Archive for the 'Favorite Posts, 2004-2006' Category

Some thoughts on teaching and student crushes

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 24, 2006
in Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Pasadena City College, Relationships, Sexuality, Student crushes and Teaching
. 80 Comments

I’m thinking this morning about students and crushes.  (Actually, I’m also thinking about UCLA basketball, my boxing footwork, pacifism, the health of one of my youth group teens, my wife’s smile, and my chinchilla, but those are not subjects for the blog today.  Oh, and I still want a diet Coke very badly.  Is Lent half over yet?)

Recently, I heard from one of my former students, "Darren."  He took my class back when I was a new prof, in the mid-1990s.  He eventually finished his degree, got his master’s, and is now himself an adjunct at several Los Angeles-area community colleges (PCC is not one of them).  Darren and I email every once in a while, and I got a note from him a couple of weeks ago that’s been on my mind.  Here’s some of what he wrote, which I’ve edited a wee bit:

Hugo, I love teaching, and I really believe I am supposed to be doing this.  But I’m becoming aware of a problem I have, and I think it may be one you had too: student crushes.  I’ve got a few women in a few of my classes who have crushes on me, and one or two of them have been flirting with me pretty heavily.  I try and have good boundaries with them, because I’m only an adjunct. I don’t want to lose my job, and besides, I do very much want to be a professional in and out of the classroom.  But it’s so hard, because outside of the classroom I’m so shy with women.  Inside the classroom, I feel so desirable and powerful. 

My question is this, Hugo: how did you or do you keep this from going to your head?  How do you keep yourself from paying special attention to the ones who make it so obvious that they like you/want you?  Any advice you can give me would be awesome.

I have Darren’s permission to address this on the blog. (Also, let me add three things: Darren is 31,single, and his name isn’t really Darren.)

I’ve already emailed Darren back, and I didn’t save what I wrote.  But he’s had me thinking about how it is that we who teach can best think about the crushes our students will get on us.

First off, before this starts to sound like a narcissistic rant about how "crushable" a teacher I am, let me be very clear that I’ve rarely met a genuinely talented prof of either sex who wasn’t the object of desire from at least a few students.   A truly effective teacher will often be the object of desire, regardless of what he or she looks like.  Student crushes, I am convinced, are less about the physical attractiveness of the professor and more about that professor’s passion, certainty, and competence.  Those three attributes are, for lack of a better word, intensely sexy for many people!

When I was an undergrad at Cal, I had a crush on a fellow student named Tiffany.  Tiffany saw me as just a friend, however, in one of those all-too-common scenarios that most of us know plenty about.  But Tiffany had a massive crush on one of her anthropology professors.  He was in his late forties, and while he was reasonably fit for his age, no one would mistake him for a sex symbol.  He wore earth tones (which didn’t suit him); he was balding and perhaps 5′6".  But I was in his class too, and I have to admit, he was mesmerizing.   He had passion for his subject, he was a gifted lecturer, he had a sense of humor, and he struck the perfect balance between self-deprecation and arrogance.  (I’ve always thought that’s a tough needle to thread, and I find myself striving for it often.)  Tiffany was in love with Professor P, and I eventually admitted I could see why.  I asked her one day what she wanted from him, and she told me:

It’s not about sex, really.  It’s that I want to be inside his head. I want to be near him, I want him to talk to me for hours, I want him to focus just on me and I want to sit next to him and soak up everything about him.

"Oh", I said.  I didn’t get it.

But after thirteen years of teaching, I get it.  Students get crushes on me from time to time, just as they do on "Darren" and "Professor P."  Occasionally, some of those crushes have a specific romantic agenda.  When I was single, I sometimes (not often) got asked out at the end of the semester or received other signs of clear interest in pursuing a relationship of some sort.  But the vast majority of crushes were not and are not about actual sexual or romantic desire.  Most are like Tiffany’s crush on Professor P.

If we’re doing our job right, we have the power to change the way a student thinks about himself or herself.  At our best, those of us who love to teach are practiced seducers, Casanovas of the classroom.  But my agenda isn’t about sexual conquest, it’s about creating an interest and a passion where none previously existed. It’s about getting students to want something they didn’t know they wanted!  And when a student has a crush on me, I told Darren, it’s more often than not like Tiffany’s crush on Professor P.  Though some students may sexualize their crushes, what they really want is to continue to feel the way you make them feel: excited, energized, provoked, challenged. 

If we take advantage of student crushes, I told Darren, we make a huge mistake.  We assume that the real interest was in us rather than in how we were able to make our students feel and how we were able to make them think.   The best way, I told Darren, to think about student crushes is to take them as a sign that you’re probably doing your job pretty damn well.  And while age and perceived physical attractiveness may play a small part in encouraging these crushes, the real precipitator is enthusiasm, talent, and an obvious commitment to your students.

There’s an old axiom in pop psychology: we don’t just get crushes on people whom we want, we get crushes on people whom we want to be like!   Students don’t get crushes on me because they want to go to bed with me or be my girlfriend or boyfriend; they get crushes on me because I’ve got a quality that they want to bring out in themselves.  They’re externalizing all of their hopes for themselves.  And rather than encourage the crush to feed my ego, my job is to turn the focus back on to the student, encouraging him or her to take their new-found curiosity or enthusiasm or passion and use it, run with it, indulge it, let it take them places! That’s what student crushes mean to me.

After I wrote some of this to Darren, he wrote back:

"Hugo, thanks.  But honestly, I’m a little bit crestfallen.  I did want it to be about me! I did want my students to want me, even though I know that that seems so selfish and manipulative.  At the same time, I’m glad to know that you think there’s a healthy function for these things.  Still, I’m a bit chagrined."

I told him I knew how he felt.

“My life doesn’t just revolve around you”: a note of gratitude for a feminist mom

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 20, 2006
in Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Feminism, Men and Masculinity and Relationships
. 17 Comments

I’ve been posting quite a bit about families and obligation lately.

My mother called on Saturday to tell me that she liked my "daring to disappoint" post from last Tuesday.   She gave me her permission to post the following.

My parents divorced when I was six; my brother and I were raised by a single mother.  (Our father visited regularly, and theirs was — thank God — a civil and even cordial separation.)  It was not easy being a single mom to two very young sons.  We might have lived in Carmel, but money was tight at times, and my mother had to cope with all of the anxieties and doubts that come in the aftermath of a divorce, separation, and the assumption of sole permanent custody.

But as we talked about on Saturday, my mother also gave a great gift to my brother and me: she always made it clear that she wasn’t sacrificing her life for us.   From the time we were small, our mother always took time for herself.  She had her poetry group, her work with the League of Women Voters, and other social and community activities in which we were not involved.  Now mind you, she was a loving and devoted mom!  My brother and I grew up knowing we were cherished and protected and cared for.  But we also knew that our mother did not exist merely to meet our needs — she had a mind of her own, wants of her own, and she was going to make time for herself as well as for her sons.

What my mother wanted to do, and succeeded in doing, was liberating us from the horrible pressure of living our lives to pay back a mom who had "sacrificed everything for us."  My mom had seen too many parents devote everything they had to their children, with their only joys coming from their kids’ successes.  She had seen some of those kids grow up into anxious and guilt-ridden adults, who were continually haunted by a sense that their mothers and fathers (more often their mothers) had given up so damned much for them.  There are few burdens more awful, she felt, than having to live a life that justifies all of your parent’s sacrifices!

My mother was and is a feminist.  As I’ve written before, we grew up with Ms. Magazine and books by Germaine Greer and Kate Millett on the coffee table.  But my mother’s greatest feminist lesson was this: she made it clear that we could not expect women to drop everything for us.  Relationships mattered, families mattered, love mattered — but personal happiness mattered too!  My mother knew that someday her sons would be in relationships with women, and she knew enough to know that how she met our needs as small boys would be reflected in many of our choices when we became boyfriends, lovers, and husbands.   So she showed us two things:

1.  She loved us very, very much and always would

2.  Her happiness was not solely contingent upon us

I grew up with absolute certainty about both of these things, and it was and is one of the greatest gifts my mother could have given me.  My mother never, ever, gave us the awful speech far too many of my students get: "After all I’ve done for you, you owe it to me to…"  I’ve seen friends of mine who still struggle as adults to overcome the tremendous guilt they feel, knowing how much their parents sacrificed for them.  And while I honor that their parents did make sacrifices, I urge these same friends to not pass on this dreadful legacy to their children.  This doesn’t mean abandoning your kids, mind you — it’s perfectly possible to shower your children with love and give them a sense of security while simultaneously making it clear to them from an early age that your happiness does not hinge on what they do!

