guys actually think and say about highly promiscuous women, and you are naive if you think when you meet them that all these red flags of jerky behavior are flashing like neon signs.
Lisa, Lisa, Lisa. This is not The Frisky. This is not Feministing. etc. etc.
I am quite open about my relationship on my blog. I do not date. I do not swing. I am not in a triad or a quad. It’s just me and hubby, so heteromormative it would make you puke.
My apologies if you feel that I’ve in any way accused you of stupidity and/or ignorance. That was never my intention. Aside from that fact that in many ways we are all ignorant, we all do have ways in which we are smart and helpful. It’s the same way in which *I’ve* felt reading some of your own replies to others in my age group. Dismissals and questions of where we stand without a want for understanding. Or comments on love being the one definite in sex, and whether or not someone you’ve not met nor read about I’m sure has ever felt such an emotion.
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I will not argue with you that sexual education in schools is horrendous. I remember being taught such things as two condoms being safer than one, and not learning much about Sexually Transmitted Diseases because the teacher was too embarrassed to go into details. It’s actually part of why I became such a strong advocate for sex-positive education. Because let’s face it, for schools that have a program it’s terrible, while others promote abstinence which leave students with too many questions and no answers. But I also know that without people willing to fight, that’ll never change. You can hate something you want all you can, but it won’t change what it is. But speaking out to schools does. Things like Special Education students needing to be included in Sexual Education classes (Because it’s known people with disabilities have a high rate for being abused, because often times they’re never taught what’s right and wrong touching.)
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Working with teens that have ED, I know how important it is to understand that age group. What you fail to consider is that teens, and statistically females in the teen years rank high on charts for depression, self-abuse, and suicide. Imagine telling a girl who’s identifying something she’s not comfortable with personally. Then push her to beat herself up for decisions she’s made in the past, ones she can’t change for they’re already made and done. What good does that do? Can you compare what good it would do to the type of hurt it would cause? When I was raped, I was at a party I wasn’t supposed to go to with people a good bit older than I was. I blamed myself for YEARS for that decision. But it doesn’t make being raped my fault. And it did me no good to hold that over my head and blame myself with. And it wouldn’t have helped her to do that either. You make changed by supporting a person forward, not throwing them backwards.
I concur. Why is it that the hardcore sex-poisitive feminists seem to condone and continue to endorse something that is clearly not beneficial?
I agree that most women who have and partake in casual sex form bonds – no matter how little – with their sexual partner. It’s hard not too.
Trying to repress the bond is really sad and hard to do as a women because we naturally want to I feel. Nearly all of my friends and I partook in casual sexual encounters throughout freshmen and sophomore year at University but the same consensus was meet – none of us felt satisfied emotionally or physically from these encounters – instead we were left feeling unwanted and somewhat used – perhaps that we weren’t worthy to have something committed.
I don’t think that it’s normal – sometimes I believe that when something else isn’t right we as humans try and show the “not-rightness” in another form a way of crying for help – for some it is drinking lots of alcohol, for others controlling their eating and for some it’s slutting it up!
Ahh…the standard feminist shaming tactics…easy to just call us jerks…so I guess we’re sub-human, in wanting to be with someone who shares our values and outlook? So you’re saying my wife is not a self-respecting woman? Isn’t that rather misogynistic, in dismissing women who don’t agree with you in such a rude manner?
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I’d recommend really reading the archives in Susan’s blog. I’ve often disagreed with her, sometimes to the level of a lively family dinner argument, but I’ve never questioned her motivation: she wants young women to THINK and make the choices that make them happy. She does something that the average feminist does not, which is to believe in women’s own agency, in their own ability to think and make choices. If you read her carefully, she probably agrees with you more than you think.
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But as that poor Feministe guest blogger found out, argue with the standard talking points, however justified and however nuanced the explanations, and the Red Queen will just give the order: “off with their head”. But I forget, some animals are more equal than others…
“Of course you would be the first to prove my point on the narrow-mindedness of some people . . .”
