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It Ain’t Sex Unless You Ooooo
By Erica Dalton
When it comes to virginity, Jessica Valenti says, “It isn’t sex unless you’ve had an orgasm.”
How different things would be if virginity were explained to young girls that way. Sex is so much more than the old in-and-out.
I can relate all too well. And I cannot help but reassess the image of virginity that I had created long before I knew that I was creating it. An image that I had been mindlessly guided to by my culture.
To this day a lot of us are taught to wait for that one man or woman who will rock our world. But once you get that not everybody experiences sex the same way, you lose grasp of the image that has been pushed down our throats.
If you believe that staying a virgin until marriage will make your first sexual encounter better, followed by a happier and healthier marriage, you may be disappointed. Virginity is not proven to make marriage any simpler or happier. And your marriage could end up worse. I know unhappy couples who are not sexually well-matched. But this problem of ignorance is kept from youth, who are encouraged to stay abstinent to obtain that ultimate magical moment.
It all keeps people uneducated about their bodies and their sexuality. And that does NOT make for better sex.
Until I saw Valenti’s definition, I had not thought that losing virginity meant anything more than a dull night that carries much more expectation than it delivers. But now that I see virginity differently I understand a little more of who I am.
Losing virginity is so much more than that moment of penetration.
This piece was written by one of my students who gave permission to post it.
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Women, Men Face Opposing Repressions
![hodgins-and-angela-in-jail[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/hodgins-and-angela-in-jail1.jpg)
Men and women are both repressed, but sometimes in opposing ways. Too many women feel emotionally open but sexually unresponsive, while too many men easily come even while their emotions lie submerged. Either way, when it comes to sex, they lose.
But should we be surprised when (among other things) buddies push each other to have sex with lots of women who they feel nothing for. Successful “players” are celebrated for “scoring” with the ladies – who may be shamed for “giving it up.”
But as players have sex with women they don’t know and don’t care about, and whose reputations they may destroy, they must check their emotions. But checking emotions goes beyond the bedroom. Boys don’t cry, and shouldn’t express much else, either. When Norah Vincent passed as a man for 18 months, she missed feeling and expressing emotion.
Here’s one man’s response to a post I wrote called “Twilight vs Porn” which contrasts women’s emotionally charged erotica with men’s proclivity for body parts.
It took years for me to untangle the damaging messages I received as a man and to get underneath them to a more genuine understanding of what sex was. I, too, think male sexual modes are primarily culturally reinforced – and exclude men from the best sex within intimacy, leaving them with a series of shallow orgasms and striving egos.
A young woman named Valerie saw it from the other side. She complained about guys gaping at her body and manipulating her into popular porn positions. It’s cold, she says:
I don’t just want to become Body A. I want men to feel like they are with me, Valerie, a particular woman with a particular body and my own unique personality.
Surprisingly, advice to non-orgasmic women may have something in common with helpful advice for non-emotional men.
Sex therapist, Lonnie Barbach encourages women to explore their bodies — without trying to come (because trying to climax just leads to worry that they won’t and keeps them out of the erotic experience). Notice the subtleties of the sensations, she says, feel into them, let them grow.
A guy once told me that he’d had to do the reverse to experience connection. Orgasm was easy. He needed to notice emotional subtleties and center on those as a way to move beyond cold porn sex. And then he couldn’t believe how amazing sex could be — even though he’d thought it was awesome before.
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Grooming Women for Battering
It’s not often – if ever – that you can witness a man grooming a woman to accept battering. We now have a visual record of how one man attempted it. And it may help to warn women away from potential abusers.
Sara Naomi Lewkowicz, a grad student at Ohio University, had planned to study the stigma of being an ex-convict. While at a local Corn Festival she spotted a tattoo-covered man who was gently cuddling a cute little girl. She approached and asked him and his girlfriend if she could photograph them over a period of time for her project, and they agreed.
Our photographer had met the couple only about a month after they’d gotten together. Two and a half months later she photographed Shane as he battered Maggie in their home. And she had already amassed a photographic record of how he had groomed her for the abuse. You can see the pictures here.
Batterers know that if they give in to their craving to beat their partners too soon the women will leave. So they have two immediate projects 1) push for quick involvement and 2) make her fall in love hard and fast so that she will stay after the beatings.
Shane’s charm offensive began while he was in prison, where he called Maggie every day. As soon as he was released they began dating and within weeks Maggie and her two kids, ages two and four, had moved in with him. A month later Shane got a huge neck tattoo which practically shouted MAGGIE. Any man who would get a tattoo like that must surely be both smitten and committed!