So my belief in the importance of women’s autonomy and personal freedom — even as wives and mothers — came to me early in life.  A first-born son growing up in a household without a father (amateur psychologists, have at it!), I was very close to my mother.  I still am.  And my adult feminism is linked in no small way to the lessons she taught me.  Motherhood, I learned, is a role — but it need not be an all-consuming identity.  The fact that my mother had a life outside of her children gave me the confidence to live out my life without fear that I would destroy her if I made mistakes or deviated from a planned path.  Her commitment to her own happiness allowed me to make a similar commitment to my own — and for that, I will forever be tremendously grateful.

Some lengthy thoughts on feminism, traditional families, contingent happiness and daring to disappoint

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 14, 2006
in Ethnicity, Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Feminism, Relationships and Sexuality
. 17 Comments

Okay, I really like this post I just wrote.  Sorry, it’s long.  I won’t have another long one up for a couple of days, though, so if you’re willing, wade through. Thanks.

In a comment below last Friday’s post about virginity and expectations, a wonderful former student of mine named Connie writes:

Hugo, my question is this, how do we deal with the pressure of knowing our parents sacrifice so much so that we can succeed?

My parents have always given me everything I ask for and expect nothing in return except that I excel in my academics so that I can be successful, live a good life and help them out when they get old. What frustrates me is that this seems like such a simple request that I should be able to fulfill it with ease. Yet, because the notion seems so simple, there is more pressure and if I can’t do something as simple as studying and getting good grades, I am a failure. Having an education is simply not enough. I have to be at the top of my class. Sometimes I wonder if that’s part of my parents’ paradigm or mine because I am always striving to be the best. I guess I fear letting my parents down if I settle for average and as a result, I let myself down. I just want to be happy but I can’t be unless my parents are. I love my parents immensely and am forever grateful for everything they’ve sacrificed for me, I would just like to prove that to them and give them something in return.

Connie fits into the same demographic of many of the students I’m writing about: the child of Asian immigrants, raised with one foot firmly in this culture and another elsewhere, trying so hard to live up to what are, as she makes clear, intense and sometimes overwhelming expectations.

I’ve thought a lot about what it means to teach feminism to a classroom filled with young women whose parents believe that their daughters owe them something. It took me a long time to come to grips with just how crushing those expectations are that women like Connie describe. (I was fortunate: my parents told me that while they hoped I would do well, they would be perfectly satisfied if I merely earned the "gentlemen’s C".  Yes, when I was at Cal in the late-80s, some folks still used that expression without a trace of irony!)  And while male students from certain working-class or immigrant backgrounds also are hit with the burden of parental expectations for success, they usually get to escape the simultaneous requirement that they be virginal while earning straight As!

For so many young women from these backgrounds, sexual purity is less about a private spiritual decision and more about honoring an obligation to a mother and father who have invariably sacrificed so much so that their daughter could have a "better life."  Most of my first-generation students at the community college are acutely aware of just how hard their parents have worked to give them the chance at an education and a promising career.  Though their parents may or may not have strong religious beliefs, they almost always teach their girls that pre-marital sex represents a threat not merely to their daughter’s personal success but to the well-being of the entire family.  Just as in the most tradition-bound of societies, a daughter’s virginity is still all- too-often powerfully connected to the hopes and dreams and sacrifices of a mother and father who have come so very far and worked so very hard for a better life.

And virginity is also of course a symbol for all of the other things a dutiful and hard-working daughter owes to her parents.  In most traditional cultures, daughters and daughters-in-law will be the primary providers of elder care.  Connie writes that her parents expect her to take care of them when they get old. Of course, they’d probably like her to get married and give them grandchildren.  And if she marries a man from a similar background, his parents may expect their daughter-in-law to care for them when they become elderly.  And she’ll do this while holding down a terrific job of which her parents can be suitably proud, and being an excellent mother to their grandkids.  And somehow, women like Connie describe this as "a simple request"!

So you deny your sexuality through your entire adolescence, and put off sexual relationships until you’re finished with college.   Ideally, you find the husband (whom the ‘rents hope will be from the same ethnic group) just as you begin to climb the corporate (or medical) ladder.  You have kids while somehow holding down the job.  You prepare marvelous meals that reflect the best traditions of your ancestral cuisine, your hair and makeup are immaculate, your body is trim, your husband is kept happy, and two sets of doting grandparents are given well-behaved children.  You then begin to care for those grandparents while still holding down the job, still raising the kids, still cooking the superb whatever from the old recipes, still keeping your husband happy.  Sister, ain’t nothing simple about it!  From a feminist perspective, it looks like one long litany of sacrifice, one long list of obligations, one long reminder that as a dutiful daughter, wife, and mother, one’s happiness is always contingent on the joy one brings to others.

I think I’m fairly close to accurately describing the pressures with which so many of my students contend.  But identifying the problem, and enumerating the pressures, is not the same as offering a workable solution.  And of course, there isn’t an easy solution.  Just as many folks have told me this week that when it comes to my comment policy I can’t please everyone, so too many of my students will have to make the hard choice to either continue to exhaust and deny themselves or to choose to rebel.  And it’s my explicit hope that they will choose the latter.

In advocating rebellion, I am not advocating dropping out.  I’m not advocating reckless or self-destructive personal behavior. I am advocating that these young women begin to ask themselves the hard question: what do I want?   I want them to begin the immensely difficult task of silencing those nagging internal (and external) voices that urge self-denial, endless sacrifice, endless sublimation. I want them to talk to each other, to seek support from other young women in similar straits — to plot strategy, share family war stories, and offer encouragement to take the first tentative steps of feminist rebellion.  This "feminist rebellion" will look different for different women.  For one, it might involve telling Mom and Dad she wants to major in history rather than chemistry or business.  For another, it might involve learning to masturbate — without guilt.  For another, it might involve choosing to move out rather than stay at home as her parents expect.  For another, it might involve bringing home a young man from a different ethnicity.  Or bringing home a girl.  If the parents are Catholic, it might involve becoming a Pentecostal.  Or if parents are Presbyterian, it might involve becoming a Buddhist.  The one thing all of these rebellions will have in common is that they will be small steps towards self-discovery and towards personal growth and joy.

Usually at this point, the young women to whom I’m directing this interrupt me:

Hugo, it’s so easy for you to say all of this!  You’re a man, you’re white, you have no idea just how hard it is to ‘rebel’!  You don’t understand the consequences of what you’re saying; you don’t have any idea of how much guilt I’ll feel if I disappoint my parents!

In one sense, they’re right.  I can’t truly know what it’s like to be a first-generation female college student, carrying the hopes and dreams of my parents and my ancestors on my shoulders, on my heart –or on my hymen.  Sure, I’m privileged in ways that I probably don’t even fully understand.  But I do believe that at the heart of the feminist project is this: women ought to have the right to pursue happiness.  That happiness will manifest differently in the lives of different women; some will find their most sublime joy in marriage and motherhood while others will find it in on an archaeological dig while others will find it in the arms of another woman.  And if feminists can agree on one thing, it’s this: the collective sacrifices of your parents, ancestors, and culture do not trump your own personal right to be happy.

I do not hold this belief in contradiction to my Christian faith.  Rather, it is reinforced by it.  In Matthew 10:35, Jesus makes it clear that service to God is always more important than duty to family:

For I have come to turn  a man against his father,a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law — a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.

While Jesus is referring specifically to what it will cost to follow Him, the broader implication is clear: in the final analysis, there are things that matter more than loyalty to one’s parents.  Honoring mom and dad is indeed one of the commandments, but honor is not a synonym for obedience.  The Christian journey is partly about discovering the unique purpose for which we each were made, own’s own unique role in building the Kingdom; the feminist journey is about essentially the same process.  Though both feminism and Christianity are about building community, they are also about an ultimately solitary journey of transformation and joy.  As a Christian and a pro-feminist, a teacher and a youth leader, I want to build community while encouraging young folks to set out on their own personal journeys.

