Archive for the 'Sexuality' Category

Towards the “pleasure-affirming vision”: a review of the magisterial “Yes Means Yes”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 7, 2009
in Aggression and violence, Books, Feminism, Feminist Pedagogy, Mass media, Men and Masculinity, Sexual ethics and transformation, Sexual harassment and Sexuality
. 3 Comments

In mid-December, I ordered a copy of “Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World without Rape, edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti. YMY is an anthology filled with essays by writers well-known in the feminist blogosphere, and others who aren’t; by men, by women, by transgendered folks, by people across the sexual (and chronological) identity spectrum. But each piece in the collection offers a new and different insight into the questions of rape, consent, power and pleasure. Taken as a whole, these 27 essays constitute a visionary and immensely important contribution to the work of creating a new sexual dynamic between men and women, between men, between women, and within ourselves.

The foreword to the anthology comes from feminist comedian Margaret Cho, who in her familiar funny and painfully insightful style, sets the tone for the collection. She writes about the complexity of that simple word, “yes”, and the insidious variety of ways in which our sexist cultural rules work to extract that monosyllable from women. Though the title of the collection is “Yes Means Yes!”, Cho and the editors understand that an authentic “yes!” can only come in a dynamic where “no!” can be said safely. Just as it is infuriating and exasperating to have one’s genuine “yes!” overanalyzed, shamed, or denied, there are also huge psychic consequences to saying “yes” just to placate, to soothe, to avoid a fight. Cho writes:

I am surprised by how much sex I have had in my life that I didn’t want to have. Not exactly what’s considered “real” rape, or “date” rape, like my first time, although it is a kind of rape of the spirit — a dishonest portrayal or distortion of my own desire in order to appease another person — so it wasn’t rape at gunpoint, but rape as the alternative to having to explain my reasons for not wanting to have sex…

Often I would initiate the encounter just to get it over with, so it would be behind me, so it would be done. It is the worst feeling; it is like emotional prostitution, emotional whoring. You don’t get paid in dollars, you get paid in averted arguments…

I said yes to partners I never wanted in the first place, because to say no at any point after saying yes would make the whole relationship a lie, so I had to keep saying yes in order to keep the “no” I felt a secret. This is such a messed-up way to live, such an awful way to love.

It’s dangerous for any feminist man to claim knowledge of “how women think”, but in countless journals and in group or private discussions, I’ve heard women say almost exactly what Cho says here. And I’ve heard it from one or two of my exes from years ago, women who were honest enough (and often, angry enough) to call me on my own privilege, my own presumption, and the thousand ways in which I (who ought to have known better) helped to create a dynamic where I needed soothing. One of the most humbling experiences I’ve been through is listening to a lover recount to me, in excruciatingly candid detail, the way in which I worked (with her complicity) to silence her “No”, to “get” her “yes”. This is not to suggest that my male pro-feminism is rooted in a desire to make amends, or even worse, to reclaim some lost pride. But a great many men are oblivious to the ways in which their sense of entitlement — and women’s culturally ingrained people-pleasing behavior — work to make sex legally consensual but emotionally unwanted. For men who care about their partners, the realization that a woman has had sex to soothe, to placate, or “just get it over with”, is and ought to be devastating. And it ought to be an impetus to action, to candor, to hard work, and to conversation. Cho’s foreword sets a tone for all of that, while serving to remind us in scathingly honest fashion of the consequences of remaining silent. Continue reading ‘Towards the “pleasure-affirming vision”: a review of the magisterial “Yes Means Yes”’

Rejecting the narrative of male sexual indispensability

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 16, 2008
in GLBTQ, Sexuality, Youth and Youth ministry
. 24 Comments

One of my former youth group kids came to talk to me last week after reading last week’s post about sexual identity. Louisa, 19 years old, has been “out” as a lesbian since she was in ninth grade, and has been with her girlfriend for two years now.

Louisa is in love with her gal. But lately, she finds herself questioning her self-identification as a lesbian. Though she describes having always hated the label “bisexual” for what she saw as its “wishy-washiness”, she talked about her growing curiosity about what it would be like to be (sexually, if not romantically) with a man. Louisa has never done more than simple kissing with a guy, and she finds herself wondering whether she ought to “try something” with a man just to find out what it’s like. She admits she’s been driving her girlfriend crazy with this hemming and hawing about having an experience with a fellow. But her curiosity, more so than her libido (though she’s savvy enough to know that those two are often enmeshed) is causing her to be, in her words, “mildly obsessed” with knowing what it’s like to be sexual with a man.