Abusers also keep score of emotional debts owed them (while ignoring those they owe). Altering his body for Maggie created a huge debt. As Amanda Marcotte put it,
“But I got a tattoo for you!” Translation: I altered my very body “for” you, and that is a massive debt that you can pretty much never pay, so you have to put up with my crap forever.
In more emotional blackmail Shane spent plenty of time complaining that Maggie paid more attention to her kids than to him.
Her four-year-old son, Kayden, took the brunt of his resentment even as he lavished attention on his cute two-year-old sister, Memphis. Maybe Shane thought he could release some of his abusive cravings on him while he repressed his desire to beat the boy’s mother. So keep in mind that batterers are often cruel to animals and children.
Batterers also try to isolate their victims, leaving them without help or support. So characteristically, Shane moved Maggie and her kids far away from family and friends within months of beginning their relationship. Moving everyone in with him may have also created a sense of “debt owed” and dependence on him.
But with a criminal record and facial tattoos Shane had difficulty finding work, so he couldn’t really afford to support the family. Abusers can come from any class but men who feel disempowered sometimes beat up their partners partly because it gives them a sense of empowerment in those moments when they are raging and pummeling a smaller, physically weaker person. And Shane’s difficulty finding work may have created a sense of powerlessness.
Once Maggie had fallen in love and was isolated and dependent, Shane only needed an excuse to beat her.
Jealousy works especially well for this trigger. The whirlwind courtship had already marked the relationship as passionate, and so administering a beating over jealous love promotes the storyline that he only did it because he loves her sooo much. And that makes her more likely to stay afterwards.
So Maggie and Shane went to a bar where Maggie became jealous over some flirtations and left. After a friend drove him home, Shane became enraged that Maggie had abandoned him. He then turned the jealous accusation around. Furious that one of his friends had flirted with Maggie, he claimed that she had betrayed him.
As they fought he told her to choose between getting beaten in the kitchen or going to the basement where they could talk privately (they were staying at a friend’s home).
Any police officer will tell you to never go to a second, more isolated location where something more brutal is likely to happen. Maggie was smart enough not to do that.
Hearing her mother’s screams, two-year-old Memphis ran to her mother’s side. Maybe because Shane had always been so sweet to Memphis, she felt she could protect her mom. So the little girl screamed, stomped her feet and finally put her body in between the two of them.
But the abuse didn’t end until a housemate called the police. Shane told the officers that he was just trying to keep Maggie from leaving the house with the children while she was drunk.
When that didn’t work he cried out, “Please, Maggie, I love you, don’t let them take me, tell them I didn’t do this,” apparently hoping that his “love” would persuade her to save him.
Often, it works. And it nearly did here as the officer had to coax the truth from Maggie and then talk her into signing a protection order and getting a medical exam.
“I don’t want to get him in trouble,” she wept.
“You aren’t getting him into trouble. He got himself into trouble,” the officer assured her. “You know, he’s not going to stop. They never stop. They usually stop when they kill you.”
What’s not typical is that Maggie left. She now lives in Alaska with her children’s father. Maybe she left because she had someplace to go. Maybe the publicity and the pictures made it difficult to deny the gravity of the abuse.
Most women stay, thinking that he will change. It usually takes months or even years of violent outbursts to see that it is about him and not about her, to see that he will not change, and to see that love is nowhere to be found.
When women decide to leave they should first call a domestic abuse hotline to make plans. And then go without warning. Because leaving is the most dangerous time.
800-799-SAFE (TDD: 800-787-3224)
SIGNS OF AN ABUSER
Keep in mind that not every batterer has all the signs. But here are some things to look out for:
Before an abuser starts physically assaulting his victim, he typically demonstrates his abusive tactics through certain behaviors. The following are five major warning signs and some common examples:
Charm
Abusers can be very charming. In the beginning, they may seem to be Prince Charming or a Knight in Shining Armor. He can be very engaging, thoughtful, considerate and charismatic. He may use that charm to gain very personal information about her. He will use that information later to his advantage.
For example; he will ask if she has ever been abused by anyone. If she says, “yes”, he will act outraged that anyone could treat a woman that way. Then when he becomes abusive, he will tell her no one will believe her because she said that before and it must be her fault or two people would not have hit her.
