For some reason I woke up this morning thinking about the final sentence in the standard English-language wedding ceremony

“...you may now kiss the bride”

It’s is probably the shortest, purest distillation of the two rules of the No-Sex Class paradigm.

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The two rules, you may recall, are

#1: It is simultaneously inconceivable and intolerable for a woman to have sexual desire. #2: It is simultaneously inconceivable and intolerable for a man to be sexually desired.

Saying it any other way than “You may now kiss the bride” would violate the rules #1 and #2 in a number of obvious ways. It also commits the double slight of a) sexualizing the woman (who only gets to be kissable) and b) objectifying her (whatever her name is she’s always reduced to “the bride.”)

But actually what popped awake this morning wasn’t the “...kiss the bride” part, it was “you may now…” part because it speaks to the question (asked in comments by RemittanceGirl, here) of who benefits from the rules… who benefits from the paradigm… who, really, benefits from patriarchy.

The pat answer is usually “men.”

The more traditional answer though, and I think more accurate, is “their families.” Because for all the power we ascribe to men, the message we’re given is that (as our English teachers might put it) whatever they can do before marriage they may not.

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I write a lot about feminism aware of the ambiguities of doing so as a man. And I reconcile the ambiguity by trying to understand the impact anti-feminism a.k.a. the patriarchy a.k.a. the dominant paradigm has on men. And I feel it’s more accurate to say I’m thinking from a feminist perspective rather than one of the more traditional avenues of men’s studies or men’s rights because… well, it’s not just about helplessly flapping about how “patriarchy hurts men too so that’s why women don’t deserve this or that sovereignty.” Instead I’m trying to understand not that men are hurt too but how we’re hurt, and to explore how our perception of that hurt either adds to or distracts us from how to get it to stop hurting anybody.

It just seems like identifying how men are hurt, and trying to find the exits in a way that doesn’t involve stepping over anybody else to get there, is or ought to be a pretty crucial.

One of the more enduring problems is that it’s pretty clear that compared to women society privileges men way more than women… and yet when you talk to us it’s pretty clear that for all our very real privilege we don’t perceive it ourselves!

Since there’s probably nothing more dangerous than a powerful human being who thinks he or she is powerless that’s not good. At all.

Quick question: Given the weight of the institutions telling the groom “you may now kiss the bride,” who do you think it makes the most sense for men to fulminate about: women (either individually or collectively) or patriarchy?

Lisa of Sociological Images says

Fabian D. S. sent us this screenshot from a men’s health email he gets:

Along the bottom it reads: “Get the sex you deserve.”

The phrase could be read: “Get the SEX you deserve.” That is, get sex. Or it could be read: “Get THE SEX you deserve.” That is, get awesome mindblowing sex. The context reveals that it’s the latter meaning and I’ve seen this sentiment (but not the former) in material aimed at women, too. I wonder when, in American history, we decided we were entitled to awesome sex. I can’t imagine that pioneer husbands and wives, after spending all day trying to not to die (whether it be that day or that winter), and lying on a straw mattress next to their six children in their freezing/sweaty one-room home, felt pouty if their sex wasn’t mindblowing. The entitlement to great sex, then, must have come later (at least to the regular folk). I would bet it had something to do with capitalism and the commodification of pleasure, generally, and sex, specifically. After all, how do you get the sex you deserve? Well, you buy the right products: whether that be, for example, diet- and exercise-related products, cosmetic surgery, or sex toys. Ariel Levy said it very well (watch the 2nd video down here especially starting at 1:22… but all the clips are great).

She said it here.

It’s actually a great question, one with possibly a complicated answer.

First of all, of course, would be that (for those of us who’ve read the entire “Little House on the Prairie” series to our children anyway) it’s pretty clear they didn’t feel entitled to very much at all. A piece of candy and a hair clip for Christmas, the luxury of a new food that came into season (followed by quite a lot of ennui because the new food might be all they had besides the usual staples for weeks or even months), a Bible and maybe months or years old “Godey’s Lady’s Book” magazines, and…

...considerable body modesty even between married partners… even when the nearest neighbor was several days ride away.

