Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

Photo by Flickr user Providence Public Library. Used under a Creative Commons license.

No.  Seriously!  If it's right and proper for men to work only 8 hours a day how can it possibly be decadent for women to prefer to work fewer than 16 hours a days serving those men?

Matthew Yglesias rightly flosses Ross Douthat's rear end with barbed wire over his claim that women choose work over marriage and babies because they're decadent:

You show up, you do your work, you get your money, and then you get your time off in which you can do what you want. In a man's voice, the basic vision here would really be exceptional bourgeois. It's not a decadent slacker fantasy, it's a basic work hard and play hard quest for individual autonomy. And it's obviously true that having children—especially a large number of children—would tend to compromise that quest, especially without a male partner willing to fully bear his share of the load. But since you don't need to find a partner as a teenager for economic support, it's easy to spend a bunch of adult years deliberately avoiding settling down (see Hannah Rosin's "Boys on the Side") and then have kids later in life but not so many kids as to be unmanageable.

Source: Slate Magazine

 That's exactly right.  You can argue, as Douthat and other gender conservatives do, that it's the natural order of things for women to become dependent on custodial males while still teenagers.  And by implication you can argue, as Douthat and other gender conservatives do, that it's the natural order of things for men to retain dependent women to watch their children while the men work and then service the men when they return home.  And by implication you can argue, as Douthat and other gender conservatives do, that it's the natural order of things for men to work only 9-5 while beginning in their teenage years women should begin laboring for her husband when she wakes and cease laboring only when she goes to sleep.

You can argue those things if you like.  And Douthat and other gender conservatives seem to really, really like to argue those things.

But you can't then turn around and say it's decadent for women to want to enjoy same work/leisure balances men already enjoy!

Don't get me wrong.  As a very prudish libertine I'm actually nearly as wary of decadence as they come.  But to say it's decadent for women to want the same work/leisure ratios men want, as Douthat and other gender conservatives do, is to imply men who already enjoy such work and leisure are also and already decadent.  Not just decadent in some equalitarian future, which, sorry, isn't terribly well-distributed yet.  But decadent now.  And decadent in the past.

Sorry Ross.  But if you want to play that game then you're going to have to explain how it makes women but not men weak to work only the eight hours men work now.  You're going to have to explain how it makes men but not women weak to have to spend after-work hours washing socks, cooking food, tending to children, and making sure their partners are sexually satisfied.

I'll ask that question again: If it's right and proper for men to work only 8 hours a day how can it possibly be decadent for women to prefer to work fewer than 16 hours a days serving those men?

Photo by Flickr user misocrazy. Used under a Creative Commons license.

According to Polyamory from the Inside Out in polyamory circles "A unicorn is a mythical beast with a horn. It also refers to a pretty and otherwise dateable bi female who is willing to date a couple."  Amanda Marcotte suggests, correctly, that the women conservatives claim are rejecting great guys they're in love with in favor of government assisted single motherhood are equally mythical.

Okay, so this is the theory: Single mothers have plenty of loving men they also adore who are begging for their hands in marriage, but single mothers are choosing “government dependency” (on what, I have no idea, since actual government aid is not enough to live on, if you can get any of it at all) because of their devotion to a mysterious feminist ideology that I have not actually heard any feminists propose. Got it.

Please produce these single mothers. That is all. I want to meet them. They sound like interesting people! I want to ask them about the awesome would-be husbands they rejected. I want to know what mysterious government offices they know about where they can get enough benefits to replace the salary of the great guys they rejected. (Does the government ask you to produce a pay stub from Romeo and agree to match it?) I want to hear about the feminist theorists they read that encouraged them to reject these loving relationships, and I want to know why they found these theorists so much more convincing than other feminists like myself that think that relationships that work for you are awesome. Since these women are, according to conservatives, the reason for the high rates of single motherhood in our country, they should be easy to find.

Source: Pandagon

I'd be curious to meet one of these women too. In the last maybe 50 years I've personally known single mothers -- from embittered 1950s "divorcees" collecting full alimony to desperately poor ones agonizing over whether to spend their last dollars on food or earache medicine -- I've never met one who said "Oh, my ex is such a great guy but, you know, federal assistance is just such a great deal I didn't bother to stay with him.

To be honest I think the clue to conservative outrage lies not so much in the dog-whistle racist "welfare queen" form of "government assistance" but instead in less obvious to normal people but still bitterly resented interventions like the 19th Amendment, Griswold v. Connecticut, EEOC, the Lilly Ledbetter Act and other actions governments have taken over the last century that have made it harder to keep women barefoot, pregnant, and otherwise dependent on male custodians.