Louisa has taken my gay and lesbian studies class. She has read her Adrienne Rich; she knows about the reality (not just the theory) of growing up in a culture of “compulsory heterosexuality.” And she knows very well that if she were with a man, she might feel far less psychological pressure to experiment with a woman. “We don’t make straight women prove their straightness by having sex with girls”, Louisa said, “so why do I feel so compelled to ‘prove’ I’m lesbian by trying something with a guy? It’s like I feel I have to earn my queer credentials.”

Louisa, who has known me since she was 13, wanted one thing from our conversation last week, and it’s something I don’t know if I was able to give to her. She wanted help discerning whether this fascination with trying “it” (specifically, losing her heterosexual virginity) was something rooted in her own psyche or whether it was a response to the dominant cultural narrative. I pointed out the obvious — that for most of those, those two things (“natural” or “inherent” longings on the one hand and the socially-conditioned ones on the other) are incredibly difficult to separate. A lot of us spend a great deal of time working through this process of discernment; it’s one of the toughest tasks of young adulthood, and not a task everyone succeeds in completing. But the fact that it’s difficult doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Clearly, most of us believe that our internal “bundle of desires” has innate and cultural-constructed elements. For example, we might say that for someone like Louisa, an attraction to women is largely innate while her attraction to partners who have dark eyes and like anime is largely conditioned. Continue reading ‘Rejecting the narrative of male sexual indispensability’

Disenfranchised grief, part two: grieving the end of transgressive relationships

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 15, 2008
in Emotional and Sexual Boundaries, Grief, Marriage, Sexual ethics and transformation, Sexuality and Youth
. 9 Comments

Though only a few comments have popped up, I’ve heard from several folks in the past couple of days about their own take on “disenfranchised grief”, the subject raised in this Feministing post which I followed up on here.

In one of those not-terribly-bizarre-but-nonetheless-interesting moments of synchronicity, two of my former students (one male, one female) wrote me over the weekend with stories of disenfranchised grief which had been tied to inappropriate sexual relationships. I’m sticking the whole thing below the fold. Continue reading ‘Disenfranchised grief, part two: grieving the end of transgressive relationships’

Colleges and Crisis Pregnancy Centers: troubling signs of an alliance

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 12, 2008
in Abortion, Birth control and contraception and Sexuality
. 13 Comments

The new Ms. Magazine is on the shelves. The feature article (only a preview is available for free online — please subscribe) is on the disturbing growth in the number of college health centers who refer pregnant students (or those who think they might be pregnant) to CPCs: “crisis pregnancy centers.” Crisis Pregnancy Centers, funded by churches and, increasingly, by the federal government, are in the business of preventing abortion by counseling pregnant women and girls to carry to term. They rarely, if ever, offer the same panoply of health care options that might be found at, say, a Planned Parenthood clinic.

A survey conducted this past summer by the Feminist Majority Foundation, publisher of Ms., found that of 398 campus health centers at four-year colleges that responded to a questionnaire, 48 percent routinely refer women who think they might be pregnant to CPCs. Although 81 percent also refer women to full-service health clinics, some campus centers say they want to give students “all of the options,” as one health-center director put it.

But CPCs don’t offer all the options; rather, they push the unsuspecting young women who walk through their doors to keep the pregnancy. They often push dubious, or even long-since debunked statistics about the correlation between abortion and suicide, depression, breast cancer, and difficult conceiving future children. While health-care providers are required by state law and the Hippocratic oath to put the well-being of the patient first, CPCs follow a mandate to protect only one entity, the “pre-born baby” growing inside the body of a woman whose own needs are of, at best, secondary concern. Indeed, other than providing anti-abortion counseling, there’s very little that CPCs can offer:

19 year-old Nina Lopez, a student at nearby Santa Monica College, encountered CPC tactics first-hand:

“Even before I found out I wasn’t pregnant, the counselor said I should abstain from
sex,” says Lopez. She picked up a fact sheet on “post-abortion stress” and was asked to fill
out a form that sought nonmedical information about her family and her religious beliefs.
And then, when her urine test revealed not a pregnancy but a possible urinary tract infection,
the center did not offer her any medical treatment or refer her elsewhere.