Another example; he may find out she experimented with drugs in her past. He will then threaten that if she tells anyone about the abuse he will report her as a drug abuser and she will lose her children. The threat to take away her children is one of the most common threats abusers use to maintain power and control over their victims.
Isolation
Abusers isolate their victims geographically and socially. Geographic isolation includes moving the victim from her friends, family and support system (often hundreds of miles); moving frequently in the same area and/or relocating to a rural area.
Social isolation usually begins with wanting the woman to spend time with him and not her family, friends or co-workers. He will then slowly isolate her from any person who is a support to her. He dictates whom she can talk to; he tells her she cannot have contact with her friends or family.
Jealousy
Jealousy is a tool abusers use to control the victim. He constantly accuses her of having affairs. If she goes to the grocery store, he accuses her of having an affair with the grocery clerk. If she goes to the bank, he accuses her of having an affair with the bank teller. Abusers routinely call their victims whores or sluts.
Emotional Abuse
The goal of emotional abuse is to destroy the victim’s self-esteem. He blames her for his violence, puts her down, calls her names and makes threats against her. Over time, she no longer believes she deserves to be treated with respect and she blames herself for his violence. For some survivors of domestic violence, the emotional abuse may be more difficult to heal from than the physical abuse.
Control
Abusers are very controlled and very controlling people. In time, the abuser will control every aspect of the victim’s life: where she goes, how she wears her hair, what clothes she wears, whom she talks to. He will control the money and access to money. Abusers are also very controlled people. While they appear to go into a rage or be out of control we know they are very much in control of their behavior.
The following are the reasons we know his behaviors are not about anger and rage:
- He does not batter other individuals – the boss who does not give him time off or the gas station attendant that spills gas down the side of his car. He waits until there are no witnesses and abuses the person he says he loves.
- If you ask an abused woman, “can he stop when the phone rings or the police come to the door?” She will say “yes”. Most often when the police show up, he is looking calm, cool and collected and she is the one who may look hysterical. If he were truly “out of control” he would not be able to stop himself when it is to his advantage to do so.
- The abuser very often escalates from pushing and shoving to hitting in places where the bruises and marks will not show. If he were “out of control” or “in a rage” he would not be able to direct or limit where his kicks or punches land.
Here are some more signs:
1. Jealousy of your time with co-workers, friends and family.
2. Controlling behavior. (Controls your comings and goings and your money.)
3. Isolation. (Cuts you off from all supportive resources such as telephone pals, colleagues at work and close family members.)
4. Blames others for his problems. (Unemployment, quarrels – everything is “your fault.”)
5. Hypersensitivity. (Easily upset by annoyances that are a part of daily life.)
6. Cruelty to animals or children.
7. “Playful” use of force in sex. (May start having sex with you when you are sleeping or demand sex when you are ill or tired.)
8. Verbal abuse.
9. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality. (Sudden mood swings and unpredictable behavior – one minute loving, the next minute angry and punitive.)
10. Past history of battering. (Has hit others but has a list of excuses for having been “pushed over the edge.”)
11. Threats of violence.
12. Breaking or striking objects.
13. Uses force during an argument.
Any woman who sees herself in this column should call the nearest women’s crisis line and tell someone what is happening. She will be provided with support and safety options.
Some women do not realize they are being abused until someone points it out to them. They have been made to believe that abusive treatment is what they deserve and that most women are treated this way. Women who see themselves in his should check out the nearest shelter and keep the phone number handy. They can also call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE (TDD: 800-787-3224).
1. Controlling behavior: “I know what’s best for you” and “I know what you want (or need).”The reality is that no one knows what is best for another adult.
2. Blames others for his problems: “Look what you made me do” and “If you hadn’t done that, none of this would have happened.”
3. Use of force in sex and/or saying that sex was a “wifely duty.” There is no law requiring a woman to have sex if she doesn’t want to. Forced sex is called rape.
4. History of battering: Excuses include the classic, “If you hadn’t provoked me …”The truth is that he chose to hit, push, kick, slap or punch you. If he hit you once, he will hit you again.
5. Verbal abuse: If someone deliberately hurts your feelings by word or deed, it is abuse, even if it is as simple as “You look fat in that outfit.”
6. Threats of violence: Threats are almost always precursors to the deed. If he threatens you, leave him before he does it.
7. Use of force during an argument: Most women feel, as I did, that if they haven’t been hit, they have not been physically abused. Restraining someone is also physical abuse. Pushing and shoving are physical abuse.