Photo by Flickr user nino63004. Used under a Creative Commons license.

This story is a nice fuck you to all the trolls and (often!) hypocritical virginity fetishist stories about fuzzy lollypops, chewed gum, wilted roses, and tape with sweater lint.  Check it out

A well-known speaker started off his seminar holding up a $20.00 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?" Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this." He proceeded to crumple up the $20 dollar bill. He then asked, "Who still wants it...?" Still the hands were up in the air.

"Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. "Now, who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.

"My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20.

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We may feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those who DO LOVE you.

The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by WHO WE ARE. You are special-Don't EVER forget it." If you do not pass this on, you may never know the lives it touches, the hurting hearts it speaks to, or the hope that it may bring. Count your blessings, not your problems.

I'm not sure of the original source.  I found it reposted on my personal Facebook page.  It's almost certain the original author didn't have virginity per se in mind, but what I really appreciate about the parable is that it generalizes the fallacy of seeing people as things.

Update:  Just wanted to promote a comment, below, by Jose.

If you notice, all the analogies used to keep people virgin are objects, things. The idea is you're supposed to be someone's private property. Sure, I don't want used objects, new objects are cooler. But people aren't objects. Different rules apply to people, therefore no analogy concerning objects is possible.

Excellent point: while the $20 bill metaphor correctly resets the gum/sucker/tape/rosebud metaphors it's till a metaphor about things, not people.  His second paragraph is also excellent but you should read the comments to find it.  This blog has great commenters.

Photo by Flickr user "The Official CTBTO Photostream." Used under a Creative Commons license.

Yes, conservative jerk, twice-divorced, serial-deficit-increaser, twice-fathered-children-out-of-wedlock, and former President, Ronald Reagan made a major contribution to sex education and, for that matter, sex: kids (and grownups!) can have much healthier, more natural sex lives: "Trust but verify."

Sure, he was talking about something else. But nevertheless it's still relevant to sex education.

Here's the scoop.

I grew up thinking you're centered and well-adjusted about sex.  And to an extent of course I was.

But in retrospect?  Wow, did I grow up around some really, really terrible influences!  Lately the realization has made me question so much of what I "know" is true.  It's not that everything I know isn't true, but as I reflect on the sometimes deeply suspect influences I was exposed to growing up I find myself really, really, really wishing I'd had some kind of access to second opinions.  And third.  And most importantly varied!  Because, seriously, in my community you could find plenty of agenda-driven Bible thumping opinions, and equally agenda-driven anything-goes-baby "swingers."  But inbetween?  Next to nothing.  And really?  It all works out a lot better if your framework for sexuality to come waaay from somewhere in between and waaaaaaaay less from trying to reconcile screaming extremes.

Ugg.  Too bad for me (and a shocking percentage of the rest of the population that was born in the 20th Century.)

Anyway.

Watching my children grow up I'm... pretty sure they're not subject to the same shame/blame/denial/jpressure/ust-plain-wrong-information I was.  Largely, I think, because it's possible to get corroboration from more than one authoratative source.  Most of which, in turn are "open source" in the sense that they're public information and therefore subject to public acknowledgement, criticism, clarification, and dissent.

• FLASH comprehensive sexuality education curriculum? Check.
• Scarleteen? Check.
• Birds+Bees+Kids? Check.
• RAINN? (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) Check.
• Where Did I Come From?: A Guide for Children and Parents and "What's Happening to Me?" A Guide to Puberty ? Check.
• The American Girl Library, of which I really wish there was either more crossover or else a separate Library for boys.
• S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College? Check.
• Heck, even Wikipedia, which might not always be accurate but which is nevertheless subject to frequent, dedicated, and often spirited fact-checking!

There are obviously more, and yes, obviously not all resources now available are 100% accurate, timely, wise, or helpful...

But the most important item, almost even more important than the actual list above would be

• Peers who are coming of age with at least some exposure to credible sources like those above, and
• Adults who have also been exposed to credible sources like those above.

I can't say how incredibly important this is.  Because with credible feedback from reliable sources, or even the possibility of such feedback, it's waaaaay more difficult for even "well meaning" adults and peers to pump the next generation's heads with really, really bad information.

Here's the problem.  Sex to an uninformed pre- or emerging adolescent is already in-credible, as in "unknown and often difficult to believe."  And for that reason it's hard to separate the in-credible things peers and grownups say that are generally true and equally (to them) in-credible sounding things that are just incredibly, and sometimes destructively false.  Even when they have the very best of intentions.