Of course. I’m just not very smart like you.
“I’d also like to note that nowhere in my post was there a *single* appeal of my credentials”
No, you questioned hers, thereby questioning her standing to have an opinion on matters that relate to common sense and real world experience. More or less the same thing.
Yes, I understood the Godwin’s Law reference. It’s called a self deprecating joke. You should try one sometime. Here’s a good one for you to start with:
Q: How many militant feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: THAT’S NOT FUNNY, ASSHOLE!!!
Ok, and oldie but still a goodie.
Hey, you want to hook up this weekend and have some sex positive relations?
You forgot “cisgendered”
I wasn’t insulting you when I compared you to JPG. You’ve mentioned from time to time that you enjoyed periods of casual sex in your youth, and that that did not stop you from having a decades-long monogamous relationship, which is similar to JPG’s story. It’s not an insult. On the contrary, I have respect for women who are introspective and really understand what they want and how to get it.
Let’s face it, most of the problems in the SMP come from a disconnect btwn what women feel and what they do. But instead of taking a good look to try to really see what’s going on, they blame others for it. That’s where I disagree with you. Blaming JF for the problems in the SMP is like blaming diabetes on that one time you had Burger King. She’s only a small part of what’s going on. Criticizing her doesn’t solve anything, only gives rise to hate. We women should be trying to help each other be more aware of ourselves, isn’t that what this blog is all about?
wrt your last point, I’m not sure if there was an insult in there, but I’ll take your question at face value. I go to a huge urban commuter school, so there aren’t any frat parties or anything like that. People go to school to go to class, not to socialize. It’s not a community, and I don’t exactly sing arias about my sexuality to every person I meet, so word doesn’t get around. The men I’ve dated I find outside of school, and generally my sexual history doesn’t come up. The one time it did, the guy acted creepily more interested and I never went out with him again–I’m not interested in fulfilling some fetish. My longest relationship was in high school, and it lasted a year. My virginity was never an issue; he respected my decisions. I don’t really see myself as being in any way disadvantaged or like I don’t receive attention from men. Generally, it’s women that seem most weirded out by my choices–not men. Some women automatically assume that I must be a judgmental prude who’s stuck in the middle ages…I can sense the tension in the air as soon as I say it. One minute I’m a normal person-net minute I’m a nun. Which is why I’ve learned to be private about this. Did that answer your question? I’m not really sure if that is what you wanted to know…
Narrow-mindedness does not indicate being unlearned, simply unwilling to hear all sides. I don’t now, nor have I yet thought you were not smart, though you seem readily willing to make assumptions about me.
And I do willingly apologize if I’ve indicated some attempt to question Susan on any credentials she has, because that was not my intent. I simply used the phrase she offered herself as a means to not insult her by trying a phrase she may not feel she fits.
Nice on the Betty Draper. Another of my favorites. Considering I’m noticing alot of feminist redundancy in not following the argument, I think I leave this discussion with a simple argument that women use against men. Let’s keep it equal.
Women don’t respect or value men who sleep with anyone and at the drop of a hat. The same thing applies to men. We don’t value women who sleep with anyone(craigslist is anyone, it’s the internet people, who really knows who?) and at the drop of the hat. So it seems the feminists argument supports JF’s want for her friends and other sisters in sluthood to support her and others slutiness, AKA demonstrations of lower value.
Hello my name is JF, I’m a slut-a-holic. Whoever engages in this activity should probably go to sexual health and relationship re-hab, but they said NO NO NO.
So, if I write a piece on how much I enjoy being a vegetarian, or living happily while suffering from depression, or how much I love that my cat taught herself to play fetch and asking people to be supportive of those things, then I would also be advocating for everyone who reads it to become a vegetarian, make themselves depressed, and steal my cat (or only adopt a similar cat which would require either hours spent at a shelter or bringing random cats home to test drive)?
Being supportive of thing X does not require you to actually do thing X, it just requires you not to write horrendously outdated and misogynistic posts in response about how terrible thing X is for most everybody. Too much to ask, clearly.