I have no illusions that the feminist project will be an easy one for most of my students.  But the choice, ultimately, is often a stark one: a lifetime trying to live up to a crushing set of obligations or a series of difficult but ultimately liberating confrontations with one’s family.  Those confrontations don’t have to take place all at once; some rebellions will be private and small and secret while others will be major and dramatic.  But in the end, big or small, these rebellions need to happen.  And we who care about feminism, who care about the lives and the happiness of young women, have to not only encourage rebellion, we have to walk with them through it and be with them as they cope with the fallout of telling the truth about their own wants, hopes and desires. To the best of my ability, that’s what I’m trying to do.

In the end. we can comfort ourselves with this: the greatest way we can honor our parents may not be through living up to their hopes and expectations.  The greatest way in which we can honor them is to choose to live lives of personal happiness and public service.  Their sacrifices, like the sacrifices of their parents before them, were not in vain if we reject their values: our personal choice to be happy, even if it scandalizes and bewilders our family, is nonetheless a testament to all that they gave up for us.  Whether our parents accept that or not, we can use that thought to encourage and reassure those who are tormented with guilt or doubt about claiming their own happiness on their own terms.

But it still isn’t easy.

Another long musing on freedom to, freedom from, and the idol of “analysis paralysis”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 10, 2006
in Athletics and Fitness, Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Feminism, Men and Masculinity and Sexuality
. 32 Comments

It’s not yet eight in the morning, but I’ve been up since half past four.  Boxing continues to come along, though I’m now having trouble learning the "hook."  It’s not the punch that troubles me, it’s coordinating my hip movement with my pivot foot.  There’s a reason I’m a runner, and poor body coordination is it.  I have homework for the weekend, that much is certain!  I got a lot out of all of your suggestions about skipping rope last week (I’m up to 30 seconds straight now!), and so I’m asking any boxers out there to offer their thoughts…

Another long post ahead.  For those who want to just read the synopsis, here you go:  "Hugo can’t make up his mind again, and realizes that it is privilege that allows him to vacillate perpetually about the great issues of the day.  He realizes that this is a character flaw, but it seems to be one in which he takes an unseemly pleasure.  He ends with a decision to work more on boxing."

Here’s the full post:

The winter intersession is almost over, and my first experience of teaching women’s studies within a compressed calendar has gone very well.  The students seem to have coped well with the deluge of information I’ve dumped on them, and they’ve continued to participate at a fairly high level.  To my great delight, they’re willing to question the interpretations I offer for various issues in recent feminist history; we’ve had some good discussions.  I’ve got a couple of young women who fall into the "sex-positive feminist" category, and they’ve vigorously defended the notion that the commercial sex industry can offer real benefits to both the women who work in it and the growing number of women who enjoy consuming "the product."  While it’s fairly clear that I’m suspicious of that line of reasoning, I’ve welcomed the remarks these students have made; it seems the class benefits from the discussion.

I realize that I’m at another one of my periodic crossroads in my feminist development, and that issue brings it up.  As a pro-feminist professor, I long to see my students (of all sexes) grow intellectually and politically.  I delight in their growing awareness that gender has a history as a socially constructed idea, and I’m excited to serve as a witness to (and sometimes a catalyst for)  their "liberation" from some of the more constricting "constructs" they’ve been raised in.   As hackneyed as words and terms  like "empowerment" and "consciousness raising" may seem in 2006, they’re still vitally relevant in women’s studies.  I want my students to challenge the institutions and structures that tell them that women are of less value than men, that women’s sexuality exists primarily for men’s pleasure, that a narrow ideal of perfection constitutes the only acceptable body type.  I want, to paraphrase the great Elizabeth Cady Stanton, to have my students think of themselves as subjects, nouns, and verbs rather than adjectives and objects.

But at the same time that I am concerned with empowering individuals, I’m equally concerned with raising their commitment to their sisters across the globe — and those sitting next to them in class.   The hardest point to make, in the latter regard, is that contemporary feminism requires a balancing of one’s own "freedom to" with another’s "freedom from."  One student’s freedom to wear a miniskirt and a tube top may leave her feeling confident, sexy, and liberated; the woman sitting next to her in school may feel "less than", inadequate, and self-conscious as a consequence.   An unthinking conservatism addresses the problem by telling the first girl simply to cover up; a shallow pop culture tells the second girl to just "get over it."   But if there’s one thing that I believe that feminism ought to recognize, it’s that we have to be equally concerned with the freedoms of each of the women involved. I don’t want a world where women of any age take no responsibility for those around them; at the same time, I don’t want a world where the emotional safety of some is ensured by shrouding others in shapeless clothing that conceals anything that could arouse either desire or envy!

This is where I get so torn about abortion, too.   As a feminist, a Christian, and a human being, I’m awed by the equal power of the competing claims of a woman and of the life growing inside of her.   A woman’s right to autonomy seems to me to be an absolute, fundamental, irreproachable good; an unborn person’s right to life seems equally compelling and unquestionable.  The older I get, the more I think about the issue, the more convincing the arguments from both sides become!  And as a consequence, the more confused and politically paralyzed I become.  Just as I am adamantly opposed to dress codes of any sort (because I don’t feel comfortable imposing limits on individual self-expression), I am equally worried about those who feel unsafe or inadequate as a result of the choices of those around them.  And just as I am convinced to the depths of my soul that life does begin at conception, I am just as equally swayed by the argument that the most basic right we possess is the right to control our own flesh.  If we don’t have corporeal autonomy, aren’t all other rights moot?

It’s one thing to be privately stuck in what my friend Jon Bruno calls "analysis paralysis."  It’s another thing to teach from that position!  I worry that my own enduring confusion will be transmitted to my students, and instead of giving them clarity and inspiration I will offer them only doubt and ambiguity.   While in other fields, doubt and suspicion are actual intellectual virtues, they aren’t necessarily the sort of thing that’s helpful in women’s studies.  No, that doesn’t mean that women’s studies shouldn’t involve critical analysis; it does and should.  But women’s studies is also about activism.  At its best, it is never merely descriptive — it is also ultimately prescriptive.  (That admission makes the conservative opponents of feminism howl, of course.  But that’s another issue.)  And if we want to raise up intelligent, thoughtful, educated activists for the liberation of women and men, is it ideal to have a professor whose favorite private expression is "Yes, but on the other hand…"?

Of course, here’s one point that I can make: my ambivalence is a mark of privilege. (It’s also a sign of a character flaw.  I tend to praise myself, undeservedly so, for always seeing both sides of the issue.  I raise indecisiveness to the level of a virtue, and that’s always a mistake!)

In the final analysis, what a student wears doesn’t really affect me.  My self-esteem is not regularly battered by a media ideal (though I, like most men, am not entirely unaffected by our body-obsessed culture; my own workout schedule makes that clear).  And when it comes to abortion, I’m never going to have one.  I’ll never be pregnant or give birth.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t have strong feelings about the issue; when (Lord willing) I walk with my wife through a future pregnancy I will be awed and moved by the experience I’m witnessing.  But as a man, once the conception process is over, I’ll still be a witness (though a devoted and passionate one) rather than an actual participant.  To be paralyzed by the prospect of choosing between competing equal goods, is something I can afford to do — something all men can afford to do — because we do so from a distance.

But I’ve found that in my teaching, public passion and private uncertainty can happily coexist.  Unless they read this blog, my students are not privy to my constant second-guessing of my own beliefs. "On stage", in front of my classes, I can articulate a clear vision of feminist autonomy and freedom, even as my faith and my soul are troubled by the consequences of what it is that I profess.  Does that make me a fraud?  I’d like to think not.  It just means that I’ve got farther to go on this journey!

And I’ve got more letters of rec to write, a left hook punch to master, and an 18-mile trail run to rest up for tomorrow.  I’ve got Dolly Parton’s celestial voice to comfort me now as I type, and I am in a damn near ebullient mood…

Should I put up synopses for all my posts?

The Top 5 in ‘05

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 9, 2005
in Favorite Posts, 2004-2006
. Closed

Wednesday, I posted the bottom half of my "Top Ten in 2005" posts.   After some agonizing (I did put up more than 500 posts this year) here are my favorite five.

5.  October 24th’s  Reunion Review: A Note on Memory, Myopia, and Grace. (Link corrected). Excerpt:

The glory of this reunion, for me, was not that I got a chance to "show off" the new Hugo (and, of course, his beautiful new wife.)  The glory was that I got to see my classmates, finally, as human beings.  I had been so intimidated and so awed by so many of them when I was that shy, introverted teen.  I had seen "jocks" and "preppies" and "cowboys" and "cheerleaders", but I hadn’t seen human beings.  I had felt abused and picked on, but I never realized how badly — even cruelly — I stereotyped my fellow students when I was in high school.  This weekend, more than twenty years after I left high school, I was able to see these same people and rejoice in the kind, fun, interesting human beings that they had become.  Heck, I realized that perhaps they had always been those things, and I, in the special narcissism of the high school loner, had just been too judgmental and myopic to see them for who they were.