Actually, maybe especially when they have the best of intentions!

Anyway,

Another example: Amanda Marcotte weighing in on Suzanne Venker's male-patronizing, anti-feminist screed.

Look, it’s absolutely true that there’s no evidence to show that men as a class hate independent women. Feminists believe in men and men’s potential, and do not accept as a given that men are monsters who will never treat women right. Just yesterday, I was battling with MRAs whose arguments rested on the assumption that all men are paranoid misogynists, a premise I thoroughly reject from both statistical and personal experience. I, like all the feminists above, also reject Venker’s argument that all men are babies who need women to recede from public life and act like unpaid servants in order to feel good about themselves. Seriously, no one hates men more than anti-feminists.

Source: Pandagon

Yup.

I believe I've said repeatedly that no "man hating feminist" has ever hated men as bitterly as your average run-of-the-mill antifeminist. Echidne takes note of the latest entry in the parade by the degree-holding media professional Suzanne Venker.

Venkers thesis boils down to feminism pisses men off because modern women's access to education and decent pay deprives men of the ability to pay sub-market wages for sex, housework, and sometimes childcare.

Because, right, somehow when there's equal social, legal, and especially financial status men are unable to compete with women. Or even interact with them. What's up with that?

And that's why now all men never want to marry any women. Which men always did before feminism. So feminism hurts women more than it hurts men.

Echidne pithily asks misandry much?

Men only want sex, so why bother buying the cow when milk is freely available.  Men only get married if they are hooked into it because of sex or if they get free housekeeping services and sex just by paying bed-and-board.  Men can't cope with women who have any skills or talents which are not purely complementary with those men are deemed to possess.  Men can't survive competition from women at work.  Men need a submissive partner.  And so on.

If I were a man I'd be insulted by all that.  But I'm quite adequately insulted by being told that if I only succumbed to my innate femininity (I do own makeup!) there would be a line of suitors at my door.  There's a line, in any case.

Source: Echidne of the Snakes

I love this line of (mainstream!) feminist argument against the antifeminist rear guard. It's the best evidence, by the way, that feminism is winning. And why, incidentally, it was probably always going to. It's not just that most men don't actually have that much trouble with non-dependent partners. It's not just that stories about "man hating feminists" persist mostly a) in the fevered imaginations of trolls like Rush Limbaugh and those who let him think for him, b) in the hormone-fevered, not-yet-gelled identity-formation stew of late-stage adolescence young women and men on college campuses. It's not even that, contrary to the no-sex-class paradigm-indoctrinated understanding of nearly all anti-feminists and small numbers of late-20th-Century-holdout "radfems," most feminists are heterosexual. Instead feminism was probably always going to win because unlike credentialled, professional, well-compensated career anti-feminists like Suzanne fucking Venker and her Aunt Phyillis Fucking Schlaffley, feminists don't actually hate men. Oh, and because once they stop charging at the patriarchal matador's red cape of "feminazis" men notice that maybe 98% of the outcomes feminism seeks are actually pretty decent outcomes for men too.

I mean, c'mon! Venker and her ilk keep insisting men not only want but out and out require that women be some combination of prostitute, domestic livestock, and parole officer! As opposed to a sex partner, a domestic partner, and life partner!

Did I already say what's up with that? I think I did!

From time to time I'm asked to answer a question for Em & Lo's "Wise Guys" feature as one of their "straight married guys." The other day the question was "What do you wish you had known about sex when you were younger?"

Here's what I said:

Wow. There are probably hundreds of things I wish I’d known about sex when I was younger but the number one-with-a-bullet thing I wish I’d known when I was younger is that, contrary to the Santa Clause maxim, it’s actually as good to receive as it is to give. Really. No kidding! I grew up in the “she comes first” era which, while certainly an improvement of the earlier “she comes?” era, still had a big element of putting women on pedestals and treating them like dainty, passive, recipients rather than participants in sex. I remember being really, literally shocked* out of the mood when one partner pushed my knees apart, popped me into her mouth, then popped back up a moment later with this huge grin and said, “Oh, I just love doing this.”

At the time it simply hadn’t occurred to me that she might enjoy making me moan as much as I enjoyed doing the same for her.

Anyway, that’s the lesson: if you’re used to only giving, or only receiving, you’re missing half the fun.

