It is hard to talk about this without hearing female voices saying “I’ve always had more men-friends”. This isn’t what I am thinking of. I am thinking about how I have moved through the man’s world and for so much of that time been accepted by men almost as though I was one of them.
I was never the kind of female that men chased after. I am good looking, although always plumper than the accepted standard. I am very smart. I am direct. I am not particularly ambitious or driven. The last may be one of the reasons why they can accept me so easily. If I am not seen as threatening it is fine. It has not been my experience that men dislike intelligent women. Nor have I found men to be disdainful of women who can be direct. But I have seen both responses from men toward women other than myself. Why should I be treated differently?
I remember my father telling me that I was like a truck driver. Mostly I believed because of my facility with four letter words. That is not the only reason. I am not a delicate flower, but I am not a woodsy outdoor jock type either. There is something solid, dependable and relentless in me that made my father think of a blue collar worker.
I understand men. I know the fear that society has placed in them about appearing too female (you know, being a pussy) the anger they feel about having to “man-up” for so much of life, and the confusion they feel about women, about sexuality, about emotions. It is this sympathy, empathy, that I believe allows me in where most women are not allowed. I know their fears and identify with them. I also was/am afraid of being too female. It is dangerous for us both.
I like shopping (when I have the money) I like jewelry and cosmetics and bath products. I like a warm luxurious bed piled high with comforters to sleep in. I am a sensual animal. Animal. I remember that there are also parts of me that enjoy walking on a rocky beach on the coast of Maine in January. I like hot chiles on my burritos. I recognize power. I recognize that I am an animal and do not resent its implications. Men understand this. Few women want to.
There are women who will say that they too feel this way, but unlike me they are doing it to make men comfortable. I am not concerned with whether men like or dislike my type of femininity because I am not trying to have a man. I am not looking for a husband, boyfriend, partner.
Men know when you are looking and women have been taught to look. Even if you are married, you must look. It is an internal looking. It is the desirable quotient. You must be desirable and you must gauge that by your marriage-ablility. There are women today who will disagree with this statement. But I have watched them marry the men they pretended not to pursue.
So why do I believe that men accept me as one of their own?
One time, I organized a brunch after a meeting. We met in a really great café on Ave A. I had extended invitations to my friends, men and women alike, but for some reason only the men showed up.
We had a great time, lots of laughing, sharing stories and gossip. At the end of the gathering as we were getting ready to leave, one of them said to me:
“This was a great idea Laura. Next time why don’t you invite some women?”
I was standing, preparing to leave, when he made this remark. I was so stunned I sat back down into my chair with a thump.
I looked at no one in particular, but I threw out my hands across the table and said,
“What am I—wood !??”
This got a huge laugh, and I did laugh myself, but it has always stuck with me.
Men like me, but for some reason, most of them don’t see me as female. Or so it would seem.
Maybe it’s because I have a brother; maybe because I have a son. Maybe it’s because I read “Iron John” that men find me other, not really a woman. I suppose I am posting this partially to assert, despite the belief of some male readers, that I do not hate men. Shit, I am an honorary member of the tribe.
Showing posts with label Fitting In. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fitting In. Show all posts
Friday, February 5, 2010
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Your Sex Life and Mine
L J is having sex. A lot of sex. With multiple partners. What investment could I possibly have in her sex life?
I am way out of the loop as regards women and their sex lives. I don’t have many women friends who talk openly about it anymore. Once our sex lives, or lack of them, were topics of discussion nearly every time any of us got together. When I was a teenager we worried about orgasms --would we know if we had them? These were the days when women were called frigid if they didn’t respond enough sexually, according to their husbands, and we were really frightened of it—frigidity. We didn’t know that men could be bad in bed.
In my twenties and thirties, talk about sex, what we liked, didn’t like, hadn’t done and wanted to do, was conversation over coffee, while waiting to pick up the kids from nursery school, and of course in consciousness raising groups. We learned to demand satisfaction, to demand good sex.
My friend (the one who is having all the sex) and I talk about sex frequently now that she is doing it so often. Previously, we talked about it only cerebrally, or as part of another longer discussion. But these days we talk about it straight up.
I haven’t had sex in years. This makes me a freak if it comes up in conversation with women; not a freak exactly, but definitely someone to be pitied, and a bit scared of. It could be catching.
The thing is this kind of conversation does not happen much among women anymore. I have asked around, and it seems to be true. I think women are afraid of not fitting in, even in feminist circles. Is there such a thing as the good feminist?
I think we are talking about authenticity. Or at least partly.
One can buy in. For instance, in the 90s people covered themselves with tattoos, perhaps identifying with an ancient or indigenous culture. I have them; I wanted them since I was an adolescent in the early 60s. I was told that only criminals and sailors got tattoos. People will align themselves with cultures (not necessarily ones they were born to) as identifying markers, to create belonging. Witness how many white kids are enveloped in hip-hop culture, taking on the language of black culture, even to the point of tying to assimilate the n-word.
The thing about being genuine is that too often now it is mistaken for standing out, or being an outsider. People like to think of themselves as outsiders, as though there is power in it. Being an outsider carries a kind of cool cache, and this has become the problem, especially if all that is required for membership can be acquired with the flip of a credit card.
Why is “Sex and the City” considered good feminist viewing? Think about it. There is something shallow about what pretends to be alternative (for lack of a better word) culture now. It was of course existent (in ways) as banal and shallow always, but underneath there seemed to be a kernel of authenticity to those who could not (stress could not) fit into normal society. As these zones of authenticity stretched to bring lesbians, gays, the transgendered, into a society already being demanded to acknowledge the rights of the “other” in society we became nations within a nation. This supposedly should have given us immediate entrance into a tribe of belonging, a home in the world; it actually may have given us less to push against and brought us more (welcome or not) into the mainstream.