4. July 26th’s  "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" and the Right to a Private History.  Excerpt:

When we marry, we promise each other many things: fidelity, devotion, and a willingness to share all one has.  For many of my generation who come to the altar after years and years of "experience", we perhaps ought to give another kind of pledge: the promise to focus on the future together, not on the past.   Real love rejoices in all the things that have made one’s husband or wife who he or she is today, knowing that without those experiences he or she would be a fundamentally different person.  But despite the often overwhelming temptation to pry, I’m convinced the wisest course is to acknowledge that there are some things none of us need to know, and we can give our partners and spouses the gift of an uncondemned, unchallenged, unquestioned past.

3.  November 7th’s A very long and personal post about men, women, childishness, and responsibility.  Excerpt:

I’m not proud of the fact that I prolonged a sulky and mercurial adolescence for nearly two decades.  I’m not proud of the fact that I chose to spend years and years stuck in the role of the irresponsible boy who wouldn’t grow up, who both wanted women to take care of him and resented the hell out of them for doing so.  But with the help of God and a whole bunch of folks here on earth, I’ve been busy in recent years letting go of these old patterns.   I no longer believe anything is, to paraphrase Barb, hidden too deeply in the psyche to change.  When I came back to Christ, I became enchanted with the idea that we are, as C.S. Lewis writes in the Last Battle, always called "further up, further in."  I see too many of my male friends and family members stuck in patterns set years and years ago; they seem to lack the desire, the willingness, and the faith to change.   But where my faith and my pro-feminism intersect best is in my belief that my conditioning and my biology and my past excuses are not determinative of how I will live my life as a man.  There is no "nature" we have that we cannot overcome, no habits we cannot break, no baggage that we can’t finally zip up and stow away for good.

2. May 18th’s More on older men and younger women, a long response to "Kate".  Excerpt:

Kate, I don’t know you.  But I can tell you I’ve known a few young women who’ve said things very similar to what you’ve said.   And I know that in the end, what many of them really wanted from older men was not a sexual or romantic relationship, but validation and recognition and attention.  In our highly sexualized culture, however, they couldn’t believe that a man would really love them and care for them unconditionally unless they could offer him something sexual or romantic in return.  They shortchanged themselves, and sadly, they found older men who reinforced the notion that their sexuality was the most valuable thing they had to offer.  I don’t know if that’s what’s going on with you.

Adults always tell teens to be patient, and teens get tired of hearing it.  But if I can give you a piece of advice, it is to be patient just a while longer.  Let whatever boundaries you have in place that have served you well stay in place just a little bit longer.  Keep those boundaries in place especially with the men who have a sworn (even sacred) responsibility to care for you as your teachers and mentors.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting.  But there’s much to be gained by waiting, just a little longer, before "taking the next step" with anyone, especially someone considerably older than yourself.  Once you become a legal adult, and (perhaps) are in college, you will begin to meet many different men who will be unlike those you knew in high school.  You might even find someone closer to your age who does share your interests and your passions.  Stranger things have happened.

1.   February 9th’s A beginning attempt at a Christian male pro-feminist theology of appetite — or further proof that I have lost it completely.  Excerpt:

Ultimately, I believe a man’s body is fully his and his alone in a way that a woman’s generally isn’t. I don’t bemoan that fact, nor do I celebrate it.  Rather, I’m increasingly focused on the notion that as  a result of this unmerited privilege,  men have a special obligation to do justice with their bodies.  What on earth does that mean?  First and foremost, it means "do no harm."   Unrestrained male appetite for food, sex, and alcohol, wreaks tremendous devastation on both a small and a global level.    Am I saying that women don’t abuse all three of these things?  Of course not.  But I think it can be safely argued that when speaking of sex and alcohol,  male uncontrolled desire has done far more harm.

I love my body, and not merely because it is "in shape" these days.  I love it because I have arms to hug with and a tongue to taste with and legs to power up a mountain with and hands to reach out with.  But I also recognize that my body is, to borrow a phrase from Stephen Carter, a "bundle of desires", some good, some not so good.  When I indulge myself in the latter, be it with a steak or a visit to a strip club,  my choices are harming other living things.  My right to pleasure stops when it extends to another’s exploitation, another’s degradation, another’s life, or even my own health.

Top Ten in ‘05: the First Half

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 7, 2005
in Favorite Posts, 2004-2006
. 3 Comments

Last year, at the inspiration of Bob Carlton, many of us submitted our "Top Five" posts of the year.  I’m going to be bringing my 2005 blogging to an end very soon — my last day of new posts for the year will be December 14, and then nothing again until January 3.

So call it excess, but I’m selecting ten posts this year with which I was particularly pleased.  I’m putting  up the first five (numbered 10 through 6)  today and I’ll put up the top five on Friday. 

10.  May 24’s A Long Reflection on Moving Away from Home.   Excerpt:

I want to help my students and my teenagers in youth group develop their individual autonomy, their individual selves, their individual identities.  For all my professions of faith, I still see offering people "choices" as among the highest of moral imperatives in a good society.   I want my teenagers to be able to extricate themselves from the constraints of their families and go off to find liberation in the dorms and the leafy green quads of American colleges in, if not another time zone, at least another county!

9.  March 8’s A short post wherein Hugo reveals his Luddite tendencies.  Excerpt:

I am sick and tired of having folks with doctorates in education (Lord help us) tell me that "lecturing is an outdated teaching style."  Well, it’s still a damned effective teaching style if it’s done well.  I put a lot of time and energy into crafting articulate, interesting, lectures, largely because I believe that for most students, it remains the most effective and memorable way to learn.   I do invite discussion and debate in some of my classes, and I welcome questions — but I cling tenaciously to the old-school notion that my job is to be an interesting, compelling, and provocative deliverer of information.

8. October 27th’s "No right not to be looked at": Reflections on lust and male responsibility. Excerpt:

I’m not suggesting that we can create a society where none of us ever gazes at another person with a fleeting sensation of desire.  But lust is about more than passing desire, lust is a conscious choice to not only look for a moment, but to continue to look. It’s the difference between an "appreciative glance" and a "penetrating gaze."  I don’t think it’s a tortuous and artificial distinction, either. I think it’s straightforward and practical, and with discipline, easily applied.  And let me be clear that my goal is not to create a de-sexualized, guilt-ridden society!  My goal is a world where men and boys, women and girls, interact with each other as loving members of the human community, with a sense of responsibility for each other and a commitment to love and protect each other. I want a world where young women can feel validated and seen, not because of their physical desirability but because of their essential worth as human beings.

7. August 11ths’ A Long Reflection on the Good Divorce.  Excerpt:

But I don’t just believe that divorce is an "evil" that can be forgiven.   Though many divorces are bitter and nasty, not all of them need be.  I’ve gone the bitter and angry route (in my second), and I’ve gone the loving, charitable, and (dare I say it) "positive" route (in my third.)  Thus in my own experience, I have witnessed the very real redemptive possibilities that can be found in the experience of marital dissolution.

In this last divorce process, which lasted months, I allowed myself to experience the unique "refining fire" that the end-of-marriage process can offer.  I am absolutely convinced that few other experiences, if any, can force one to confront the realities of one’s own sinfulness and one’s own selfishness!  In that marriage, especially in the drawn-out process which ended it, I faced some colossally uncomfortable truths about myself.   In the safe atmosphere of the therapist’s office, my ex-wife and I confronted each other.  But rather than just "dump", we both took the time to hear what we were being told.    And by doing that "hearing work", we not only validated the other’s experience, we came to terms with facts about ourselves we would never otherwise have seen.

6. January 12th’s Older Men, Younger Women, Integrity.  Excerpt:

Young women need older men in their lives who will respect and care about them, who aren’t their fathers or brothers but who aren’t prospective lovers, either.  They need to know that they bring more to the table than their sexuality.  They need to be seen as complete human beings.  Paradoxically, seeing young women as complete human beings means that in actions, words, and yes, even in thought, older men cannot see them as objects of sexual desire.  That doesn’t mean that we (older guys) shouldn’t acknowledge that younger women are sexual creatures.  But we must (and the burden is on us alone here, fellas) love them with radical unselfishness,and that requires that we ourselves always refrain from sexualizing them. 