College health clinics who refer students to CPCs thus put their clients’ health at risk. All medical providers have an obligation to either provide necessary care, or to refer to another provider who can provide that care. Nina Lopez’s UTI was not of interest to the CPCs, however, so she received neither care nor a referral. The fault lies as much with the college health department that referred her as with the CPC itself. Continue reading ‘Colleges and Crisis Pregnancy Centers: troubling signs of an alliance’

The longing to “jump the life to come”: some thoughts on Shakespeare, pregnancy scares, contraception, and romantic myths

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 29, 2008
in Abortion, Birth control and contraception, Favorite Posts 2008, Memories, Sexuality, Youth and Youth ministry
. 69 Comments

There are a great many things I could blog about this morning, my own pre-election anxiety not least among them. I’m grateful that I’m leaving town (actually, the country) from tomorrow afternoon until late Sunday night — and that will give me a break from incessant poll-checking. Yesterday, I visited RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight and the DailyKos at least a dozen times each. I met with Stephanie, my Pilates trainer, this morning at 6:00. Though I normally do a private session with her three times a week, because of my travel schedule I won’t see her until next Wednesday morning — the day after the election. “We won’t see each other until after the election”, I blurted on my way out the door. “Oh God”, Stephanie replied, “I know. Let’s hope we’re both giddily happy at this time a week from now.” “Amen, sister”, I replied.

I will have more posts up about porn soon, but I am always reluctant to post too often about the same issue. I have a diverse group of readers, fortunately, and want to do my best to cover as many bases as possible. Two important voices for sex workers rights and for a “pro-porn” position, Amber Rhea and Renegade Evolution, have thoughtful responses to my recent posts. (Ren’s site may not be work-safe for all.) I’m glad respectful dialogue can happen.

I’m thinking about something else sex-related this morning. In the past month, three of the students I mentor (two women, one man) have come to me reporting pregnancy scares. They are all between 18-21, and each is in a committed relationship, though not with one another. In the case of the lad and one of the gals, the tests came back negative; in the case of the second young woman, she’s planning on taking a pregnancy test later today. (In case you’re wondering, yes, I do have a solid number of students of both sexes whom I mentor — and some of those students choose to seek me out for advice about their private as well as their intellectual lives. In cases where professional counseling is needed, my motto is “affirm and refer”, but in most instances, what these students need is a safe and reliable ear. Given that I teach so many courses on gender and sexuality, it makes sense that some students would seek me out for direction and counsel. I see it as part of my job, remembering that in my college days, I had a few professors from whom I sought personal as well as professional advice.)

I’m familiar with pregnancy scares. Heck, I’m familiar with unintended pregnancies, both in my own life as an adolescent and in my work as a teacher and youth leader. I have helped arrange (and in a couple of instances, helped pay for) abortions, and helped facilitate one adoption. I have been to two weddings of former students who got married as a result of a pregnancy. I’m honored to be trusted by as many young people as I am, and I hope to continue to be worthy of that trust.

But I’ve been thinking more about why so many young people I know choose not to use contraception. The gal who came to see me yesterday had been on the Nuvaring, but her insurance coverage lapsed, and she couldn’t get the scrip refilled. She and her beau had condoms available, but chose not to use them. “I don’t know why we’re so stupid”, she said to me yesterday. The young man I work with who came to me last week, worried his girlfriend might be pregnant, also reported that “condoms were available” at the key moment, but “we went ahead without them anyway.” I wasn’t shocked. When I got my high school girlfriend pregnant, we had condoms nearby as well. I didn’t like wearing them, and my girlfriend said she hated the way they felt. So we used them “some of the time”. And predictably, a pregnancy resulted.

The $64,000 question is: “Why?” Why do bright, educated young people who are very clear about how exactly babies are made choose to have unprotected heterosexual intercourse so very often? Why, on many occasions, do they find such flimsy excuses for not using contraception, even when contraceptive devices are easily available? In some cases, of course, lack of affordability is an issue — condoms aren’t as cheap as some folks think, and other forms of prescription contraception have grown much more expensive in recent years. In other cases, one partner (almost always the male) will nag the other about how “uncomfortable” condoms are. But in plenty of cases, these young people have access to reliable methods of birth control, and choose not to use them. Ignorance is not an all-encompassing explanation, and neither is expense. Something else is at play. Continue reading ‘The longing to “jump the life to come”: some thoughts on Shakespeare, pregnancy scares, contraception, and romantic myths’

“Pray to have Him hold you as a Lover”: thinking about Jars of Clay, Teresa of Avila, and erotic spirituality

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 23, 2008
in Christianity, Faith, GLBTQ, Marriage and Sexuality
. 17 Comments

After I wrote my post yesterday on bisexuality, Neil (the pastor whose parishioner had spawned the initial query) responded in a note to me. In the post, I made clear my view that bisexuality could be a stable, healthy, lifetime identity for adult men and women. I also made the case that it need be no impediment to a monogamous relationship with either an other-sex or same-sex partner; what mattered was the degree to which the bisexual person was willing to focus his or her sexual energy in one particular direction.