Abuse and battery take a toll on one’s physical, emotional and spiritual energy. It is easy to say no. We say this word all the time. Unfortunately, we find it especially difficult to say no to those we love and those we fear.
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Are Girls Free to Make Love?
In a recent episode of Girls, non-skinny and not classically beautiful, Hannah, has a short affair with a man who looks exactly like hunky Patrick Wilson. The response? He’s too hot for her!
As Fariha Roisin at Huffington Post put it:
Like, nobody who looks like that would a) Even think about sleeping with Hannah b) Then actually have the impertinence to enjoy it c) Then actually tell her she’s ‘beautiful.’ All he, realistically, would surely feel is remorse/self contempt, but hey sex is sex, right? Even bad sex, with a supposed undesirable.
Roisin then points out that when gender roles are reversed a similar outcry is absent.
- Katherine Heigl would go for Seth Rogen?
- The King of Queens gets the queen of Queens?
- Jon Cryer and Courtney Thorne Smith?
- Gorgeous porn stars with Ron Jeremy?
The list goes on but the outcry does not.
Maybe it’s about who has power over media and ideas – usually, men. And men like the idea of being able to get gorgeous girls even if they, themselves, aren’t so good-looking.
It’s not that men are bad. If women had more power than men it would probably be the reverse. (Lena Dunham gets a little power and look what happens to her character, Hannah. If I were producing, writing and starring in GIRLS I’d write in an affair with Patrick Wilson, too.)
This power over ideas may also affect whose body is shamed and whose is not. Men must be quite obese to garner body shame (if then) but women may be perfectly healthy and be thought too fat. And so Rush Limbaugh says feminism was created to allow unattractive women into mainstream society.
The double standard is reflected yet again as men may make love to many women without censor, but women may not.
In the end it is all about who is free and who is not — to love their bodies, to make love and to love. And it’s all tied to who makes the rules and who does not.
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Women’s Sexuality Is Like Men’s?
Women’s and men’s sexuality are pretty much the same, says Dan Slater in a recent New York Times piece.
He goes on to critique evolutionary psych, which says otherwise: Since women have a small number of eggs they best reproduce by putting great time and effort into each child – and by making sure a dependable dad sticks around to provide resources; hence, women are genetically primed for monogamy. But men are promiscuous because, with lots of sperm, they best reproduce by “spreading their seed,” willy-nilly.
But, says Slater, if kids need a dad to provide resources then “loving and leaving” their mothers is counterproductive. Plus, men can’t be promiscuous if women are monogamous. And, women in tribal societies enjoy many partners. I could go on.
Culture must not create differences in sexuality, either, he says, since men and women behave similarly.
For instance, women claim they want fewer partners than men. But when hooked up to a (fake) lie detector, women and men report the same number of actual partners.
Or, in speed dating women are pickier than men. But when the tables are turned with women approaching men, men become the more selective sex.
Finally, early research had found women — but not men — rejecting sex with both friends and strangers. But when that stranger was Johnny Depp, or when the friend was said to be good in bed, women were just as interested in casual sex as men. (No flesh and blood movie stars were involved in this study.)
So neither evolution nor cultural norms seem to be having an effect, leaving men and women just the same.
I agree that women’s sexuality is like men’s in its natural state. In many tribal societies it seems to be.
But can women be untouched by a culture that celebrates women’s bodies — or bodies that very few women actually have — while ignoring men’s? Or that applauds men’s sexuality while repressing their own? Is women’s sexuality untouched by a society that rapes so many?
We are bombarded by “sexy women” but not “sexy men” on billboards, in movies, on Dancing With The Stars… Even women’s everyday clothing shows off their curves while men stay covered up. Amanda Marcotte says “straight women don’t get nearly the provocation on a daily basis.”
No part of the male body is fetishized, either. Men stare at breasts and butts. What are we supposed to look at?
Meanwhile, the “perfect” images that our partners consume can make women feel bad about themselves — a libido killer as women become obsessed by their “flaws” in bed instead of enjoying sex.
The double standard is loosening but sexual women may still be called: slut, ho’, tramp, skank… the list goes on.
Sexual violence also takes a toll, leaving many women fearful or uninterested in sex.
All that has no effect?
Actually, in his evidence for similarity Slater leaves things out.
When it comes to casual sex, men are very interested in their lady friends. But women will only romp with those rumored to be great lovers. Otherwise, why bother?
