Image by Benjamin Dewey of Things Could Be Worse. Order a print here.

Benjamin Dewey says draws

Do You know a ravishing scientist who deserves more attention for her mathematical derivations than for her aesthetic wonders? Show her you understand how vexing the veil of comeliness can be when it masks an equally exquisite brain for which no one shows a primary concern! This illustration is available as a keepsake from my emporium.

Tagged: For Lisa Randall. Steph Levi. Saskia de Vries and Hedy Lamarr Beauty Great Thinker Lady Scientist Cupid Brilliant often overshadows work Deriving Maxwell's Equations for the Potentials chalk top hat love

Source: Things Could Be Worse

It's kind of a big deal. There was a sort of lowlife blogger years ago who'd preface many of the images he'd repost with comments like "With a body like that she should never have to work a day."

Leaving aside the insane idea that supporting one's self with sex or "beauty" isn't work, where does anyone get the idea that it would be fun to have a brain and never fucking use it?

In my socially checkered past I've managed to live in a number of situations where one occasionally encounters "kept" women: higher-end rock music culture, cocaine-dealer culture (closely related to the preceding), middle-upper-class and upper-upper-class neighborhoods (where I was a paperboy), and country-club culture (related to the preceding.) And near as I can tell, a almost-synonymous word for people (mostly women) who not only aren't expected not to work but are outright expected not to work is "alcoholic."

Human beings don't make very good pets.

Years and years ago a friend my age, a nursing student who had grown up in country-club culture, said she had to get out because what other girls from her neighborhood were going through was either making them insane or driving them to drink. She said, yeah, it might sound like fun to "do nothing but lie on your back eating bonbons and drinking Cutty Sark," while your husband worked, the gardner and maid took care of the house and the nanny took care of the kids, but, "Frankly I'd be happier changing bedpans for a living." (I lost touch with her decades ago, before she finished nursing school, but she was on track to become a Nurse Practitioner rather than a bedpan changer.)

I dunno. I've been catching up on my reading this morning and running into a lot of commentary by women scientists, women skeptics, women in medicine, and even little girls trying to go to school. The theme is just...

You know what, it's just dumb! Not to mention just an unbelievable assault on human potential. Not to mention an even bigger insult to half of all of humanity! But mostly just really fucking dumb. Richard Fineman was attractive enough but no one ever suggested he couldn't be attractive and also win a Nobel Prize in physics. Anderson Cooper is attractive enough but no one ever suggest he's "too pretty to do real reporting." And even though the first President George Bush selected the sorry-assed J. Danforth Quayle for his good looks ("women will be throwing their underwear at him at campaign stops"), and even though he was never smarter than a bag full of golf balls, there was still never any question that he was also going to work. Heck, even Mitt (Mittens) Romney, who was born with both a silver foot in his mouth and a full head of hair continues to work even after making further piles of money putting other people out of work. And while a lot of people believe he shouldn't do the job he's looking for, nobody deplores his basic interest or desire in working, period. So where's the fucking contradiction in women being attractive and working? Brilliantly or otherwise?

The thousands of years old principle defined most concretely by the English Common Law concept of coverture, which the legendary jurist William Blackstone defined thusly:

"By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing; and is therefore called in our law-French a feme-covert; is said to be covert-baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture. Upon this principle, of a union of person in husband and wife, depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities, that either of them acquire by the marriage. I speak not at present of the rights of property, but of such as are merely personal. For this reason, a man cannot grant any thing to his wife, or enter into covenant with her: for the grant would be to suppose her separate existence; and to covenant with her, would be only to covenant with himself: and therefore it is also generally true, that all compacts made between husband and wife, when single, are voided by the intermarriage."

Source: Wikipedia and myriad others.

Yikes! The rest of this post is a rumination of the consequences of that.

Fun story: Almost 25 years ago now one friend in a long-term committed relationship broke up with her absolutely marvelous-in-almost-all-ways partner.

Why says we, he's almost perfect? True says she, but I just have a feeling this isn't it. But he's devilishly handsome says we. True, says she. He has that sailboat and that vintage Triumph motorcycle says we. True again, says she, but he's still not it. But he's smart, funny, extraordinarily considerate! He's finishing his engineering degree and firms are falling all over themselves to hire him. You've been together for years and still seem incredibly compatible. And he's still crazy about you! I know, I know, and I love him too but none the less, said she, I just don't feel like this is "it."