I’ve got a long reply here. Because of the subject matter, it’s all below the fold. And as the kids say these days, it “may weird you out”, so use your discretion. Continue reading ‘“Pray to have Him hold you as a Lover”: thinking about Jars of Clay, Teresa of Avila, and erotic spirituality’

100/100, not 50/50: of percentages, insurance companies, men, women, and apportioning responsibility in relationships

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 21, 2008
in Marriage, Men and Masculinity, Relationships, Sexual ethics and transformation and Sexuality
. 21 Comments

Somehow, the comment thread below my post on Facebook and boundaries got turned into a discussion of the degree to which each of us is responsible for helping those around us resist temptation. I’ve dealt with this issue before, particularly here and here.

In the thread below the Facebook post, Sam and I debate the degree to which the actions of other folks can be considered to be mitigating factors in considering our own responsibility (or guilt) for the choices we make. Examples included someone deliberately trying to encourage me, a recovering alcoholic, to resume drinking — or a woman trying to seduce a man she knows to be married or otherwise unavailable. That discussion can continue.

But the thread made me think about percentages. We often talk about basic math when it comes to relationships. We talk about “each doing our part” or how making something work requires that we “split things 50/50″. And many folks speak of longing to find their better half. But as the great relationship gurus tell us, our understanding of numbers, fractions, and relationships is poor. When it comes to making a relationship work, John Bradshaw points out famously, it’s not about addition — it’s about multiplication. In other words, two “half people”, each feeling incomplete because of childhood wounds, will invariably come together and make things worse. It’s not “one half plus one half makes one”, it’s “one half times one half makes one quarter.” When we haven’t done our work to develop self-awareness, autonomy, and the ability to differentiate, then the relationships we end up having will be chaotic, turbulent, and often soul-scarring. If we want a sense of unity and wholeness, we need to fix ourselves first. 1 x1 = 1. Multiplication, not addition. It’s a cute way of understanding a basic but important concept.

I think the same thing is true with percentages. Here’s something three divorces and four marriages have taught me: if I am doing 50% and expecting my spouse to do 50%, then the marriage will (one way or another) founder. It’s not 50/50, it’s 100/100. I need to be 100% responsible for my behavior. My wife cannot, cannot, cannot “drive me to drink”; I cannot “make her depressed” without her active consent. I am completely responsible for myself, and she for herself, and we need to do everything we can to make the relationship work. I say to people “We split everything 100/100″, because though that may not make sense in terms of arithmetic, it captures a basic truth about what it takes to make a relationship not only survive but be vitalized, dynamic, and ever-changing.

To get back to the example from the original thread: I am 100% responsible for my sobriety. If I choose to drink as a result of a fight with my wife, that’s on me. If I choose to drink because someone is nagging me to have a beer, that’s on me. At the same time, if my wife is cruel and vindictive in a fight, she is 100% responsible for her choice of words. She can’t “make me” drink; I can’t “make her” say mean things she doesn’t really believe. If either of us behaves badly in an argument, we each understand that healing and moving forward requires that each of us take full responsibility for our own behavior and our own words. The vital and living organism that is a marriage is created by and sustained by two equally responsible individuals who are equally responsible for its success or failure.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that all unhealthy behaviors are equivalent. If I cheat on my wife, for example, I am 100% responsible for having made the decision to do so. If my wife loses her cool when she finds out and throws a vase against the wall, shattering it in her anger, she’s 100% responsible for having done so. Obviously, the cheating is fundamentally worse because it involves a more explicit violation of the marriage vows; breaking a vase and sleeping with someone else are not entirely equivalent. But no matter what someone does to us or says to us, we don’t — as adults — get to say “but he made me do it.” My infidelity, were it to happen (which it hasn’t, no fear) would be 100% my fault, even if my wife hadn’t slept with me in six months. And her breaking the vase, were it to happen (which it hasn’t), would still be wrong and 100% her fault, even if she did so immediately after discovering me in flagrante with her sister.

We all affect those around us. We all stir up emotions and desires and fears in the folks to whom we are closely connected.. Sometimes, it seems as if we are toy animals on a baby’s mobile; touch one of us, and all the others jiggle and sway in reaction. If a loved one dies, I’m going to feel a great deal of pain. I have little control over that. But feelings and actions are too very different things — feelings are predicates to actions, but we have a cerebral cortex (most of us) which, if we choose to use it, acts as a gateway between the impulse and the deed. We can pretend that part of the brain isn’t there, we can imagine we are “weak”, but in the end, what we choose to do in relationships with friends and family and lovers is our responsibility. Continue reading ‘100/100, not 50/50: of percentages, insurance companies, men, women, and apportioning responsibility in relationships’

Rights, obligations, and the long arc of struggle: some thoughts on gay marriage, the election, and priorities

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 16, 2008
in GLBTQ, Marriage, Sexuality and Teaching
. 8 Comments

In my Intro to Lesbian and Gay American History class, we talked a bit about gay marriage yesterday. The course is structured chronologically, and as we approach the middle of the term, we’re just now getting to the 20th century. (I’ve been lecturing on the likes of Karl Ulrichs, Karl Benkert, and the great Magnus Hirschfeld.)

