For the Boys
So ...
gentlemen.
I don't know, maybe it should be a new slogan:
They're telling us what the problem is. What's your excuse?
Rachel Kramer Bussel↱ drew the short straw, and thus finds herself obliged to offer one of the most basic reminders that, apparently, some of us require:
This should sound completely obvious, I would hope: men aren't entitled to have sex with women because they've bought them dinner, or for any other reason. It is 2016, after all.
The latest iteration derives from yet another viral circuit of sick expectation after a Twitter user posted an SMS conversation attributed to a friend whose date was very disappointed that his entitlement to sexual access was not honored. The bottom line, if a woman doesn't wish to have sex with you, she doesn't "respect other people" or herself, and thus can "fuck off bitch".
Here's the thing: it doesn't matter why she didn't want to have sex with him. She didn't. End of story. She made that clear as day and yet he still kept on needling her, which I would say is harassment. If he genuinely liked her, or even genuinely wanted to sleep with her, he had to have known that going off on her the way he did wasn't going to endear him to her in any way.
That he turned on a dime to insult her should tell us that he only saw her as an object he wanted available for his pleasure, whether to stroke his ego or stroke other body parts. The moment she rejects him, even though she doesn't say a single negative thing toward him, he interprets that as pretty much the worst thing a woman could do to him. Her not wanting sex automatically means, in his mind, she's basically an evil bitch who's wasted his time.
Another obvious statement: her not wanting to have sex with him doesn't automatically mean she didn't like him, or didn't have a good date. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't, but by treating sex as the one and only arbiter of success, he turned what could have been a fun night into a nightmare.
And that's exactly the problem: sex shouldn't be a "goal" to "achieve," but this guy framed it that way. For him, it's the expected reward after he did his duties as a date. That's as depressing a statement on modern dating as you're likely to see.
Kramer Bussel points to
Hanif Abdurraqib↱, who last year published a letter to his "younger self", explaining to his own memory of teen years just why "You Are Not Entitled to Sex". It really is a striking essay, recalling sex education in youth and the standards set by the culture surrounding boys and young men; as Kramer Bussel considers:
Abdurraqib goes on to explore what he lost out on by thinking of sex as a winner takes all proposition. "The true damage all begins now, at 14 years old in sex ed class. It begins when you learn that the sex you have is a new trophy to be displayed, each time. And the sex women have is something to be hidden, silenced, and never spoken about. It begins when you ask for education and are given condoms. When you are taught as a boy that a girl's body is a vessel, something that you rest inside of as it carries you to manhood."
This is precisely the problem; to the racist ranter, sex isn't about connecting with another person, or even seemingly about satisfying a physical urge, which he could easily accommodate via masturbation. It's about the proper order of how things "should" be done, about what he's "owed" based on how much money he spent, and sex as a reward for simply existing.
That's exactly how pickup artists (PUAs) see sex as well, as evidenced by this charming boast on a PUA site: "These days, it takes me under three or four hours of ‘face time' to have sex with a new woman. About a third of the time of the time I don't spend ANY money to do it. When I do end up having to spend money it's usually less than 14 dollars from meet to lay."
I cannot speak for my sisters on this count, but where Kramer Bussel notes comfort in the proportional rarity―
Thankfully, he's in the minority, according to the 2015 Singles in America survey of over 5,500 singles in the United States, which found that only six percent of men expect sex on the first date.
―an opportunity presents itself.
Don't comfort yourselves, gentlemen, by that number. It still equals a significant number of raw and unpleasant experiences for the women who encounter these men, and we don't get to set any threshold of acceptable sacrifice; we don't get to tell those women to lighten up since it's not really that big a deal, or anything stupid like that.
And there is also the question of expectation in general. That is to say, great,
only six percent on the first date. What about the second date? The third? Even I know the third is supposed to be significant in this formulation.
Maybe―just maybe?―the problem is expectation itself.
And this is exceptionally important; I might even suggest primacy.
Here's another way of looking at expectation: It might be that she behaved poorly, but how long did I stick around for getting stoned and getting laid? It might actually be true that she was a terrible lay, but if it's that big a problem, why did I stick around? In the end, no matter how I might fault her as partner in particular or person in general, there is simply no avoiding the proposition of having spent so many days in an ugly, disputing cycle by which her sexuality, thereby her womanhood, and therein her entire humanity endured the denigration of almost daily complaint asserting and reminding inadequacy.
One shouldn't need to do so much damage in order to figure these things out. One shouldn't need years away from dating women before shadowy, amorphous spectres of reality finally actualize. Five, six years into the relationship? And
expectation is still the problem?
Because, you know, it's one thing to talk about a healthy and vigorous sex life, or whatever, and affirmation and exploring boundaries and all that. And it's one thing to nod when we hear our brothers whining about "just the tip" or unfinished fellatio. But, yes, it's also true that if you spend enough nights rolling over and attending yourself, it really shouldn't take
years to recognize that you were probably better off doing it that way in the first place, because you are the most accommodating lover you will ever know.
And, you know, it is one thing to point out that this is how many of us were raised, the expectations others taught us. However, gentlemen, it might behoove us to take a moment to consider what
our expectations teach our sisters to expect.
Because these are our rules. It always bugs me to hear men complaining about gold-digging, or marrying well. Try a blunt proposition: What if her attraction to you is strategic and not affirmative? That is to say, while our sisters can describe the issue in more nuanced language, we tend to not listen, so to put it in a very straightforward manner, brothers:
What if her calculation is that you are the abuser who will do the least damage?
In prior generations, this was very nearly an explicit consideration. The calculation exists, more tacitly, among my own generation. But women did not invent these customs; these matters of expectation, obligation, and human subordination are, boys, entirely our own invention.
And only we can take it off the table.
That will take some work, but nobody can settle our expectations save ourselves.
The child must live? The child must thrive.
I'm just asking you to
imagine a generation that rises without this expectation of fear and loathing.
And it will take a while, to be certain. But we can do this.
Only we can do this. These are, after all,
our expectations.
____________________
Notes:
Abdurraqib, Hanif. "Dear 14-Year-Old Boy, You Are Not Entitled to Sex". Bright. 4 November 2015. Medium.com. 15 April 2016. http://bit.ly/1Vv4cGQ
Kramer Bussel, Rachel. "Men aren't entitled to sex: Crybaby guy throws racist fit at woman who politely refuses to hook up". Salon. 14 April 2016. Salon.com. 15 April 2016. http://bit.ly/20IvUiK