Which in the context of the times was probably all for the best because of a) the widely-held but obviously incorrect knowledge that ejaculating “as often as” ten times a year was believed to be more fatal to a man than drinking a quart of whiskey a day and b) the widely-held and absolutely true knowledge that sex=pregnancy and pregnancy = pregnancy-related mother and infant mortality.

Outside the U.S. Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” is read primarily as a formal philosophical exercise into the limits of what is essential for a civilized life and what we only imagine we’re entitled to. The list is of what really is essential, he concludes is, um, spare. And roughly equal to… the material lives of the pioneer husbands and wives Lisa mentions. (I’ll get back to Thoreau in just a moment.)

On the other hand!

Whether we consider ourselves more refined, more spoiled, or simply more in denial than the Thoreaus and Wilders of the world, it’s certainly the case that we imagine ourselves entitled to refrigeration, indoor plumbing, a variety of wholesome foods, fair pay for honest work, and, more recently, decent bandwidth speeds. And so I think it’s fair to imagine that when we have sex we’re entitled to awesome sex. Or at least not miserable sex.

Which gets to what I think is the core of the complaint about that ad. Thoreau also talked about the men and women in his community who crushed themselves with debt, stress, and deprivation in order to maintain a facade of prosperity they felt they deserved. My concern about the ad is that rather than encouraging people (considering the illustration they probably mean specifically men) to enjoy sex while making sure their partners are enjoying it with them they’re instead creating an impression that the sex they’re already having is inadequate.

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Also, just to be a bit tetchy here, the problem with putting sex in the context of “deserved” is that it ties into the notion that sex is something that’s earned. Which implies that it’s not shared but transferable. Which means it’s a value that can be dispensed from those with a “surplus” (i.e. women who under the convenient ideology of the no-sex class paradigm wouldn’t otherwise have any use for it) to a) those who “legitimately” prove themselves worthy of “getting” sex or b) those who obtain it by, um, other means.

One more dismal thing about the whole virginity=bleeding+pain business.

According to a randomly-Googled Australian Government safe-sex site called of “I Stay Safe”

The thickness and elasticity of the hymen varies according to the level of oestrogen [spelled “estrogen” in American English —fl] (female hormones) in the body. Before puberty, the hymen does not have much stretch, so would usually be damaged if a large enough object passed through it. Once you go through puberty and start to develop oestrogen, the hymen becomes thickened and more elastic in nature. At this point it looks like a hair scrunchy. It will easily accommodate an object such as a tampon or penis and simply stretches out and back.

Read the quote in context here.

In other words the ancient tradition of expecting blood and, for that matter, innocence and inexperience on a woman’s wedding night probably has an uncomfortably large something to do with the also ancient (and still practiced in parts of the world today) tradition of marrying girls very young — at or soon after menarche, before normal adult estrogen levels are well established.

Eww.

Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, talking about the discovery that female-dominant Bonobo chimpanzees seem to be just as violent as male-dominant Pan or standard Chimpanzees, lays out exactly why I think feminism is great for men, even as she demolishes some of the… um… old/transitional notions about gender and exceptionalism.

Honestly, I’d be more surprised to find out that females are inherently less violent in any primate species.  It’s obvious to me that violence in humans tends to be a result of a combination of power and desire.  We all want things that we can’t have just by snapping our fingers, but when we have social privilege to act violently, it’s a lot easier to give into the urge.  Female dominance instead of male dominance, even if such a thing was possible, wouldn’t change what is so ingrained in human nature.  The only solution is to create more equality in society so that few people have power to the degree that they aren’t as accountable to each other, or worse (in the case of some groups of men), actually compel each other to violence to establish their superiority. 