But a rigid attachment to chronologies is a dangerous quality in a history teacher. And though the outline of the class dictates we shouldn’t be talking about gay marriage until the final two weeks of class, the upcoming vote here in California on Proposition 8, which would ban same-sex unions, is a good reason to fiddle with the time-table for my lectures.

We don’t get into much discussion in class about our own sexual identities. Some of my students are “out” to me, others aren’t, and others are presumably heterosexual. But almost to a man or a woman, they’ve followed with deep interest the current struggle to protect marriage equality in California. I see “No on 8″ buttons and bumperstickers on notebooks and bags and shirts. When I brought up the subject of the election yesterday, the sense of excitement and anxiety was palpable.

I didn’t turn the lecture into a political sermon. Instead, I asked a question that a great many folks in the gay and lesbian community once asked — but ask more rarely now: Why marriage?

I asked my students what other major pressing issues faced the LGBTQ community besides marriage equality. Even my students who are out and proud and actively involved in campus organizing looked blank. For young gay and lesbian activists, lately it’s been “all marriage, all the time.” An entire movement has poured virtually all of its financial resources and political energies into winning one particular issue. And I suggested, gently but firmly, that there is a cost to such singlemindedness.

One bright young man asked: “But what other issue is there?” I get why he asks. Visit the webpage of the Human Rights Campaign, the best-known and best-funded gay and lesbian rights organization in America. On the front page, what other issue appears? If you click on the issues button, other topics (health care, ageing, the military) pop up — but you’ve got to do a bit of hunting about to find anything beyond “marriage, marriage, marriage.”

I teach women’s history classes too. Every semester, inexorably, the number of young women in that class who say that they never want to get married, or imagine that it is likely that they will never marry, increases. Demographers tell us that record numbers of Americans are turning 30, and 40, without being wed. And as countless radical activists in the GLBTQ community have pointed out, it’s more than a little odd that same-sex marriage has become the be-all and end-all of contemporary gay activism. Just as heterosexual Americans, perhaps particularly young women, become increasingly cynical about marriage as an essential component of future happiness, gay and lesbian Americans are told that winning “marriage equality” is more important than fighting workplace discrimination, getting better health services, immigration and tax issues, and so forth.

My students, of course, are not all eager to marry. But like most idealistic young people, they worship at the altar of “freedom of choice.” They say things like, “It’s not that everyone needs to get married, it’s that everyone should have a choice.” What inflames them about opposition to gay marriage is a sense of inequality — and many of the most inflamed are often those who say that they “can’t ever imagine” getting married themselves. Continue reading ‘Rights, obligations, and the long arc of struggle: some thoughts on gay marriage, the election, and priorities’

Pornography, empathy, and the misuse of the disease model: some further thoughts on a way forward

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 6, 2008
in Addiction and mental illness, Porn, Sex work, Sexual ethics and transformation and Sexuality
. 90 Comments

I’m easing back into blogging this week. I have a bad cold, my first in months, probably contracted over the course of various recent travels. My wife and I spent Rosh Hashanah with the Kabbalah Centre International in Dallas, Texas last week; on Friday we flew up to Northern California for a weekend at our family’s country place in the hills northeast of San Jose. We went, in the damp and the bluster of an early autumn storm, to the Cal-Arizona State Homecoming game in Berkeley on Saturday afternoon. And our plane finally landed at Burbank Airport at 10:30 last night. I’m a bit groggy, but hoping to feel better as the week goes on.

And the emails! Folks, if you’ve emailed me recently, please be patient. I’m more than a little swamped. (Seven — count ‘em, seven — with questions about older men/younger women relationships in the last week alone. Flattering but overwhelming.)

The discussion thread below my post on “rethinking a virulent anti-porn/sex work stance” is approaching 200 comments, and is still quite active (and, all things considered, reasonably civil.) Amber Rhea put up a lengthy and thoughtful initial response at her place, and both she and Ren took issue with this remark I made in the original post:

I am keenly aware that porn can play a part in reducing our ability to connect with each other as full and complete creatures of light. Porn, it still seems to me, is the enemy of empathy.