I liked these posts — not my top five, mind you, but ones I want to remember nonetheless.  I invite my fellow bloggers to do the same, make their own lists, and we’ll see if Bob Carlton does his compendium again this year.

Relinquishing Control: Some Thoughts on Men, Women, and the Domestic Sphere

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 30, 2005
in Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Feminism, Marriage, Men and Masculinity and Relationships
. 46 Comments

The comments below this post continue to come in, and there’s an interesting exchange worth following up on.

Stacer wrote:  it can be very hard for women to relinquish control over what is traditionally her domain, especially if she was raised traditionally and/or has family members who pressure her in that regard.

I replied: Helping wives to relinquish that sort of control is a task that men, especially those who also come out of a conservative background, ought to consider embracing.

Caitriona asked in response: Uhm, just how do you propose that men "help" their wives relinquish control in these areas?

This is getting into some tricky stuff.  Let’s see if I can wade through it.

I’ve known a fair number of women who have been raised with the notion that the home is their domain.   The cooking, the cleaning, the childcare, and the general presentation of the household are things they see as entirely, or nearly entirely, within their bailiwick.  While many feminists have rightly asked their boyfriends and husbands to "step up" and take an active role in domestic tasks, many traditional women have not.  In some instances, they don’t ask because they don’t expect their male partners to be interested or willing to help.  But in other cases, these women have bought in to the notion that their very identity as wives and mothers is inextricably linked with how they "keep house."

Again, it’s difficult not to share too much from personal experience.  I’ve lived with quite a few women (some to whom I was married, some not).  They came from widely divergent social, economic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds.   In some of these relationships, my partner and I agreed to live in a kind of low-key slovenliness.  (I’m a bit of a slob, as anyone who has seen my office can tell you!)  In other cases, we agreed to keep the house or apartment up to a "higher standard", and we either shared the labor or (more recently) hired help to do it for us.

I almost never tell stories about my exes. Here’s a reasonably safe one.  One of my former wives was, like me, fairly sloppy ’round the house.  Laundry piled up, dishes were done intermittently, and so forth.  And then, a few months into our marriage, her mother (who lived some distance away) announced she was coming into town.  The day before my mother-in-law arrived, I found my wife on her knees scrubbing the bathtub.  While I had been off at school, she had been cleaning every square inch of the home.  "For heaven’s sake", I said, "what are you doing?  Your mother is going to stay in a hotel anyway."

My ex looked at me, almost tearfully, and she said "Hugo, you don’t understand."  She went on to explain how much pressure she felt to live up to her mother’s standards for how a home should look.  She said that pressure had only really become acute after we were married.  "My mom expects me to take care of you", she told me, "If the house isn’t perfect, it means I’m a lousy wife and a bad woman."  Though my ex-wife was a bright and competent and educated woman with a career outside the home, on that afternoon many years ago she was a frantic and anxious daughter, worried desperately about not living up to a standard that I simply could not understand.

I’ve come to realize (after three divorces and now, at last, in a truly happy marriage), just how often society at large (particularly in traditional culture) judges women by not only the state of their homes, but the outer appearance of their husbands.   I’ve realized that for some people, when a married man seems stressed or unkempt or troubled, the wife is invariably to blame. My former mother-in-law didn’t just expect a clean house from her daughter, she expected her daughter to have successfully arranged my life!  According to my former wife, she would be judged by her family in no small part on how comfortable, well-fed, and settled I appeared.  This was a stunning revelation to me. 

I’ve come to realize that this particular ex-wife did not come from an unusual family in this regard.  A great many traditional women know that they will be assessed and judged by family, peers, and community based on their domestic skills and the behavior of their husbands.  And as men, I believe we do have a role to play here!  We must be willing to do more than "help out" around the house (the language of a child doing chores).  We must proactively assert ourselves in domestic decisions, lifting a culturally-imposed burden off the shoulders of our spouses.  While it is not our job to help our wives reject their backgrounds, it is our job to help our wives escape the prison of mandated gender roles.  We do that not only by doing the dishes, but by being willing to say "Hey, it’s my kitchen too.  I can take care of it, and I will take care of it.  Let me be your equal partner here."

I’m not suggesting, ala some of the Promise Keepers, that men begin asserting the traditional notion of "headship" in the home.  But I am suggesting that men will do well to remember that their wives and girlfriends will often come from backgrounds that have loaded them up with crushing expectations about fashioning a domestic paradise.  While some women no doubt delight in some domestic tasks from time to time, feminists recognize that it is spiritually and intellectually deadening for women to connect their own sense of self-worth to the deliciousness of a casserole or the spotlessness of a floor or the whiteness of a freshly laundered t-shirt.  In the pro-feminist world, casseroles do need to be made, floors do need to be swept, and the laundry will still need doing.  But husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends can work together to extricate women from connecting these basic tasks to their own core identities!   

It’s not enough for men to simply volunteer to do a task occasionally (and then do it so badly that they have a permanent deferral from household work!)  Husbands must be willing to shoulder domestic burdens, and shoulder them well.   But husbands and boyfriends do well to be firm here.  Some women will be deeply anxious about relinquishing control over the domestic sphere, both because they may be afraid their husbands will screw up, and because they fear losing an aspect of their identity.  They may, as Stacer suggests, fear the harsh judgments of their culture; they may, as my ex-wife did, fear the contempt and disappointment of their own mothers.  While remaining compassionate and understanding, men also have to be willing to gently challenge their wives to let go of this ancient and tiresome baggage, and we have to be willing to shoulder our half of the load.

UPDATE:  I just re-read what I’ve written, and I think I’m going to catch some hell for the penultimate paragraph, which seems unfairly dismissive of domesticity.  I’ve opened myself up to the charge of sexism here, by making condescending assumptions about what tasks ought to be at the core of women’s self-worth!  Still, I’ll let stand what I wrote.  Just thought you should know that I can see another side or three…

An exceptionally long post on girls, boys, dress and desire

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 21, 2005
in All Saints Pasadena, Clothing and Fashion, Faith, Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Feminism, Men and Masculinity, Modesty, Sexuality, Youth and Youth ministry
. 29 Comments

A number of folks in the "femosphere" (my new term for feminist blogosphere) have been discussing the latest salvo in the "Teenage Fashions are Turning Our Daughters into Whores and it’s all Feminism’s Fault" wars, this Washington Post piece from yesterday’s paper:  What’s Wrong with This Outfit, Mom?  Today, Amanda and Jill both offer excellent "fiskings" of the Patricia Dalton op-ed.

I wouldn’t add my own thoughts, save for two particular paragraphs near the end of the article.  Dalton writes in the first one:

The girls who dress the most outrageously are often those most starved for adult male attention, first and foremost from their fathers. This happens most commonly with girls whose fathers have disappeared from their lives, perhaps following a divorce, or because their workaholic schedules leave them little time for their children. Children who are raised with attention and affection tend to identify with and admire their parents. This identification is the basis for both discipline and the transmission of values. Without it, parents can’t do their job.

I’m with her so far. Dalton is spot on that the absence of safe, loving adult male figures (fathers in particular) is linked to young women’s need for attention.   To be fair, it ignores the possibility that some teenage girls have their own agency, and are interested in sex with boys not because of absent fathers but because of their own libidos. I do not suggest that they are the majority of young women, but they are not an unheard-of subset of American adolescents.  Still, Dalton is to be applauded for her suggestion that men’s workaholic schedules play a part in the problem.  Anyone who is advocating that fathers spend more quality time interacting with their sons and daughters and less time at work, on the Internet, or in front of the TV is going to get no argument from me!

But the second quoted paragraph is a disaster:

I often recommend that fathers be the parent to take the lead in setting limits on their daughters’ dress, because opposite sex offspring typically cut that parent more slack. Fathers can say, "Honey, you can’t wear that. I know teenage boys — I was one!" A dad like this is looking out for his daughter and treating her as someone special.

Jill does a nice job tackling this:

No, he isn’t. He’s putting her in an even more vulnerable position — if something does happen with one of those teenage boys, she’ll internalize it as her fault for dressing in a particular way. When she goes out of the house and sees other girls dressing in more revealing clothes, she’ll become part of the group that looks at them and says, “You’re a slut.” Adolescence is hard enough on young women; when they’re already desperately trying to fit in and find their own identities, the worst thing one can do is encourage greater rifts between “good girls” and “bad girls,” and create even deeper insecurities in all of them.