And so on she moved. And the only reason he wasn't immediately in one, or two, or a dozen new relationships with any of the 31,000 presentable but unpartnered women in Seattle is that he was completely devastated and preferred to quietly mourn rather than move on.

Though move on of course he eventually did. And met a marvelous woman for whom he was "it," and the two have been fast, faithful friends, lovers, partners, and parents together ever since.

Meanwhile our friend who left him actively rattled around the date-o-sphere, plunged into her advanced degree program, ran through a succession of not all that fulfilling relationships (including one rising star who turned out to be a closet domestic abuser) and maybe five years later met a marvelous man who was "it" for her and the two have been fast, faithful friends, lovers, partners, and parents together ever since.

From the outside, anyway, I really couldn't tell you why one wasn't "it" but the other was. Why she would have felt she was "settling" for one but not the other.

I mention this for a couple of reasons. First, because of my friend's seemingly daft feeling that her partner wasn't "it" because she thought there should be "something more." Second, because of my other friend's equally daft feeling that having lost true love he could never love, or be loved, again.

---

Two of the most dangerous stereotypes in relationships are

• true love waits and I shall never love again. They both really distract from and otherwise interfere with our actual relationships.

"Is this it?" Where "it" is something like that one truest, most fulfilling, most completing love thing. Asking yourself "is this it" also disrupts actual relationships.

"I shall never love again" is extraordinarily common for both men and women -- so common, in fact, that both the radio stations and book stores would seem like empty stadiums if all the songs and stories about true love lost were to disappear.

Then again, while both men and women experience "this isn't it" moments there's been a traditional gender imbalance to it that still needs to be uncovered and explored. So I'm going to explore it here.

Back when a) women were expected to be utterly financially and socially dependent on men and b) the only way out of a marriage was "till death do you part" women were basically in a position where accepting an offer of marriage was by far the biggest gamble anyone, male or female, commonly made in their life. Because if your husband developed consumption, or turned out not to be able to make a living, or drank, or beat you, the die was cast and that became your lot in life.

Under English Common Law, which formed the foundation of both English and American... um... common law, from a legal perspective a woman literally disappeared! The legal doctrine was called Coverture, and under coverture women could literally not own property, she obviously couldn't vote, she couldn't enter into contracts, she couldn't seek education (without her husband's permission), any and all money she earned, won, or inherited became legally and irrevocably her husbands, any children she gave birth to became his sole legal property, and so on.

In the late 19th Century the pressure became such that a lot of women (many of them early or proto-feminists) declined to risk marriage at all!

Because back then, if for any reason "this" turned out not to be "it" for women that was it!

That anxiety over such an uncertain but irrevocable decision, I think, is the source of the "hypergamy" meme that so haunts MRAs and Evolutionary Psychologists. And so baffles and occasionally outrages the rest of us.

I'm also going to propose that this might be the origin of the idea of women as judges, gatekeepers, and the whole male anxiety about "worthiness." Because if your odds of marriage depend entirely on someone else's assessment not so much of gold-diggery success but simply not having enough income or stability to safely support a wife and children, that's going to stress the shit out of you as well. And really generate huge loads of resentment as well as anxiety. Even as you possibly benefit from having to compete with only half the potential workforce for any given job.

Anyway, you can see how the whole "this is it" and "true love waits" business, plus "I shall never be loved," plus all those songs about murdering one's true love ("Banks of the Ohio") and suicide ("Irene Good Night") aren't just dangerous bullshit but dangerously gendered bullshit.

But also, if I'm right (I think I am) and if we can just wrap our heads around it, about it's somewhere between 99% and 100% obsolete bullshit. Because these days we don't have to make those kinds of perilous decisions, or risk just perilous judgments. Because half the population no longer needs to rely 100% on the other half for social and financial well-being.

And so questions of lifelong worthiness, like (I'm guessing) similar questions about lifelong beauty no longer have to distract and interfere with a) the formation of, b) the end of, and most important, c) current appreciation of our relationships.

Anyway, my intuition says that you pretty much can't understand "hypergamy" without first understanding coverture. And this is why I think it's foolish to claim to understand biological "truths" about relationships without first understanding sociology, history, and law.