On sex with strangers, only gorgeous celebs interest women. They seem safe (no reports of rape) and are mega-attractive, charismatic and sexy. Women expect they’ll be great in bed. Plus, sex with a star sounds heavenly, tantamount to intercourse with the gods — or rock gods. So nabbing a guy like that tells her something pretty great about herself.
Turning to speed dating, when things switch around maybe women begin to fear rejection and want to “win” now that the setup feels like a contest. Research in cognitive dissonance suggests that if you try to get someone to like you, you like them more.
Finally, most women say that ideally they would like just one or two partners, lifetime, but Slater thinks they’re lying since they admit to four real partners under duress of lie detection. With or without a lie detector I would say that I have had 5 partners in real life, but ideally I would like just one true love. And a lot of us women need a strong emotional connection to even get aroused.
Meanwhile, the eroticism women typically seek out – romance – is very different from the endless variety of women and their body parts that men more typically “procure” in porn.
While women’s natural sexuality is likely much like men’s, our differing experiences unfortunately pull us apart. And the root cause appears to be sexism, not nature.
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Men, Women not from Mars, Venus
Men and women aren’t so different, after all.
They have similar levels of interest in sex with multiple partners, willingness to have sex outside of a relationship, closeness with a best friend and interest in science, for instance.
What a surprise!
Harry Reis, a psychology professor at the University of Rochester, and Bobbi Carothers, a senior data analyst at Washington University used their own and others’ research to study the characteristics of 13,301 men and women.
They looked at a range of things like physical strength, sexual attitudes, empathy, science inclination, extroversion, relationship interdependence, intimacy, mate selection criteria and personality traits in an attempt to find out which characteristics could reliably predict whether someone was male or female.
Turns out, women and men are much more alike than different.
And even differences may not be biologically based. Stereotypes tend to create social patterns. Boys are told “boys don’t cry,” so they end up repressing their emotions. Or, they get kudos for acting tough. So they are more likely to grow up to be tough guys. Girls, on the other hand, are free to cry and show weakness, and so they are more likely to do both. That’s a social pattern, not a biological one.
But even with socialization, you still get a continuum of behavior. Some guys are sweet and some girls are tough.
The researchers found that the biggest differences were physical, with men being taller and physically stronger. But psychologically, there’s a lot of overlap.
Below, you can find graphs of physical strength and assertiveness. Men are a bit more assertive, but take a look at the overlap.
A variety of other traits show a pattern similar to the bottom graph, like desire for non-committed sex (so much for evolutionary psychology), fear of success, levels of empathy, and how much feeling men and women have for their friends.
Amanda Marcotte points out that,
What’s remarkable about all this is not that men and women have so much in common but that these commonalities persist despite relentless gender policing that usually involves quite a bit of shame.
Men face ridicule if they’re perceived as having female-like levels of empathy and concern for their friends, and yet, according to the study, they overcome it. Women are routinely told there’s something wrong with them if they have “masculine” attitudes towards sex and men are emasculated if they aren’t horny all the time or if they desire intimacy alongside their sexual adventures, and yet both genders tend to have a mix of adventurousness and tenderness when it comes to sex.
Good to know that the humanity within usually wins out.
Simplistic frameworks like the pop psychology book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus can even be harmful in some ways. In relationships, says Reis,
When something goes wrong between partners, people often blame the other partner’s gender immediately. Having gender stereotypes hinders people from looking at their partner as an individual. (Yet) gay and lesbian couples have much the same problems relating to each other that heterosexual couples do. Clearly, it’s not so much sex, but human character that causes difficulties.
Rigid frames can also discourage people from pursuing goals that they think are for the other sex.
If men aren’t really from Mars, nor women from Venus, that gives us all a whole lot of freedom.
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How To Know It’s Love
By Harris O’Malley @ Paging Doctor NerdLove and The Good Men Project
I was a classic otaku; I was going through the stage where the only things I wanted to talk about were anime, manga and the fact that I wanted to find The One in the worst way. Love was everywhere. I didn’t just have a crush on a girl in high-school or college, I had a mad, all-consuming fire in my heart for her that meant I couldn’t eat or sleep.
Every time I was into a girl, I was in love with her with my entire heart and soul. When we broke up (and we always broke up) it was a hideous tragedy that would break my heart into pieces, set them on fire and then piss in the ashes, just for good measure.
It took my first serious relationship to make me realize that I had absolutely no idea what love really was… and I needed a better handle on this whole “love” business if I didn’t want all of my relationships to end in tragedy.
