Shakes of Great Shakes has posted a snippet of dialog from Bat Boy, the Musical

SHELLEY: Can I call Rick again?
MEREDITH: That doesn't make sense, honey. You just left him a message an hour ago.
SHELLEY: I know. But I want to find out if he's coming.
MEREDITH: He'll think about you more if he talks to you less.
SHELLEY: Mom, Rick already knows that I like him.
MEREDITH: Don't talk like a slut, Shelley.
SHELLEY: Sorry.
MEREDITH: Courting is a slippery slope, dear, and it's a young lady's job to provide the friction. When I was your age a young lady didn't even call a boy, especially if she wanted to. [Emphasis mine --fl]

See Shake's post here.

This resonates with my thoughts in my earlier post about allegedly (I said allegedly!) promiscuously "predatory" college women and their bewildered male counterparts (as reported in the increasingly right-leaning Washington Post.)

It seems that for a sizable number of young men, the fact that they can get sex whenever they want may have created a situation where, in fact, they're unable to have sex. According to surveys, young women are now as likely as young men to have sex and by countless reports are also as likely to initiate sex, taking away from males the age-old, erotic power of the chase.

"I know lots of girls for whom nothing is off limits," says Helen Czapary, a junior at the University of Maryland. "The pressure on the guys is a huge deal."

...

One can argue that a young woman speaking her mind is a sign of equality. "That's a good thing," says Sawyer, father of four daughters. "But for some guys, it has come at a price. It's turned into ED [a marketing acronym for "erectile dysfunction" --fl] in men you normally wouldn't think would have ED.

Combine the two themes and you have one phenomenon: The worst thing that appears to happen is when "Young ladies" aren't supplying the expected friction we discover that young men have a supply of their own. The world does not dissolve into an unbridled orgy and a new, more natural equilibrium quickly asserts itself.

I think I've mentioned the old John Pryne lyric "half an inch of water / you think you're going to drown / that's the way that the world goes 'round." This seems like a marvelous case.

Actually, if you look back in the Shelly/Meredith dialog you see it's not even a new discovery!

SHELLEY: I know. But I want to find out if he's coming.
MEREDITH: He'll think about you more if he talks to you less.

(Note that I think Meredith's line is a bit euphemistic but the point's right there.)

So!

What are the social consequences of a tradition where women are expected to express less-than-natural desire and men are expected to express more-than-natural desire? What are the consequences when these expectations break down?

Actually I want to ask that last part in two chunks: What are the short-term and the long-term consequences of discarding our respective ice-maid/horn-dog conceits? In the short term I imagine there'd be a bit of turmoil with young men flustered when the women they've been conditioned to chase relentlessly either stop running or begin chasing them. And I imagine there'd be a bit more turmoil when young women discovered that they're often chased primarily because they've been running.

Before you say "eww, that would suck" consider the following "traditional-values" dynamics:

- Who is an alert woman going to respect more, someone who realizes she's saying no in order to keep him interested, or someone who doesn't? - Who is an alert man going to respect more, someone who realizes she's saying no in order to keep him interested, or someone who doesn't?

(Hint: The answer is "none of the above" but I digress.)

Anyway, back to the point, I can see that in the short term (to switch egregious metaphors) I can see that all the "farmers" might be unsure how to proceed when all the "milk" is free, just as I can see the "milk" becoming disconcerted when they discover all the "farmers" have become dear.

My hope would be that in the long run the whole fucking farmer/cow/milk thing would go the way of footbinding and (non-religious) circumcision and that a new dynamic might emerge where (gasp) men and women discovered there are better foundations for relationships than sex.

I'll even venture to guess that rather than skyrocketing promiscuity, as social conservatives fear, we might wind up having somewhat fewer partners overall (since there'd be far less emphasis on counting anyone's "scores") and there might even be a somewhat lower incidence of sex over all for the same reason. (It's worth remembering that overall average incidence of sex between long-term couples of all ages is once or twice a week. Why assume it would become substantially higher if everyone could have sex whenever they wanted, as opposed to how often they thought they ought to?)

Another possible consequence of gender-equalized incidence of initiation: If the possibility of sex is a given in rough proportion to the aggregate desires of the population as a while, then the prospect of sex would tend to cancel out and people would put more emphasis on other relationship factors such as, oh, I don't know, maybe compatibility?

Think the rates of separation would increase or decrease? (Hint: are divorce rates higher in "promiscuous" Blue states or "moralistic" Red ones? How about rates of adultery? How about rates of teen pregnancy? How about... Oh, that's enough hints.)

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[Note to readers: I am so prepared to believe I'm just talking out of my hat here. (Ok, my ass.) And so I'm not proposing that this post contains solid truth. In fact I'm willing to believe that I'm just another member of the dominant paradigm trying to talk women into lowering their guards and/or standards. It doesn't matter that I don't think I am. Denial, like back hair or the presence of testosterone, is the first symptom of patriarchy. But... let's just say I know I've got to be missing something. I'm willing to defend this thesis in comments, but I promise I'll do it in good faith in order to derive a more durable synthesis. --fl]