Source: Em & Lo

There are so many other things I wish I'd known about sex back then. And relationships. And... ok, a bunch of other stuff too but especially sex and relationships. Because in retrospect there's so much to flinch, cringe, and outright make apologize for.  My old blog tagline remains depressingly true: "learning from mistakes so you won't have to."  Sigh.

* I know, I know, use of "literal" in the context of "shocked." Yeah, yeah. I was literally shocked in the sense of "experiencing an acute stress reaction," not "muscular convulsions induced by electrical conduction." And not literal shock as in "life-threatening medical condition that occurs due to inadequate substrate for aerobic cellular respiration" either. But I digress...

I mentioned last week that I was a late participant in No-Shave November, an on again off again prostate-cancer awareness and fundraiser drive. I also mentioned I'd post a follow-up photo.

It's at the $@%!% itchy stage right now so I'm counting the days till Dec. 1. But who knows, by then it might have quieted down enough for me to consider keeping it.

Meanwhile though...

Photo from week #1 here

According to Twitter the comment of the day at TheGoodMenProject was

Keith asks, “Is the casual sex marketplace heavily biased against men?” —#CommentoftheDay
[link to goodmenproject.com]

Well, there is bias but it's bias in the samples, not so much bias in the results.

Consider that the bias isn't against men, it's against whoever does the asking. By definition the odds of me getting a "yes" every time I ask is going to be lower than 100% even if I'm Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. For instance some non-zero percentage of potential asks are involved with someone else, recovering from another relationship, you're not his or her type in general, or there's something specific about you that doesn't work for them this time. Heck, they could even have just had an amazing couple of rounds with themselves and just plain not be horny at the moment you're asking no matter how hot they might find you some other time, right?

Consider even further the simple lag time in the ask/answer dynamic: I've obviously made up my mind before I ask -- any dithering, option weighing, courage summoning, and just general all-round emotional investment is water under the bridge. The person I ask, on the other hand, now has to go through everything I've been through (including the considerable emotional investment of answering) with the additional pressure of time: you're sitting in front of them with (almost literally) nothing to do but wait for the answer. Yikes! Not fun for shy people no matter how they want to answer! But I digress...

Point being, if even under the most ideal circumstances (i.e. you're Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie) you're likely to get a "no" chances are high that almost everybody's going to frequently be told "no" when he or she does the asking. So. Biased against men? I'm going to change my initial answer from a no to a qualified yes: to the extent that men do the asking then yes, the casual sex marketplace is biased against them. But only to the extent they ask.

But remember, asking bias is only one kind of bias. There's another kind that totally blew me away when it finally sank into my thick skull: there's extraordinary but invisible bias against those who are never asked.

The person who brought it home for me? A woman who's screen name was "scarred." She thought the whole idea that "women have the power" was the bitterest lie on the planet. Because the "power" to say yes or no exists only when one's opinion is asked. The power to respond to an initiative depends entirely on whether or not someone takes the initiative.

And to the extent it's women who are asked rather than doing the asking, the "casual sex market" might seem to be overwhelmingly biased against them. Although, really, it's only biased against anyone, man or woman, who might (never) be asked. No matter how much they long for a chance to say "yes."

I'd just add, by the way, that it's not just "homely" people who are never asked (if we could even meaningfully say what "homely" means, given the incredible range of qualities people are attracted to.) For some women the words "she's out of my league" are a blow to the gut, and the words "she probably has a boyfriend who could break me in half" are salt in the wounds. But again, the "bias" comes in the form of men who decide for themselves the answer will be "no," and never ask. Again, creating the hidden bias against those who wait to be asked.

Last "bias." The person who says "no" because they're waiting for that one person who, for whatever of a million reasons, never asks them.

It's super easy to see only one side, but if you do then you might be missing the bigger picture.

Update: Of course I only glancingly mention another pervasive bias in the post above: for what are mostly purely historical reasons among heterosexuals it really is men who are more likely to ask and women who are more likely to be asked. But as it happens I have just enough first, second, and third-hand experience to have noticed the same dynamics apply when the roles are reversed.  Enough to, err, well, confirm my observation that sex and relationship markets are more biased against askers and the never asked regardless of sex or gender.

Following up on a comment by Irene on yesterday's post, Dang It All! Halfway Through No-November. There's Still Time to Not Shave for Cancer Awareness, here's roughly (heh) what I looked like in a business-association meeting this afternoon.

Photo by figleaf (hey, that's me!) Published under a Creative Commons license.

Wow, I don't think I've posted a photo for maybe a year? Feels weird. Remind me in a week, though, and I'll show you the progress.