Why Do We Keep Getting Confused?
The concept of romantic love comes from courtly love and chivalry, where knights had elaborate and – critically – platonic relationships with the ladies of the court to which they served. Marriage at the time, especially amongst royalty wasn’t about love but about property exchange, which meant that many noblewomen were in loveless marriages, often to husbands much older than they were. Bring someone in closer to their age as part of the court, often keeping in close proximity, and you’re going to end up with a lot of crushes and infatuations that couldn’t be consummated because of a very strict sense of etiquette (and rather harsh punishments for adultery).
Troubadours took the idea – lovers restrained by circumstance and law, unrequited love and the purity of love vs. the coarseness of sex – and ran with it.
The idea of “true love” being eternal, that love conquers all obstacles, that love is inherently monogamous, that lovers always think about the ones they love, that someone in love can’t eat or sleep for being “love-sick” over their crushes… all arise of the concept of courtly love, passed down through pop-culture for centuries.
It usually takes getting your heart stomped on a few times before you start to wise up and realize that you’ve been going about it all wrong.
Lust
Imagine how it felt the first time you saw someone you were really into. Your heart starts to race. Your palms sweat but your mouth goes dry. Your throat seems like it’s slammed shut, forcing you to swallow if you want to say anything beyond a low croak. You’re actually so nervous that you’re shaking. You find them almost undeniably desirable and you can’t stop yourself from wondering what they’re going to feel like when you’re holding them against you as you kiss madly in a dark corner somewhere.
Sounds an awful lot like love at first sight, no?
What you’re actually feeling are physical symptoms of arousal (or fear…). And if you’re relatively inexperienced sexually – and for a lot of people, even if you are fairly experienced – it’s easy to mistake sexual attraction for love… especially if you can’t necessarily do anything about that attraction. After all, it’s a quirk of the human psyche that we almost instinctively want what we can’t have.
Another common issue is that lust makes for a poor basis for a long-term relationship. Lust and sexual attraction is all about immediacy, the need to reproduce as soon as possible as often as possible. It doesn’t concern itself over emotional compatibility or desirable traits in a life-long partner. When lust has been sated… well, sometimes you realize that you can’t actually stand the person you were just smashing genitals with, never mind looking forward to a years-long commitment.
Infatuation
Infatuation tends to carry the sufferer away in a tidal wave of passion and excitement. It feels like an all-encompassing euphoria, leaving the sufferer feeling as though his head is stuffed with cotton candy and pure MDMA. He or she frequently seems to have lost several critical IQ points as they seemingly obsess about the object of their affection, from the way he runs his fingers through his hair to the adorable way she chews her food. Infatuation makes people reckless, seemingly willing to make unusual, even stupid decisions in the name of their newfound “love”. Their feelings are almost like a chemical high, causing them to feel like they’re on top of the world and they can do anything because hey, they’re in love man, and like, nobody’s ever felt like this before.
Unfortunately, the stratospheric highs tend to come with corresponding meteoric plunges into crushing lows.
Much like lust, infatuation often coincides and overlaps with love; in fact, a lot of infatuation is what is frequently called “new relationship energy” or “the honeymoon period” when everything is beautiful and amazing and your lover can do absolutely no wrong. Infatuation is passion mixed with sexual desire, brought on by hormones and oxytocin generation, helping to build a sense of trust and emotional bonding with one’s partner. The problem, however, is that passion inevitably fades, no matter how strong it is at the start. In fact, the half-life of infatuation and passion is somewhere between six months to a year on average, after which that sense of intense, immediate connection starts to fade.
Many couples assume that this is a sign that something’s wrong, that the ebbing passion and lack of rush from sheer physical contact with their partner means that their love is fading or worse, over. This is the cause of a great deal of unnecessary panic and turmoil for couples who don’t realize that infatuation is only the starting point of a relationship.
In fact, passion’s wane is a natural and necessary part of deepening a relationship’s emotional bonds… turning from infatuation into a deeper, more intimate emotion that we know as love.
What Is Love?
The problem with mistaking lust or infatuation for love is that it’s like mistaking the ignition for the car; it makes a lot of noise and catches your attention, but it’s only a part of the whole. Love is a much more gradual motion than we’re taught to believe. That initial “love at first sight” or “falling head over heels” is a mix of lust and infatuation that helps bring people together. Love itself is a deepening of the emotional bond that may be started by sexual desire or an initial attraction; romantic love is more akin to an incredibly deep friendship than a constant state of cardiac arrhythmia and limbic overdrive. It’s a feeling of emotional intimacy, rather than necessarily a physical attraction, a desire for partnership and unity rather than just the need for sexual release.