And where is the dad who says, “Honey, I was a teenage boy once. I know that they’re capable of being reasonable human beings, and of treating women well. Don’t accept anything less than that” — and who tells his sons the same thing? Sexual equality and women’s physical safety simply cannot come from women alone. Shaming young girls about the way they dress isn’t the way to achieve anything.

Jill nails that,and I agree completely.

Thinking about what I would much rather have men say to their daughters, and thinking about what I say to teenage girls and boys, leads me into another youth group anecdote (you knew it would).  Three years ago, we were in the midst of our "sex month" with the kids at youth group.  (Four consecutive Wednesday nights of talking about sexuality, dating, and Christian ethics "All Saints style").  As we always do, we spent some time in single-sex groups.  There were just two youth leaders at the time, and my female colleague took the girls off to one room, while I went to another with the boys.

It was May.  The weather was warm.  One girl in our group, widely regarded by both sexes as being among the "hottest" of her peers, had worn some very short shorts, flip flops, and a tiny top to youth group.  As soon as I got the boys alone in the room, two of them started talking excitedly about what "Janae" (name changed, of course) had been wearing.   One of the boys, using what seemed to be the pervasive lingo of 2003, said "Dang, when I look at those shorts all I think is how much I want to ‘hit that’!" (The meaning of "hit that" ought to be clear even for those of you who don’t hang out with the younger set these days.)  The other boys all laughed and concurred,and then turned towards me with sheepish grins.  Yes, their youth minister was with them — but he was also a man, and they were operating under the homosocial assumption that even in church, it’s okay to objectify women and girls as long as only other men are around.

A younger Hugo would have rebuked them sharply.  I could so easily have given them the "Janae is your sister in Christ, boys!" lecture, and tried to shame them.  An even less mature Hugo might have validated what they were saying by agreeing about Janae’s attractiveness, if for no other reason than to affirm my masculine bona fides by showing them that I too was, after all, "just another guy" who enjoyed looking at pretty girls.  (Obviously, for the record, I never have nor will I ever use sexually objectifying language about any of the kids in my youth group.  But  I have heard stories of other male youth leaders at other churches who have not felt the same need to restrict, sadly enough).

But since the subject was supposed to be sex anyway, I figured I’d use Janae’s shorts as a teaching moment.   So I asked the boys: "What’s it like when a girl like Janae is showing a lot of skin? How does it make you feel?"  The replies came fast and furious:  "Dude, it’s so awesome!"  "I love it when you can see so much!"  And, of course "I can’t stop looking!"  I let the boys share and laugh and get squirrely, and then I quieted them again.  I asked: "When you say you can’t stop looking, what does that mean?  Do you really have no choice?" 

Silence.  One boy, "Aaron", blurted out "No way, dude.  No choice.  Girl that fine, can’t control my mind."  Other boys laugh and agree.  I wait, and then follow up: "Do all of you feel like Aaron feels?"  None of you think you can control where your eyes go and where your mind goes?"

More silence.  "Roger" speaks up: "I guess it kind of is a choice.  I mean, when you first see a pretty girl, you can’t help but look.  But you can choose whether or not you keep staring at her legs or her tits.  You don’t have to make the girl feel uncomfortable."  Several other boys quickly agreed, and Aaron found himself on the defensive: "I don’t know dude, I don’t know how you can say you really like girls and not be totally distracted by something so fine."  I smiled inwardly; Aaron, bless his heart, was trying to bully the other boys by threatening their masculinity if they didn’t take his side. 

To my delight, what followed was a serious discussion lasting fifteen minutes.  (That may sound short, but getting eight to ten boys in mid-adolescence to have a serious discussion for even that long is, I assure you, a significant achievement!)   With my prodding questions, the boys debated their own ability to control themselves. In the end, even Aaron grudgingly admitted that he too had a choice with where his eyes went.  Roger, his foil, high-fived him at this and said "Hey, Aaron, welcome to All Saints!" (A reference to the church’s staunch pro-feminism.)

What I said to the boys was something like this: "I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with noticing girls.  I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with fantasizing about them!  I do think there’s something very wrong when your focus on their bodies makes it impossible for you to also see them as people, as friends, as human beings. When you find yourself noticing a girl’s body, and staring at her skin, I don’t want you to beat yourself up.  But I don’t want you to make her uncomfortable either."

"Next time you’re looking at Janae’s legs, Aaron", I said, "I want you to gently remind yourself that Janae is more than just her body.  It’s okay to think she’s sexy.  But remember she’s not a pair of legs or breasts.  She may be hot, but she’s also a person, and whether you believe it or not, you are strong enough and good enough to never forget that she’s a person.    She gets frightened and tired and happy just like you do.  She may want you to look at her body, but even more than that, she hopes that you’ll also see her as a human being.   And no matter how hot she is, you’ve got it in you to never, ever forget that."  Aaron nodded solemnly, and I don’t know if he really heard me or not.

But other boys did, and I had a couple of them come up to me thank me for what I said and to talk more about the topic.  Boys almost never hear that they have choices about where they ultimately direct their thoughts and their eyes.  The myth of male weakness and the myth of the raging adolescent male libido that can never be contained are powerful influences. I don’t deny that young men can be very, very horny; I do deny that that horniness is so supremely overwhelming as to make it impossible for adolescent boys to see the essential humanity of even their scantily-clad female peers.

My goal is to reach young men "where they are" with a message about their sexuality that is realistic, loving, and both authentically pro-feminist and Christian.  Ultimately, I don’t want anyone, male or female, to feel ashamed of their desires.  I don’t expect them not to lust for each other.  But what pro-feminism and Christianity both insist on, even for young men, is that sexual desire, no matter how powerful, cannot be used as an excuse to rob our brothers and sisters of their humanness.  Whether Janae is in sweats or in short shorts, how the boys perceive her is ultimately their responsibility.  Of course they’ll be more easily aroused by her in short shorts!  Yet even if she were to wear a burka, plenty of her male peers would find themselves stimulated by even a flash of ankle.  The teenage libido is a powerful thing, after all.  We do well, I think, when we don’t fear all of that raging sexual energy.  We do well to acknowledge it, even celebrate it, and then ask that it always be tempered with a recognition of the other’s essential humanity.  That’s a far more effective strategy than either demeaning boys for lusting or asking girls to cover up in order to prevent the boys from doing so.

Yes, I do think adults should have input into how their teenagers dress.  I think it’s right and proper to ask kids to consider the consequences of their clothing choices, and to ask them to take some responsibility for the messages they send to others.  But I also think that we must do the more difficult — and yet ultimately far more rewarding — job of challenging the most basic beliefs about boys, sexuality, and the damaging discourse of the raging, uncontrollable, male libido.  When and if I have a daughter, I expect I will say to her what I have already said to many girls in my youth group and in my classes:

"Your body is not your enemy.  Whatever you wear, in winter or summer, you have both rights and responsibilities.  You have the responsibility to consider the time and the place you are wearing your outfit.  You should be aware that clothing can create envy.  But in the end, no matter what you wear, no one has the right to refuse to see you as a person because of your clothes or your skin.  You don’t ever have to choose between being desired and being taken seriously, and you don’t have to believe the myth that men cannot control their eyes or their actions.  Whether in a miniskirt or sweats, you are still a woman who deserves respect, because respect is not contingent on your body or your attire.  Believe it, and be willing to demand it."

A very long and personal post about men, women, childishness, and responsibility

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 7, 2005
in Age, Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Men and Masculinity and Relationships
. 49 Comments

Holy cow, more than 5000 hits today, the highest since the beginning of the year.  What gives?

One blog I read fairly frequently is Barb’s Lucky White Girl.  She’s got a powerful and deeply personal post up today about her own current relationship, her parents, men, women, and roles — especially the ways in which we find ourselves playing the part of the child.  Here’s an excerpt:

I don’t want to be the mother in this relationship.  Children are afraid of getting into trouble.  They hide things from their parents.  I don’t want to be the feared dictator, the enforcer of rules.

I don’t want to be the child.  Children are dependent.  I’ve lived my own life for so long, I’m good at taking care of myself.  I don’t want to, don’t need to go backwards.

I want us to be two independent, mature adults.

What I don’t know is this:

Is it possible to consciously mold this relationship into something different from what it is now?  Or are these things hidden too deep within the psyche to change?  If the old adage about not trying to change other people is true, is it fair/right/reasonable of me to expect or attempt such change within a relationship in which I am only a part?