By the way, how long has it been since you were a student on a college campus because I have attended three and visited friends at numerous others and have NEVER seen the behavior you describe (except at the women’s college I briefly attended and then it involved either lesbian women or the mere PRESENCE of a man which is a whole different thing from what you seem to be talking about).
Glad to know you have spent time writing hundreds of things you personally find worthless. That seems like something someone with low self-esteem or few options would do. Maybe you should stop slutting it up with your reviews and find true wuv.
Chili, thanks for this response, it helped me understand your point of view. I fully agree that one person is just a speck in the whole sexual marketplace. And yet, this piece made me sit up straight and say “Holy Hell!” and OMG if that was my daughter I would be frantic. I can’t even describe my reaction to reading that her most fulfilling sexual relationship in years was with a hookup via Craigslist Casual Encounters. I’m sorry, that’s a tough one to get past. And though Jaclyn Friedman has rejected my “faux concern” the truth is that I feel she is a tragic and desperate figure. In my experience, those people wreak the most destruction. Her message is dangerous. However, you are obviously free to disagree. This is not personal to me. It’s a debate in the marketplace of ideas. We’re each making an argument, and you get to choose how to live your life without reporting back to either of us!
Now, my background is both mathematics and literature, so I don’t know which one has allowed me to know that the post you are responding to makes sense and you obviously have few critical thinking skills. By the way, what do you mean by the cultural Marxist view on higher education? I am reasonably sure that it doesn’t mean what you think it does.
I think you should leave the “true wuv” references to Amanda. She does it with a level of cynicism that your average lackey approach can’t really replicate…
What peril? If I believed that sort of thing, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with the wonderful man that I have been with for over 6 years. I wouldn’t have been able to believe he existed.
And he would have thought that I was a used up, contaminated slut.
So unless I am biologically male (with functioning female reproductive organs) and he is biologically female (with functioning male reproductive organs), it doesn’t seem like your simplistic idea of biological determinism carries much weight.
Since all of the couples I know are more like my partner and I than like your “model,” either I have randomly found a large group of biological freaks, or your “nature” is WRONG.
A better analogy would be your writing a post on the joys of pedophilia. Or the blissful endorphin rush you experience when cutting yourself. Or your arguing to young people that one can live a long and healthy life on heroin. The point is that JF is modeling incredibly dangerous and destructive behavior for young women.
OK, balls to the wall here – How do you feel about trolling for sex on Craigslist? Fun? Safe?
As you must know by now, I was last on a college campus in 1983. That was a crazy hookup scene! However, it pales in comparison to colleges today. You never observed hookup culture?
Of course, if you buried yourself in Women’s Studies, you most likely saw little heterosexual interaction at all. Plus you were being indoctrinated. Not sure if that might explain it.
Sasha, if you feel as though you’ve not been shut down by responding here, I’m glad. I have seen in this blog alone a few examples (myself included) where comments were made in that such manner. I also have friends that have read through the blogs, and the comments that feel the same sort of lock out between sides.
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Jocelyn wrote the article in asking support, and those unwilling to provide support to her, or feeling it’s not something that fits them for whatever reason need not attack her (which reach is what this blog and so many comments has done.) People have cast her with distain. Generalizations have been made based in little hard evidence, and not in such reliable sources.
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Based on the comments that have been made, many quotes by Susan herself on sex positive feminism *are* an attack on such things. I will never say that all people agree on anything, or that even all people in a particular known group will always agree on everything, but when exact words are used, it is what it is. If you look throughout answers and replies made here, you’ll find quite often the way in which sex pos fem, as well as those people finding they fit in that category had been used.
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I do believe women should be empowered to have the right to choose what lifestyle fits them best. While maybe you haven’t judged her personally, she has been judged quite openly here, from the beginning. And for choices she made that she felt fit her at the time. I understand that’s something that can happen when an opinion on a subject is offered, but it doesn’t make it right.
THAT’S NOT FUNNY!!!