How do you know when it’s love?
It’s when you realize that no matter how annoyed or outright pissed you get at someone, that they’re the one you want to spend all your time with. When you realize that they’re someone you want guarding your back, helping you pick your ass up off the floor and sitting in the rocker next to you when the two of you are old and decrepit and wearing adult diapers… and you still think they’re the coolest motherfucker you know.
It’s when, even when the passion is spent and the “new car smell” of the relationship has long faded that you can look over at them and realize.
Yup.
They’re the one.
This piece has been edited for brevity. See the full piece where it originally appeared @ Paging Doctor NerdLove and The Good Men Project
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From Feminist to Doormat, and Liking It?
Alisa Valdes tells the story of her devolution from feminist to doormat in the memoir, The Feminist and The Cowboy.
And liking it, she claims. Or not.
Ms. Valdes says she was raised in a feminist home. She was named one of the top feminist writers by Ms. Magazine. Her first husband even “let” her hyphenate her name.
But as a single mom at age 42 she met “the Cowboy,” a conservative ranch manager who watches Fox News and believes women must submit to men. Her book blurb:
Their relationship finds harmony (and) she finds the strength, peace, and happiness that comes from embracing her femininity.
Femininity. Which here means doormat.
Instructions from Cowboy include: No back-talking; no second-guessing; no sarcastic, smart-ass remarks…
… and apparently, stay monogamous while he cats around.
In one incident she hears a women’s voicemail telling Cowboy she wants him in her shower. Alisa feels the agonizing pangs of jealousy. But she remembers that women are biologically wired to find cheaters alluring. What can you do?
Through it all she celebrates her submission, embracing women’s “natural role.” So does anti-feminist, Christina Hoff Sommers who calls the book,
An irresistible, post-feminist Taming of the Shrew… a riveting tale about how a brilliant, strong-minded woman liberated herself from a dreary, male-bashing, reality-denying feminism.
But weeks before going to press the two broke up. A problem since, as Amanda Marcotte points out, Valdes insists women will live happily ever after in orgasmic bliss if they just submit to controlling, misogynist men.
The abuse escalated soon after turning in her manuscript. During one fight he
dragged me down the hall to the bedroom, bent me over, and took me, telling me as he did so that I must never forget who was in charge.
Later, when she accidentally got pregnant and wanted to keep the child Cowboy got violent and left her. She returned to him after a miscarriage, but the violence escalated. Mostly verbal, with threats of violence.
The last time she saw him she jumped from a moving truck, fearing he would hurt or kill her:
I landed facedown on a bunch of rocks, nearly crushed under the back tires, dislocating my shoulder, badly cut and bruised everywhere, my hip filling with blood. I screamed. He stopped the truck, walked over, looked at me on the ground as I begged him to call an ambulance. “Only you would be stupid enough to jump out of a moving truck,” he told me. He did not help me, or come near me. Instead, he said he was going to the hunting lodge to get some witnesses, in case I tried to tell the police he had done this to me.
Noah Berlatsky at The Atlantic explains that:
Finally, Valdes realized that “this man did not love me. He could not love anyone,” and she left him for good—though, obviously, something of the terror remains. She notes that writing the (blog) post (about the violent incidents) puts her “in danger—real physical danger.”
Plenty of people, men and women, celebrate male dominance and female submission. But it hasn’t been so great for Ms. Valdes, and I have friends who’ve tried it and not liked it.
There is much wounding in this story that passes, in her mind, as “the natural order of things.” And Ms. Valdes as is now in a relationship with another abusive man.
The poet and writer, bell hooks, asks us to consider the nature of relationships.
“Pleasure + wound” vs “pleasure + love.”
Which makes you happier?
Which will you choose?
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The Rules vs The Game
The Rules and The Game are manuals created to teach men and women how to attract the opposite sex. What do they tell us about the war between the sexes in this new millennium? For in these manuals, it is war.
The Game
The Game was written in 2005 by Neil Strauss after his book editor asked him to investigate the community of pickup artists. After a few workshops this self-described “chick repellant” found that the techniques worked surprisingly well for a “pick up” — but not for relationships. And, as it turns out, the game works best for misogynistic men, but only works to attract women who are misogynistic, themselves.