That deserves some more explanation.

Empathy, of course, is the ability to not only imagine what an other person might be feeling(sympathy), but actually to understand what an other person understands, feels, and experiences. Contemporary English often confuses empathy and sympathy to the point that even many scholars seem to disagree as to the precise boundary that separates one concept from another — a point driven home to me in a few minutes of googling about this morning! Here’s one possible definition, from an article for physicians:

The origin of the word empathy dates back to the 1880s, when German psychologist Theodore Lipps coined the term “einfuhlung” (literally, “in-feeling”) to describe the emotional appreciation of another’s feelings. Empathy has further been described as the process of understanding a person’s subjective experience by vicariously sharing that experience while maintaining an observant stance. Empathy is a balanced curiosity leading to a deeper understanding of another human being; stated another way, empathy is the capacity to understand another person’s experience from within that person’s frame of reference.

I like that last bit, and it’s relevant to the experience that I think a great many men have with heterosexual pornography. One of the valid criticisms that gets thrown at Robert Jensen is that as a man writing about men’s use of pornography from a feminist perspective, he centers men’s experiences and reactions; his Getting Off contains relatively few women’s voices. (Given that he was writing a book about how pornography impacted men, rather than an overarching cultural critique of commercialized sexuality, this seems like a fairly reasonable editorial decision to have made. The problem, if there was one with Getting Off, seems to lie in his fairly brief and caricatured descriptions of the women who work in pornography — more certainly could have been done to hear what they were saying.) In any event, both Jensen and I come to the same conclusion: almost regardless of the conditions under which pornography is produced, the impact upon the men who “consume” it regularly is often a decreased ability to connect and empathize with other human beings. Continue reading ‘Pornography, empathy, and the misuse of the disease model: some further thoughts on a way forward’

Manhood, Boyhood, Adulthood: a response to SamSeaborn

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 18, 2008
in Favorite Posts 2008, Men and Masculinity, Sexuality and Youth
. 59 Comments

Strong language in this post below the fold, at least a smidgen.

In a long comment below this post, SamSeaborn writes and asks:

You can be a great MALE while being a virgin. But can you be a great MAN?

These are three distinct layers of identiy - PERSON - MALE - MAN

So what is it that makes a MALE PERSON a MAN? Of course, sexual success with women is just one arbitrary measure. But what other criterion could be used?

He gets some sharp responses from other commenters, and those responses are excellent.

In one sense, though not perhaps in the sense he intended, Sam is right. We live in a culture in which manhood has been made distinct from biological maleness. “Boys are born, men are made” is the sort of thing repeated over and over again by those who imagine themselves wise about such matters. And there’s no shortage of institutions in our culture which promise to “make boys into men”; the military has done nicely for quite some time by recruiting on that promise very explicitly. Plenty of boys try out for football, or learn to hunt, or join a fraternity, or allow themselves to be jumped into a gang, all because of some desperate hope that through membership in a select company of the be-penised (the team, the gang, the Marines) the boy will be magically transformed into someone recognizable to his peers and to himself as a Man.

Heterosexual initiation is, as Sam makes clear, the sine qua non of real American manhood. That it ought to be otherwise seems wise and reasonable, that American males are generally made to feel it to be essential to their acquisition of manhood is indisputable. There are some wonderful works out there, by the way, about how young Catholic males view their presumably celibate and virginal priests — priests are often granted a special dispensation into ‘manhood’ by virtue of what seems a heroic sacrifice. And after all, priests and monks make a conscious choice to remain virgins (though some, of course, have sexual experience before their vows). And for many men in our culture, having enough “game” to have been able to have sex if one wanted to, but choosing otherwise because of a higher commitment, is sufficient to establish at least a partial manhood. It’s the males who are homosexual and have no interest in intercourse with women, or the males who (for all their desire) lack the “pull”, the “game”, the magnetism to get women into bed who receive the full measure of scorn from their fellows. Continue reading ‘Manhood, Boyhood, Adulthood: a response to SamSeaborn’

Against anxiety: of Full Frontal Feminism, the vapid recklessness of youth, and the reminder of the salutary effects of dirt

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 14, 2008
in Feminism, Feminist Pedagogy, Sexuality and Youth
. 29 Comments

I wrote a post last November about the very positive reception my students had given to Full Frontal Feminism, Jessica Valenti’s immensely popular and useful primer and polemic.

