Lynn Gazis-Sax of Noli Irritare Leones, reflecting on Hugo Schwyzer’s recent post endorsing the idea that orientation might be somewhat plastic after all raises a really important distinction.

Mutable and malleable aren’t the same thing. One of the reasons that the APA removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses was that reparative therapy, despite repeated efforts, really did have a super lousy track record (the other reason was, of course, that psychiatrists became less willing to believe that homosexuality was particularly broken). It still does. But people do sometimes shift along the Kinsey scale. Not generally from one end to the complete opposite, but still enough to be significant. Sexual orientation is sometimes mutable, but does not appear to be as malleable as it is mutable; no one has found a way of consciously changing it that works with any regularity at all. And those people who do experience shifts appear to experience them in unpredictable ways, that you can’t bottle up and use to get the same result in someone else.

She said it here.

That’s the distinction I was missing in, this post about the absurdity of people worrying about “protecting” heterosexuality, for instance, when trying to explain my conviction that orientation is innate.

Since I think orientation is a lot more complex than we’re led to believe I’m perfectly comfortable with it’s being mutable — that who we’re attracted to can shift over time. I’m not comfortable, however, with the idea that orientation is malleable — that one can externally influence another to change what they desire unless they’re ready at that point in their life to be disposed to that influence in the first place.

Speaking of book-learning vs. experience, via Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, who quotes Dan Savage, who quotes David Klinghoffer who in turn cites the ancient Roman Catullus on exactly how homosexuality is supposed to ruin heterosexual marriage.

The social history behind this piece is clear: once they’ve experienced sex with other men, Catullus tells us, men are unsatisfied with what their new wives provide them. Notice that the poet is unconcerned about the husband’s dallying with other women—it’s the other men around that threaten the marital union.

He said it here.

Is Klinghoffer mental? Yes, sex with one’s wife really would be unsatisfactory after homosexual sex if you’re homosexual! Otherwise? Not so much.

Seriously! The other year Jon Stewart asked Mike Huckabee when he decided he was heterosexual. Huckabee waived it off and, very unfortunately I think, Stewart didn’t pursue it further. Which is really, really unfortunate.

One of the problems with assuming heterosexuality is a baseline, an absolute, an anchor point against which all other is measured (and found wanting) is that it’s never itself examined. And so for Huckabee (and perhaps, come to think of it, for Stewart since he didn’t press the question) actually inquiring into whether heterosexuality might be a choice doesn’t make any sense at all.

Which is a shame because, duh, heterosexuality is no more a choice than homosexuality is. And so it would never occur to Catullus, or Huckabee or, evidently, Klinghoffer to reflect on the equal reality that if you’re already straight it’s equally true that “once they’ve experienced sex with women, figleaf tells us, men are just as unsatisfied with what other men provide them.”

That’s why it’s such a good idea to let people get married to the gender they actually want to get married to! If you think about it. Which evidently some people never get around to doing.

Sheesh!

Photo “Little Spectator” by Flickr user Proggie. Used under a Creative Commons license.

[Note: Big update below — I originally, and possibly shamefully, looked at only one side of the question. —fl]

Matisse of Mistress Matisse’s Journal answers a question from a reader. Her answer’s spot on.

“...my best friend is actually a very beautiful lesbian with whom I have a lot of chemistry, but who obviously would never have sex with me. She is a very materialistic girl, and I’ve found that nothing makes me happier than to make her happy and to talk to her. I actually don’t even like pursuing straight girls anymore because I’m intrigued by how she makes me feel. And of course, the fact that she’s unavailable makes her more tantalizing, but that’s one of the things I want to understand.”

if you’re just asking for my opinion in general, I’d say that just based on the situation you’re describing… you’re an emotional masochist. And that’s not a good thing.