Of course, the accusation leveled by anti-feminists at feminists is that we want to create a matriarchy to replace the patriarchy.  Again, that would be stupid because we’d never be able to do that.  More importantly, it shows how anti-feminists lack imagination.  They can only imagine replacing one unjust, violence-ridden hierarchy with another.  But we should aim higher, for systems that are based on equality and peace.  For the skeptical, it’s worth noting that many communities have managed to create themselves in ways where people are peaceful and respectful, and crime is low.  The remarkable success of the feminist movement in reducing the rape rate over the past 40 years also points to the flexibility in human nature.  People can be better and less violent.  But the first step is believing in the possibility. 

Read the quote in context here.

Yup. Sounds about right to me — simply replacing patriarchy with matriarchy wouldn’t be anything like professor bell hooks’ definition: “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.”

Oh, and not to put too fine a point on it, it’s worth pointing out that whereas feminism has strongly reduced** rates of criminal sexual assaults over the last 40 years, and other benefits of feminism have multiplied, the amounts, the variety, the acceptability, and the quality, not to mention the safety, of sex for real adult women and men has skyrocketed. So it’s not like feminism has been all work and no play either, right? Exactly.

So. Hey, and as long as I’m at it I think I need to explain again why I feel increasingly comfortable saying, as a man, that I’m a feminist. Especially when I used to feel completely uncomfortable going anywhere near there.

It happened when I finally got it, after reading Amanda Marcotte no less, that feminism isn’t just something I could care about because I’m someone with have women friends, women partners, women relatives, or a daughter. I finally got it that there’s something in it for me, a big, tall, strong, (however increasingly former) middle-class, sexy, horny, happy, healthy, not-dead-yet white man. I finally got it when I realized the list of benefits for men is somewhat, but only slightly, smaller for men than it is for women. When I realized, as Marcotte, bell hooks, and nearly everyone who’s worked in feminism in the last 20 years has pretty consistently been saying: feminism isn’t a zero-sum game (that would be anti-feminism); it’s not a “war of the sexes” (that would be anti-feminism); it’s not even a battle over access to (the “right” kind of) sex (that would be 100% seriously all the time anti-feminism start to finish.)

And that realization is a very big deal and here’s why: one can perfectly reasonably argue that if the system has pretty, well, systematically favored men over women then men shouldn’t need a reason to let go of domination. True enough and you’ll find plenty of people saying exactly that. And one can perfectly sensibly argue that suggesting there should be something in it for men just smacks of privilege, arrogance, and expectation. And you’ll find plenty of people arguing that too. You could even make the case men should just get out of the way of women out of the goodness of our hearts, or guilt, or shame, or intimidation, or laziness, or… well, any reason except that there’s something in it for us too.

Even if that was all true the problem is that male gallantry isn’t the solution to the problem it’s a symptom of it!

There’s also the bit about investment and commitment. Sure, Sir Galihad can go galumphing around righting wrongs and slaying dragons… but… not to speak ill of either the dead or the apocryphal, Galahad felt entitled to recognition. He felt his actions deserved recognition. He, like too many of his fellow members of the round table, was inclined to withdraw and sulk when his prestige and privilege went unrecognized. And why? Because outside of public demonstrations of worthiness there really wasn’t much in it for him.

In light of the limits of the good deed undertaken for no benefit to self, and in light of Amanda Marcotte’s point that under matriarchy we’d likely fare no better, I think it best to recognize that impulse to do right is best encouraged with the prospect of doing well. To inspire recognition that feminism benefits everyone such that each of us felt called forward not only for the sake of everyone else but for our own selves. To inspire recognition that the goal isn’t to have everyone say “thank goodness you’re here,” or “we couldn’t have done it without you” or even “duude, what took you so long?” but instead so the reward is waking up every morning in a world you’re as glad to be alive… and as free to be your un-second-guessed self… as every other child, woman, and man alive.

[** Not the same as eliminated but the changes of both reported and (by inference) unreported criminal sexual assaults are way down. —fl]

[Also: Forget switching to decaf, I gotta stop listening to Obama on YouTube while blogging. —fl]