Now that I’ve assigned the book to several different classes, I’ve had a chance to collect a wider variety of reactions. Happily, the responses of my students to Valenti’s text remain uniformly positive, or very nearly so. And perhaps not surprisingly, one particular section of FFF continues to elicit the most impassioned reactions. In November 2007, I quoted this short section:

I’ve had more than a couple of embarrassing moments in my life and sexual history — but isn’t that what makes us who we are? Do we really have to be on point and thinking politics all the time? Sometimes doing silly, disempowering, sexually vapid things when you’re young is just part of getting to the good stuff.

That resonated with my students then, and it resonates now. I had some great in-class discussions about this particular passage in my spring class, and got some marvelous journal responses as well. And the real meaning of those three sentences is deeper than may first appear. One of the most salient of Jessica Valenti’s points is that the dominant narrative, the one that suggests that poor choices in puberty (particularly poor sexual choices made by girls) will “ruin your life”, is largely a false one. Continue reading ‘Against anxiety: of Full Frontal Feminism, the vapid recklessness of youth, and the reminder of the salutary effects of dirt’

“The opposite of rape is not consent; the opposite of rape is enthusiasm”: a revised and expanded post

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 15, 2008
in Aggression and violence, Favorite Posts 2008, Sexual ethics and transformation, Sexual harassment, Sexuality and Youth
. 42 Comments

I’m very much looking forward to Jessica Valenti and Jaclyn Friedman’s forthcoming anthology: Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape. I submitted a piece for inclusion, but a week or two ago received a very kind rejection note from the editors. I don’t think the short essay I wrote is viable for publication elsewhere, as Yes Means Yes will likely be the definitive work on the subject of consent for some time to come. So I’m posting the submission here.

This essay is a revised version of an earlier blogpost, of course. And though I am naturally disappointed that this essay won’t be included, I’m still very much looking forward to the appearance of the book, scheduled for later this year. in any case here goes:

“Yes means yes.” It’s a powerful, simple phrase, and important enough to be the guiding theme for this anthology. But the problem, of course, is that there is more than one kind of “yes.” There’s a world of difference between the “yes” said to appease or please, and the “yes” that comes from our core, brimming with enthusiasm. From the time we were children, most of us have been raised to say “yes” to things we would rather say “no” to: doing household chores, covering a co-worker’s shift, agreeing to pick a friend up at the airport. “Yes” often means “I am willing” rather than “Gosh, I’d really like to do that.” And while part of living in community with other human beings involves saying “yes” to things we’d rather not do, this issue of consent and enthusiasm is very different when the subject is sex.

This essay argues that when it comes to teaching young people about sexuality, we need to do more than make the case that “no means no, and yes means yes.” We need to make the case that consent is not enough. Great sex – ethical sex – is rooted less in mutual agreement than in mutual enthusiasm. It’s about moving from a “yes” to a “Hell, yes!”

I’m the elder of two sons raised in the ‘70s and early ‘80s by an avowedly feminist single mother. Mom hosted meetings of the League of Women Voters in our living room; Ms. Magazine rested on the coffee table. My brother and I didn’t get much of a sex talk from our mother, but she was gently insistent that we “respect” the girls we dated. When I was fifteen, I had my first girlfriend, Carmen. One afternoon, as my Mom drove me over to Carmen’s house, she warned me: “Don’t push her further than she wants to go. No means no, always.” I was acutely embarrassed (Carmen and I hadn’t moved beyond the kissing stage), and changed the subject. But I remembered the message.

The problem with the “no means no” slogan, as vital as it is, is that it implies the opposite is always true: “yes means yes.” “Yes means yes!” can be a triumphant statement about women’s sexual autonomy. But in a world where so many young women feel pressured to please others (particularly men), too many of the “yeses” uttered in dorm rooms and in the back seats of cars don’t reflect authentic desire. Too many “yeses” are coerced; too many quiet “okays” and “I guess so’s” are interpreted as blanket permission. When we confine our advice about sexual decision-making to a simple “no” means “no”, we risk sending the message that anything that isn’t a clear and strong “no” constitutes a “yes.” And as countless anecdotes told by young women reveal, that’s a recipe for disaster. Continue reading ‘“The opposite of rape is not consent; the opposite of rape is enthusiasm”: a revised and expanded post’

Nouns, not adjectives: Caroline Heldman and young women’s self-objectification

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 28, 2008
in Body, Clothing and Fashion, Eating disorders, Mass media and Sexuality
. 8 Comments

The new issue of Ms. Magazine hits the stands tomorrow. Of particular interest is an article by Caroline Heldman, assistant professor at nearby Occidental College: Out-of-Body Image: Self-objectification—seeing ourselves through others’ eyes—impairs women’s body image,mental health, motor skills and even sex lives. (It’s not available online; you will need to splurge for the magazine, which is well worth doing. A subscription is better. Ms., Bitch, and MakeShift are the three indispensables of feminist publishing.)