That’s not a real psychological term, of course, and it’s not a BDSM term, either. But you’re engaging in an unrequited love/lust thing with a bitchy-but-beautiful lesbian who doesn’t return your feelings. You imply that you’re giving her money or gifts or something? And you’re not even trying to find a woman who might love you back? I call that emotional masochism, my friend. I will bet you any amount of money that the situation you’re describing is not going to end in you being happy and getting what you want.

She said it here.

Given my fondness for my theory that men indoctrinate ourselves to perceive women as the“no-sex” class, the dominant paradigm wherein women are perceived as disinterested in sex… and therefore fair game for any and all attempts to leverage it out of them, either in exchange for something else or, sometimes, by brute force. I ought to nominate Matisse’s correspondent as a classic case since he’s constructed an attraction wherein pretty much anything he does isn’t going to work. Or, if for some reason she every says yes, that he can consider the ultimate “score” of his efforts to be “worthy” enough for her. And if he had a really bad case of it then it would also make sense that a woman who was interested in him (for instance, um, isn’t a lesbian for crying out loud?) might seem too “easy” and therefore not “worthy” of his attention.

The real clue for me? He says “I actually don’t even like pursuing straight girls anymore because I’m intrigued by how she makes me feel.” Because, you know, if it was personal — just her — then you’d expect him to say something like “I don’t feel like pursuing any other girls because of how she makes me feel.” Instead the schematic qualification of “straight girls” i.e. “women actually likely to be interested in him.”

But I dunno… if I knew more than what she wrote I might be more sure. It’s also the case that a lot of people — men and women — get “imprinted“ duckling-style on one particular characteristic of their first major crush or first serious partner and then keep cycling deeper and deeper trying to recapture that feeling. Or possibly he, like more men than I think people recognize, finds obsession with an unachievable potential partner is a convenient way to avoid sexual relationships altogether. Who knows?

I do have to say Matisse is right, though, that since his dynamic with this woman really isn’t satisfiable, and since if he pursues it or something like it really does subject himself not so much to domination but abuse, he really should consider a little talk therapy to clarify for himself what’s going on.

Update: Doh! I need to get out of the house a little more often I guess. After getting the children off to school this morning I took a long walk home. Thinking about the situation I outlined last night I realized I’d been thinking way too much in terms of the letter writer and how his affectation… well… affects him. Upon reflection it occurs to me that what he really needs to get off his affection/obsession is the effect it has on the women or women he’s decided to impossibly dream about.

My only excuse is one I mentioned last night: I only know what he wrote... in other words we only know his side of the story. And inside his framing then yeah, he’s parked himself in.

We don’t know her side, however. He sees her as his best friend. Is this how she sees him? He sees her as “materialist” and any acts he performs or gifts he brings as making himself happy by making her happy. Does she see herself as materialist? Is she happy when he thinks she’s happy? He talks about wanting to be the controlled submissive in a full-time D/s withholding relationship with her. Does she see him as wanting to be controlled or as already controlling?

Again, I dunno. Since we only have his side of his story we can’t know, eh?

In the extreme case she may see him as a stalker, in which case, considering how miserable unsuccessful things like restraining orders are (“wow, now she’s really playing hard to get”) talk therapy would really, really be good idea! (And if not talk therapy then more drastic interventions would be entirely called for — my experience of the aftermaths of “successful” stalkers and their survivors is that it’s the epitome of senseless tragedy.)

But a deeper lesson might be learned if he isn’t a stalker and is instead just really sunk in the worthiness trap. Because what the ordinary supplicant sees only as striving for worthiness often appears to others as entitlement. And the suitor’s expressions of frustration? More entitlement? And why not — after all who’s usually setting the terms? “If I only do this she’ll realize…” or “Maybe if I help her move…” or even “if she only knew how I felt about her she’d…” are all setting the terms, and reward that one believes “should” slay the dragon of indifference and “earn” the longed-for kiss.

Getting back to the “no-sex” class paradigm one can see how actual women’s agency or genuine desire beyond “yes or no” would only interfere with or even frustrate the internal cycles of the male worthiness trap.

One hopes talk therapy helps with that too.