I don’t blog about relationships much, but this is a topic painfully near and dear to my heart.  In my past marriages and relationships, I found myself– like so many men — taking on the part of the "naughty boy" and the "helpless child."   Time and again, I turned wives and girlfriends into mother-figures, and the result was inevitably disastrous.

I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers as to why we do what we do, or even why I did what I did. I do know that I’m not the only man who found "courtship" easier than "relationship."  Over and over again, I devoted time and energy to "getting the girl", and when I succeeded, soon felt vaguely let down and confused about my role.  It was all too easy for me to become increasingly childlike.  I figured out that most of partners were students of my emotions, and most of them were eager to make the relationship work.  So they were the ones who took over the "feeling work" of the relationship.  They were the ones who brought up when something wasn’t working, they were the ones who took on the primary role of keeping what we had "oiled and running", as it were.

When I lived with wives and girlfriends past, I’d quickly cede control over our living arrangements.  What went where, and what got done when were decisions I wanted my partner to make.  I thought I was being accommodating, telling myself and her "You know, honey, you care more about this (the color of the sheets, what kind of plants to have outside, what we have for dinner) than I do; why don’t you decide?"  And my wife or girlfriend would make a decision, and whether I liked the decision or not, I didn’t have much to say about it either way.  When pressed for my opinion, my favorite response was "Whatever you want, darling."  Of course, I liked having everything done for me — my wife or girlfriend maintained the relationship, kept things running, and in the cases where we lived together, made the major decisions about the house.  I said loving things, bought flowers occasionally, and did my best to be faithful.  That, I figured, was my part.

Now, as the son of a feminist mom, I was always very big on doing my share of the housework. I was a loyal washer of dishes, a frequent doer of laundry (I actually LIKE doing laundry), and a good grocery shopper.  But I thought of what I was doing as "doing chores", in much the same way I did chores as a child.  I did not take responsibility for making decisions about the household, even as I seemed to be — to the outside world — an equal partner in the running of the home.  I was very good at avoiding conflict. When conflict did arise, I had two tactics in my arsenal:

1.  Get very indignant and threaten to leave the relationship.

2.  Act like a small child, launch into a pathetic list of self-recriminations (what Robert Bly calls the "I’ve always been shit" speech), and get wife or girlfriend to feel sorry for me, start soothing me, and get off my case about whatever it was that I was doing that was driving her up the wall.

Can I see a show of hands of those who know what I’m talkin’ bout?

And of course, when it came to boundaries, I famously let the women in my life set them — and then promptly resented them for having done so.    A partner would say something fairly reasonable like "Hugo, I don’t feel comfortable when you go out with your ex-girlfriends without me." Realizing that these friendships with exes were usually tinged with something threatening to my current relationship, I’d quickly agree to my partner’s request to stop seeing so-and -so.  Soon enough, however, I would resent my current partner for putting boundaries in place, and I’d either start sneaking around behind her back or let the hostility build up inside of me.  Instead of being an equal partner in setting boundaries, I made my wife or girlfriend the arbiter of what was appropriate behavior.

One of my friends once told me:  "Hugo, relationships are like stoplights at an intersection.  In order for the traffic to flow, both sets of lights have to work.  Sometimes the light for the east and west bound traffic has to be red; sometimes the north-south.  There’s got to be partnership in setting limits; each set has to take responsibility for yellow, red, and green — or there’s chaos."  In my past, like a child, my basic approach to everything was "green".  In every area of my life, I waited for my partner to flash the yellow or the red light  She was the one who would decide how far we went.  We would always both end up resenting the hell out of each other for the other’s role.  I would always end up seeing my wives and girlfriends as controlling, mothering, and judgmental; they would always see me as irresponsible, dishonest, and childlike.

I know damned well that I’m not telling a unique story here.  Anyone identify with me — or my exes?

One of the things that I’ve been committed to in recent years has been the notion that transformation and change is a never-ending opportunity, and an unavoidable responsibility.  The battle-cry of my teens and twenties in relationship was "Accept me as I am!  This is my nature!"  The marital mantra of my late thirties is "Push me, and I’ll push you!  Don’t let me settle for less than I could be, and I won’t let you be less than what I believe you are capable of being."  This doesn’t mean that my wife and I sit around pointing out each other’s shortcomings.  It does mean that we know we have an opportunity to grow and transform together. Yes, my wife and I each have our "baggage"  (In my case, it’s a whole damn Louis Vuitton luggage set), but part of growing up in relationship is letting go of the idea that one’s childhood, one’s parents, or one’s previous relationships are an excuse for not doing hard spiritual and emotional work.

I’m not proud of the fact that I prolonged a sulky and mercurial adolescence for nearly two decades.  I’m not proud of the fact that I chose to spend years and years stuck in the role of the irresponsible boy who wouldn’t grow up, who both wanted women to take care of him and resented the hell out of them for doing so.  But with the help of God and a whole bunch of folks here on earth, I’ve been busy in recent years letting go of these old patterns.   I no longer believe anything is, to paraphrase Barb, hidden too deeply in the psyche to change.  When I came back to Christ, I became enchanted with the idea that we are, as C.S. Lewis writes in the Last Battle, always called "further up, further in."  I see too many of my male friends and family members stuck in patterns set years and years ago; they seem to lack the desire, the willingness, and the faith to change.   But where my faith and my pro-feminism intersect best is in my belief that my conditioning and my biology and my past excuses are not determinative of how I will live my life as a man.  There is no "nature" we have that we cannot overcome, no habits we cannot break, no baggage that we can’t finally zip up and stow away for good.

I’m not ashamed to say that it is only now, in my fourth marriage, that I feel like I’m showing up as a fully adult man.  As tempting as it sometimes is, I will not go back to playing the part of the "naughty boy"; I will not place the burden of relationship maintenance on my wife’s shoulders alone.  My mother is my mother, my wife is my wife, and never have the roles seemed as radically distinct as they do now. It has been a helluva lot of work to get here, and I’ve got miles and miles to go , but I’m on my way.

“Don’t Look”: Rethinking Ways of Seeing

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 26, 2005
in Faith, Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Politics, Porn and Relationships
. 16 Comments

Typepad is still having problems.

I’ve been reflecting on the simple words "Don’t look."

Not long ago, I was walking through Old Town Pasadena with a group of my Wednesday night All Saints teens.  We passed two homeless men slumped against a wall.  Neither was aggressively panhandling, though they did have a cap upside down on sidewalk in front of them with some small change inside.  As we approached, I heard one of my girls say to her friend "Don’t look, those guys are really disgusting."  They quickened their pace and dropped their heads and hurried on.   Since we were out on a small, informal, but nonetheless "church-approved" outing, I should have spoken up right away.  I didn’t, however, and that was my mistake.

Our selfish instincts tell us that there are many things from which we ought to avert our gaze.   Homeless people, for one.  Dead animals by the side of the road.  The sick, the needy, the unattractive.  From the time most of us are children, we’re taught that it’s okay, even appropriate, to turn away from the reality of human and animal suffering.  Most of us don’t want to see what the cow goes through in order to become our burger.  Most don’t want to see how my beloved chinchillas die to become coats.  We don’t want to see the weeping parents in Pakistan, the desperate and starving children in Niger.  These images will upset us, discomfit us, challenge us — and we don’t like that.

My mother regularly gives to a wide variety of charities.  She’s long been a steady contributor to Amnesty International and other human rights agencies.  But she hates seeing the terrible pictures often enclosed in their mailings to her, pictures of human beings who have been horribly mistreated as prisoners of conscience.  She often says, jokingly, "I’d give them more money if they’d stop sending me those awful photos!"  She wants to give, but she doesn’t want to see.  I understand; my wife and I get an extraordinary number of solicitations from animal rights organizations, usually filled with images of abused and malnourished dogs, horses, seals, and other creatures.  And I have a hard time looking at all that suffering.

At the same time that we are told not to look at the reality of human and animal pain, we are encouraged to look at images that degrade and exploit the human person.  We do live in an increasingly porn-saturated culture, a point that commenters across the political spectrum have made with growing concern.  It matters little whether we’re talking about the demure Playmate in Hefner’s monthly, or the raunchy images found on a "bukkake fetish" website, we live in a society that is increasingly tolerant, even enthusiastic, about looking at the exposed bodies of (mostly) young and economically vulnerable women.  What our forebears couldn’t look at (because porn, while very much extant, was not nearly as available) or wouldn’t look at (out of a sense, however incomplete, of religious morality), we gaze at and consume with an ever-increasing degree of comfort and nonchalance.