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Oh, it wasn’t the light-bulb joke…
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Is aversion to political correctness why you use the term heterosexual instead of straight? I mean that straight has the same reason for being as cisgendered does. (Heterosexual and homosexual on the other hand originating in a more scientific text which purported to “cure” homosexuality through hypnosis.)
Then, I wonder why you would use the term monogamous (which was coined hundreds of years after polygamous). So, that “political correctness” was walking around all orderly-like and is acceptable? Where is the line? Is there a political correctness jogging along somewhere that you are comfortable with, but that seems to be approaching your arbitrary “we don’t need new words” line?
I think you’d be surprised, Susan. A lot of the most promiscuous men have total virgin fetishes. It’s very creepy. They only see themselves settling down with a virgin because they are jaded and think all other women are bimbos and hos. They are also most likely to cheat on their “innocent” wives of course. Trust me, I’ve seen this. These are basically just women-haters.
Ideally, I want to be with someone who does not care about my sexual history either way. When it comes to me, I don’t care about a guy’s number. It’s his attitude about it that is important. If I sense that he is insecure or overly cocky about it, it’s a huge turnoff. The key is to be comfortable with yourself.
Well, you obviously engage in assortative socializing. No surprise there, and it doesn’t prove anything. Whether you’re freaky is not for me to say.
You’ve missed the whole point. It’s about strategy. You found a partner. Good for you! Have you noticed the glut of new entries in the spinster lit genre this past year? There’s a whole bunch of women writing their mea culpas for two decades spent having meaningless sex with dead end men. However, this argument in unnecessary. There really is a huge body of research on the topic of mating preferences by gender. It may not be relevant to you personally, but single women are better off being informed, rather than deluded by wishful thinking. Finding a man who doesn’t care about a woman’s sexual experience is possible, of course. It just shrinks the dating pool dramatically.
So, oxytocin and love/bonding would mean that my mother loves me more than my little sister because I was breastfed first and her receptors wouldn’t have worked as well? I know you don’t know me, but that is definitely not the case.
Does this also mean that a woman who doesn’t breastfeed a child can’t bond with that child as well as if she had breastfed?
I assume, then, that since it is all soundly based in evolutionary psychology that you discourage women from adopting just as you dissuade women from engaging in casual sex?
It’s for their own good, y’know.
I think a better analogy would be something else. If you go to JF’s article, and replace any reference to slutiness/sluthood with “alcoholism”, and any reference to casual sex/hookups with “binge drinking”, you get a rather disturbing picture.
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JF is a grown woman, she is making and has made her choices. I see no reason why any other human being has to agree with them, particularly when she herself presents a case of the pains it has caused her. No one has an obligation to support something that is against one’s own best judgment…
Standing back, watching the carnage, the hair-pulling, the sweating & grunting from all the feministas, I chuckle. Truly I do. All sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I’d truly be entertained to watch the hamsters run overtime in Msrs. Corina’s and Marcotte’s pretty little heads after spending some time over at any one of a handful of blogs in the Manosphere, especially CR, In mala fide, Vincent Ignatius, Seasons of Tumult and Discord, etc.
I’d love to see them publish something halfway intelligent on the topic of game, because I don’t think they can do that & be congruent with all the hate they’re spewing.
Really, I’d love to see them try to backpedal on all this vitriol when all you’re saying is that hookup culture hurts women.
This comment thread is the most intolerant and vituperative of over 300 posts. It’s also the first time sex pos feminists have found their way here in great numbers. However, the comments here don’t even come close to the hatred and venom spewed at Pandagon. I suppose I should be thankful.
Wow. You’ve totally lost me here. The PC agenda rears its ugly head. Didn’t know that heterosexual was an un-PC term. Don’t care. As for monogamous? Didn’t know there was an alternative, more PC acceptable term. How about this instead:
Repressed, Sarah Palin loving, unimaginative, conventional, boring person who hasn’t known the joys of juggling a polyamorous family calendar
Better?
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