Here are some rules of The Game:
- Approach a woman within three seconds of seeing her so you won’t lose your nerve
- Ask something benign like “What’s your sign?” or “What’s your type?”
- Act somewhat disinterested
- Briefly disqualify yourself from being a potential suitor
- Ignore the girl you want and flirt with one of her friends instead
- Ogle other women
- Subtly insult her to lower her self-worth
- Isolate “the target” from her friends
Clearly, these rules are all about bedding women by means of controlling them and weakening their self-esteem, while inflating the confidence of men.
The Rules
The Rules were written to aid women in getting a man to commit. Published in 1995, they were updated in 2002 to reflect single life in a high-tech culture.
Here are a few rules:
- Let him take the lead
- Don’t talk to a man first and don’t ask him to dance
- Don’t call him and rarely return his calls
- Always end a date first
- Don’t see him more than once or twice a week
- Don’t talk very much on the first date
- Break up with him if he doesn’t buy you a romantic gift for your birthday or Valentine’s Day
- Don’t open up too fast
- Be sexy
In sum, The Rules urge women to manipulate men by playing hard to get. In an ironic twist women are advised to make men the leader even while creating a sense of female independence. (Even keeping her mouth shut works to create a sense of “man as leader” as some research finds that when women talk more than one third of the time they are seen as honing in on men’s space.)
On the bright side, women are urged to get on with their lives instead of waiting around for “him.”
What The Rules/The Game have in common
Both manuals advise game-playing, so we have not evolved much — or many of us have not.
Both amass power to “their side” by means of disinterest – which may work since whomever cares least has more power.
The Rules advises a traditional source of power for those who lack it: manipulation, controlling men without their knowing. Interestingly, The Game urges this same feminine technique for men, who do not have direct control over women’s minds and bodies.
And we find sexism surviving in both books.
The war of the sexes lives on
Not surprisingly, the books also differ in a way that reflects traditional gender norms. The goal of The Game is to bed women while the goal of The Rules is to snag men. The stereotypes live on.
My students are surprised that The Rules weren’t written in the middle of the last century. But The Game’s even more recent publication comes as no shock. I guess we are more puzzled by women who agree to sexism, whereas no one is surprised that some men continue to support it.
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Non-Sex Reasons For First Sex
![Women-with-Vaginal-Problems-after-Sexual-Intercourse-039-Allergic-039-to-Partner-039-s-Semen-2[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/women-with-vaginal-problems-after-sexual-intercourse-039-allergic-039-to-partner-039-s-semen-21.jpg)
Freud may have named sex drive the primary motivational force among humans, but sometimes you gotta wonder. Because sex serves other aims an awful lot of the time.
How about first sex? According to a 2011 study by Laura M. Carpenter, PhD, many see virginity as a gift to give to someone special, with the goal of strengthening the relationship. Women were more likely than men to have this purpose in mind, though some men did, too.
Men were more likely to have sex to shed the stigma of virginity. Not surprisingly, women were much less likely to state that reason, though some did. But for men, especially, it can be embarrassing to be a virgin.
About one third of those in Carpenter’s study saw losing virginity as a rite of passage, a step toward growing up. By the way, this group was the most satisfied with the experience, perhaps having lower expectations. They typically planned for the moment, complete with birth control, and they could more easily take a bad first experience in stride.
Looking at a 1994 study, by comparison, half of women said they had sex for the first time out of affection, which fits well with social expectations that women will have sex out of love — or “strengthening a relationship” as cited in the 2011 survey. Meanwhile, 51% of men had sex for the first time out of curiosity or because they felt ready. This fits well with a focus on achieving manhood (“ready” to be men).
Interestingly, only 12% of men and 3% of women said they had sex for pleasure their first
time, in the 1994 survey. Carpenter didn’t separate out “pleasure” as a separate category, and said it was most often attached to “ridding self of stigma” in her study.
By the way, the 2011 survey found that women and men were more alike than expected. “The idea we have from TV and movies is that for women it’s all about love and for men it’s all about getting it over with,” Carpenter related. “If men and women shared metaphors, the choices they made and the kinds of experiences they had were pretty similar. That’s something that hasn’t been noticed that much.”
Carpenter also noted that gays and straights were similar in their experiences.
All in all, it’s interesting to see how often pleasure takes a back seat to other concerns when it comes to sex. I’ll discuss this in a variety of other contexts to come.
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