Heldman:

A steady diet of exploitative, sexually provocative depictions
of women feeds a poisonous trend in women’s and
girls’ perceptions of their bodies, one that has recently been
recognized by social scientists as self-objectification—
viewing one’s body as a sex object to be consumed by the
male gaze. Like W.e.b. DuBois’ famous description of the
experience of black Americans, self-objectification is a
state of “double consciousness…a sense of always looking
at one’s self through the eyes of others.”

In my work as a youth minister and as a women’s studies professor, I’ve seen this phenomenon grow seemingly worse in recent years. Paris Hilton’s remarks about sexualiy and her own self-objectification resonate; in 2005, she remarked that her titillating image is a product of her sexy sense of style, and in reality her boyfriends have commented on her less than rampant libido. She says, “I’m sexual in pictures and the way I dress and my whole image. But at home I’m really not like that. In other words, her sexuality is largely performative, almost entirely a response to an outsider’s gaze and not an expression of her own inner longing for anything other than validation. I’ve brought up this insight of Hilton’s with some of my students, and seen a variety of reactions, ranging from surpise to vigorous nods of recognition. Continue reading ‘Nouns, not adjectives: Caroline Heldman and young women’s self-objectification’

The enemy of desire is duty: against the 30-Day sex challenge and “Relevant Church”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 20, 2008
in Christianity, Favorite Posts 2008, Marriage and Sexuality
. 31 Comments

Marvin Lindsay sends me a link to the 30-Day Sex Challenge, famously initiated last month at the Relevant Church in Tampa, Florida. The challenge was simple: all married couples in the congregation were asked to have sex with each other each day for thirty days. These days were specific, mind you, running from February 17 to March 16. Presumably, the couples of this congregation are resting up this week for Easter? (Marvin’s take on the whole thing is here.)

First off, the name “Relevant Church”. I can’t think of a name for a Christian gathering I’ve liked less; it’s pandering and patronizing and offensive. It’s one of those terms (”Enlightenment” is another) that immediately creates unnecessary barriers by implying that if you aren’t with us, you’re the opposite of whatever virtuous thing it is that we proclaim to be. It’s one thing to call yourself a Christian Church, as that term doesn’t automatically imply that all others aren’t; to call yourself “Relevant” reveals the disdain you hold for the poor folk down the street at “First Baptist” or “St. Timothy’s”. I think I’m going to start a congregation called “Good Looking Hipster-People Church”, and see how that goes over.

Anyhow, on to the sex. Continue reading ‘The enemy of desire is duty: against the 30-Day sex challenge and “Relevant Church”’

Humiliation and becoming human: how erectile dysfunction made me a better man, husband, and person

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 14, 2008
in Body, Favorite Posts 2008, Memories, Men and Masculinity, Penis, Relationships, Sexual ethics and transformation and Sexuality
. 31 Comments

I count fellow Angeleno and men’s rights advocate Glenn Sacks as a friend, even though he and I are likely to disagree on virtually every issue. I winced a bit, however, at his rather snarky linking to my re-post in praise of erectile dysfunction. Glenn writes:

I guess if it’s humiliating to men, it must be good. Feminist professor/blogger Hugo Schwyzer recently wrote a blog post “in praise of ED.” Schwyzer writes:

“In my Humanities class on the ‘body’ yesterday, I noted in passing that there was much to be said for erectile dysfunction. I have always maintained that men would be far more insufferable than they otherwise are trained to be if the penis was, in fact, a muscle entirely under their control….ED literally softens the penis; it can also figuratively soften a man by forcing him to rethink his allegiance to a cruel and unattainable standard.”

In light of this, it kind of reminds me of an odd interaction I had with Hugo when he was on my radio show a couple years ago. We were discussing something related to sex–I can’t remember what–and I said something like “Of course, Hugo, men’s perspectives change as they get older. Like me, I’m sure you’re not quite the stallion you used to be.”

Hugo is a very nice guy, and it’s hard to get him angry over anything, but he was not happy over this remark. I was surprised, and didn’t quite know what to make of it. Any amateur psychologists out there have any ideas?

Uh, amateur psychologists? Leave your remarks over at Glenn’s place, please.

But my praise of periodic bouts of ED is not rooted in the internalized misandry of which I — and all other male feminists — are regularly accused. It’s rooted in many things, not least my own experience, about which more (because there’s a fair amount of TMI) below the cut. Continue reading ‘Humiliation and becoming human: how erectile dysfunction made me a better man, husband, and person’