And as with pornography, so, of course, with violence.  In television, film, and increasingly in interactive video games, young people seem to have no problem viewing an extrarordinary number of killings.  The same folks who can’t stomach watching a cow slaughtered for food have no problem playing Grand Theft Auto, or sitting through "Saw" and similar bloody epics at the cineplex.  Looking at faked violence, like looking at the artificial and falsified sex in most pornography, is much easier than gazing at real suffering, particularly when encountering real suffering and real exploitation might make a moral claim on us to take action.

So I’ve come to a conclusion about my spiritual journey.   God is calling me to see, and respond to, the very things that those around me tell me I ought not to look at.   God is calling me to look at the homeless man on the street, look him in the eye, and whether I can give him the help he needs or not, at the very least acknowledge him as my brother.  I am called to look at how the food I eat is prepared, and not turn away my gaze from the reality of the slaughterhouse.   Reminding myself of the smell and the sight of slaughter helps keep me away from meat when I’m tempted, let me tell you!  I must look at the images of suffering in Pakistan, Iraq, Louisiana, and Darfur, even though looking makes me uncomfortable.  Whenever humanly possible, I must respond to what I see with compassionate action.  But if I can do nothing, even then I still must look; in the end, the last thing we can do is, if nothing else, serve as witnesses to the reality of the suffering of our fellow creatures.  At the very least, we won’t be ignoring their pain.

And just as I am called to look at what I don’t want to see, I am called to turn away from what I do want very much to look at!  Over and over again, many times a day, I find myself challenged to avert my eyes.  Each day, I make the conscious choice not to look at porn.   Each day, I make the conscious choice not to objectify those whose bodies are a click or two away from being on display on my computer screen.  Each day, I remind myself that my eyes are tools to help me see the reality of God’s creation.   My eyes are here to help me see those whom I am called to serve, and to see those who I am called to love.  They are here to make me more compassionate.  Visual porn in any form may please me, but it also inoculates me against the reality of the personhood of the woman at whose body I am gazing.  It distracts me from where it is I ought to be directing my sexual energy.  And it makes me a little more selfish, a little colder, and a little less human.

Jesus often is fond of turning conventional wisdom on its head.  He’ll often begin a talk by saying "You have heard… but I say to you…"  What I hear Jesus saying to me at this stage of my journey is that I need to see the very things my friends and family and culture tell me I ought not to look at.   And I need to turn my eyes away from the very things that my society encourages me to delight in gazing upon.

Reunion review: a note on memory, myopia, and grace

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 24, 2005
in Age, Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Memories, Vanity and Youth
. 5 Comments

I’m back in the office with several hundred midterms to grade over the next ten days.  My goal is to have them all returned by Thursday, November 3.  This means that grading, appropriately, will have to take precedence over posting!

My wife and I spent Saturday and Sunday up in Carmel, where we attended various events connected with my twenty-year high school reunion.  (And before I go any further, may I say my wife was absolutely heroic.  Indeed, all spouses and partners who go to entire reunion weekends deserve special medals!)

Saturday afternoon, we went to the Homecoming football game (the "Padres" are a lot better this year than we were when I was a student, and posted a satisfying shutout.)  Saturday night, about 50 members of the class of 1985 ( a good third of our small graduating class) gathered for snacks and drinks on Cannery Row; yesterday, we had a family picnic (complete with a rented bouncy castle) in Carmel Valley.  I’ll see if I can’t put some photos up later this week.

It was a remarkable experience.  I did not go to my ten-year reunion in 1995, so this was the first time I had seen many of my classmates in two full decades.  Anyone who has gone to such a reunion will surely know the sense of shock at seeing vaguely familiar faces, now already lined with wrinkles and the signs of twenty well-lived years.  A few were instantly recognizable, but in most cases, I had to use the name-tags we all wore.  (Without name-tags, it would have been very difficult!)  Very few people recognized me instantly either, so I didn’t feel too bad about stumbling over people’s names.

One of my friends, knowing I was going up to Carmel this past weekend, asked me about my real motives for attending the reunion.  "Are you going to show off, Hugo?", he asked.  This friend knows what I looked like in high school (a sample pic provided here).    I may now be a solid ENFP, but when I took Myers-Briggs in high school, I was a clear INFJ.  Some personality traits can be changed over time, I assure you.  What that means, for folks who hate all of these letters, is that I was very much a shy, chubby,  unathletic, geek. (That may not be true of all INFJs, but it was for me.)  Now, by no means am I any less a "geek" today at 38 — it’s just that I’ve dealt with overcoming the "shy" and the "unathletic" !  So yes, there was a significant part of me that did want my classmates to see how much I have changed,  both in terms of my body and my personality.   

But I did not go to the reunion merely to seek validation. My real reason was a driving curiosity to see whether my classmates had made the same kind of physical, emotional, and spiritual changes that I have made in the last twenty years.  I cannot begin to tell you how gratifying it was to see just how many of those with whom I went through school (some I saw this weekend I had known since second grade) had become interesting, kind, fun people.  Because I was never a popular kid in high school, I had the customary resentments directed towards the cooler, more popular boys and girls.   I’ll admit that when I was a teenager, like many bookish and shy kids, I imagined myself to be a better (or at least a deeper) person than many of my classmates.  Even then, I didn’t like the way I responded to teasing with comforting thoughts of my own superiority. 

Yesterday afternoon, as I talked with other ‘85ers and watched their many small children play, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction.  I chatted with real estate developers and airline pilots; stay-at-home moms and nurses; fellow teachers and ranchers.  (Parenthetically, what many folks don’t realize about Carmel is just how rural the school district is.  Most folks only know the affluent beach area — but Carmel’s students are more likely to come from horse and cattle ranches in the Valley than they are from the multi-million dollar properties on the water.   In terms of an ethos, we’re more Ford F150s and boots than BMWs and loafers).  And as I talked and listened, I was humbled by the sense of grace I felt wash over me.  Kids whom I remembered as popular and aloof and ineffably cool were now doting, loving moms and dads, fumbling with sippy cups and wiping their children’s drool off shirts and blouses.  We talked less about what we were like in high school and more about our lives today.  Since we are all the same age (38), we’re all, more or less, struggling with similar issues.  We talked about mortgages, infertility, day care and school districts; we talked about aging parents, our own battles with skin cancer, and about our looming fortieth birthdays.  We talked about how busy our lives were.

The glory of this reunion, for me, was not that I got a chance to "show off" the new Hugo (and, of course, his beautiful new wife.)  The glory was that I got to see my classmates, finally, as human beings.  I had been so intimidated and so awed by so many of them when I was that shy, introverted teen.  I had seen "jocks" and "preppies" and "cowboys" and "cheerleaders", but I hadn’t seen human beings.  I had felt abused and picked on, but I never realized how badly — even cruelly — I stereotyped my fellow students when I was in high school.  This weekend, more than twenty years after I left high school, I was able to see these same people and rejoice in the kind, fun, interesting human beings that they had become.  Heck, I realized that perhaps they had always been those things, and I, in the special narcissism of the high school loner, had just been too judgmental and myopic to see them for who they were.

I was humbled and touched by my experience this weekend. I don’t know that I’ll keep in touch with many of my classmates; I’ll probably only speak to most of them again when we gather (grayer, older, wiser, gentler) in 2015 for our thirtieth.  But whether I see them or not in the next ten years, I left the reunion weekend with warm and affectionate feelings for all of them.  Perhaps it’s just sentimentality that has me feeling this way, but I’d like to think it’s grace  - - the grace that has allowed me, after two decades, to put some old demons to bed and embrace unconditionally some truly wonderful folks whose essential goodness and complexity I have only now begun to see.

Be well, Carmel High class of 1985.

The Clitoris and Corinthians

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 20, 2005
in Body, Christianity, Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Masturbation and Sexuality
. 26 Comments

I posted this morning about the happy compatibilities between vibrant faith and activist pro-feminism.  I believe everything I wrote, of course, but sometimes, sometimes, sometimes… I wander into what I worry are unfortunate contradictions.

This will be long:

My lecture in women’s history this morning was about nineteenth century attitudes towards women’s sexuality.  It’s the same lecture I wrote about in this April 2004 post.   In addition to talking about clitoridectomies, and the shift to the "medicalization of morality", we wandered on to the topics o