Hmm... I've still gotta think more about this.

With perfectly lucid caveats in hand, Ozymandias makes the case for yet another particular variety of male-nerd sex and/or relationship partner for men and (she speculates) for other men.

It continually puzzles and distresses me that gamers are not one of the most fetishized and desired of hobbyists, in between guitarists and football players. If sense ran the world, a guy with a six-year-long Mage: The Ascension campaign would have groupies and have to hire a service to clean all the pussy juice off his lawn. Since, unfortunately, this is not the case, I must provide some promotion of All The Reasons A Woman Ought To Date Gamers. This is not meant to erase the existence of gamer women, nor of non-heterosexual gamers; however, Female-Bodied Person Dating Male Gamers is what I have experience with.

...

On the most base and practical of considerations, gamers are great in bed. They have amazing hand strength, dexterity, speed and skill, and something petty like "six orgasms in a row" won't faze a guy used to fifteen-hour marathon video gaming sessions. Want someone to find your G-spot, or rub your clit just the way you like? Choose a gamer. I imagine that gamers would be equally good at handjobs, for those penis-bearers among us.

Also: backrubs. Just saying.

Source: Ozymandiass Crushing and Venting Engine of Doom

Lest it sound like she's just pitching another fast lane into the male worthiness trap, one where manual dexterity stands in for a bigger car or something, she's actually pretty clear that it's also about compatibility and conviviality.

Gamer guys also have the best hobbies. Would you rather sit bored through yet another game of NFL football, or play Diplomacy for twelve hours, double-crossing each other and taking over the world together? How about getting drunk at a a bar, or getting drunk roleplaying with Apples to Apples cards? My point exactly. If you're not a gamer, don't worry. Most gamers are happy to introduce you to their hobbies and obsessions: everything from the collected works of Mr. Terry Pratchett to Japanese monster movies.

Which is actually a pretty critical point. If you actually happen to like nice cars or encouraging each other to strive for the next sale, bonus, or promotion then it really is ok to like partners who also like nice cars and make lots of money. But that's not the same thing, at all, as "women only go for guys with nice cars who make lots of money" that men too often indoctrinate themselves and each other into believing.

Emily Nagoski says it's not her story to tell, but responding to something that sounds pretty serious she says

No one asked your permission to put toxic thoughts about your body in your head. No one waited until you could give informed consent and then said, “I’d like to tell you what’s wrong with your body; would that be okay with you?” No one said, “Would it be all right if I say how broken and ugly and inadequate you are?” No one stopped to find out if it was okay before they told you all the made-up, fictional reasons you should feel bad about yourself. They just knew they could make a profit if you hated yourself.

No one asked your permission to put those thoughts and beliefs in your head, but there they are. And each of us has the job of finding the beliefs we’re not interested in carrying with us anymore, uprooting them, and finding something new and healthier to take their place. This process is neither easy nor painless. But it is a path to the confidence and joy I advocate everyone bring to bed with them every night.

Source: Sex Nerd

In context the thing she's talking about might have befallen a woman, and so that's the language she uses

Negative body image is among the most common causes of sexual dysfunction. But more than that, it’s manufactured misery that generates profits for corporations at the expense of women’s power in the world. It cripples us and keeps us in chains.

But myths and toxic thoughts are whispered, shouted, and most-insidiously shepherded into our heads.

Dumb question: without the traps of the beauty myth for women or the worthiness trap for men would there wouldn't be anything left to construct gender with?  Because it seems to me that that's what roughly 99% of it boils down to.

See also Holly's Face beyond beauty and Ozymandia's I am a bad person. Those all showed up pretty much next to each other in my news reader with Emily's post and in different ways they all address the disconnect between things like truth and beauty vs. what we come to believe is should be be things like truth and beauty.

In comments to Emily's post I said "It’s totally ok since it sounds as though the unmentioned context includes a woman’s experience. But if I were to expand it I’d add two more things. One, that men get the same whisperings about their inadequacies in the dimension of worthiness and accomplishment. Two, that sometimes the one doing the whispering is us as when we decide, on our own, that thing in dimension X didn’t work because we must not have correctly performed or avoided something in dimension Y."

In comments to Holly's post I said "I don't have the mental horsepower to put them all three of [their] posts together into one of my own. And it says right there on my superego that I should be able to do it."