This is not necessarily a good thing. For women this may be especially problematic. If a woman is not only not asked to the table, but does not continually recognize that there is a table, that there is a place where she is not welcomed or acknowledged, she clings (often without realizing it) to what she has been allowed. She desires Jimmy Choo shoes for her feminist feet, and a smoothly veneered image of a free sex life.
Without the press of the absolute need to be genuine, to inhabit our authenticity, we stop talking about the things that are nearly impossible to talk about because they seem so big and unwieldy, or worse, embarrassing. The things that are easier to discuss like theories and political agendas, and voting, have moved out the original idea of women and politics: the personal is political.
So I am personally invested in LJ’s sex life. It is the power of her personal struggle, and her honesty, that binds me to the tribe I am searching for.
I am way out of the loop as regards women and their sex lives. I don’t have many women friends who talk openly about it anymore. Once our sex lives, or lack of them, were topics of discussion nearly every time any of us got together. When I was a teenager we worried about orgasms --would we know if we had them? These were the days when women were called frigid if they didn’t respond enough sexually, according to their husbands, and we were really frightened of it—frigidity. We didn’t know that men could be bad in bed.
In my twenties and thirties, talk about sex, what we liked, didn’t like, hadn’t done and wanted to do, was conversation over coffee, while waiting to pick up the kids from nursery school, and of course in consciousness raising groups. We learned to demand satisfaction, to demand good sex.
My friend (the one who is having all the sex) and I talk about sex frequently now that she is doing it so often. Previously, we talked about it only cerebrally, or as part of another longer discussion. But these days we talk about it straight up.
I haven’t had sex in years. This makes me a freak if it comes up in conversation with women; not a freak exactly, but definitely someone to be pitied, and a bit scared of. It could be catching.
The thing is this kind of conversation does not happen much among women anymore. I have asked around, and it seems to be true. I think women are afraid of not fitting in, even in feminist circles. Is there such a thing as the good feminist?
I think we are talking about authenticity. Or at least partly.
One can buy in. For instance, in the 90s people covered themselves with tattoos, perhaps identifying with an ancient or indigenous culture. I have them; I wanted them since I was an adolescent in the early 60s. I was told that only criminals and sailors got tattoos. People will align themselves with cultures (not necessarily ones they were born to) as identifying markers, to create belonging. Witness how many white kids are enveloped in hip-hop culture, taking on the language of black culture, even to the point of tying to assimilate the n-word.
The thing about being genuine is that too often now it is mistaken for standing out, or being an outsider. People like to think of themselves as outsiders, as though there is power in it. Being an outsider carries a kind of cool cache, and this has become the problem, especially if all that is required for membership can be acquired with the flip of a credit card.
Why is “Sex and the City” considered good feminist viewing? Think about it. There is something shallow about what pretends to be alternative (for lack of a better word) culture now. It was of course existent (in ways) as banal and shallow always, but underneath there seemed to be a kernel of authenticity to those who could not (stress could not) fit into normal society. As these zones of authenticity stretched to bring lesbians, gays, the transgendered, into a society already being demanded to acknowledge the rights of the “other” in society we became nations within a nation. This supposedly should have given us immediate entrance into a tribe of belonging, a home in the world; it actually may have given us less to push against and brought us more (welcome or not) into the mainstream.
This is not necessarily a good thing. For women this may be especially problematic. If a woman is not only not asked to the table, but does not continually recognize that there is a table, that there is a place where she is not welcomed or acknowledged, she clings (often without realizing it) to what she has been allowed. She desires Jimmy Choo shoes for her feminist feet, and a smoothly veneered image of a free sex life.
Without the press of the absolute need to be genuine, to inhabit our authenticity, we stop talking about the things that are nearly impossible to talk about because they seem so big and unwieldy, or worse, embarrassing. The things that are easier to discuss like theories and political agendas, and voting, have moved out the original idea of women and politics: the personal is political.
So I am personally invested in LJ’s sex life. It is the power of her personal struggle, and her honesty, that binds me to the tribe I am searching for.
Love the One You’re With, or, The Song is You
It’s 4:30 in the morning, and I’m suddenly, without warning, thinking obsessively about Woody Allen quoting Groucho Marx on not wanting to belong to any club that would have him as a member. This is a painful thing to be thinking of at 4:30 in the morning.
It brings back, perhaps inevitably, the discussion I had yesterday with L and G about sex. Well, maybe it was really a conversation about sex and love. I’m not really sure. I find it really difficult to identify the latter. I’m bad with love, a beautiful mess with desire.
A friend has said, on numerous occasions, that he sees me as the hysteric par excellance. Until yesterday I think I didn’t really know what he meant. Now that I’m closer to getting his point, I’m not sure how to feel about it. I wrestle, perhaps more than I ought, with my desire—for independence, and perhaps somewhat paradoxically, for power and control. I wonder: does this make me a bad woman? Even more to the point, is a bad woman precisely the thing I want to be?
Why so much consternation over the question? Well, it’s a problem of belonging. Where, pray tell, does the bad woman belong? With whom? Does she belong only in and to herself? If so, will she be lonely? I really want to believe that the answer to that question is no. That the bad woman can find other bad women, or men who appreciate bad women, and have a sense of community, of belonging. However, she’ll have to work much harder at it than the good woman. The world doesn’t address itself to the bad woman. After all, to the meek go the Earth. Hell, let ‘em have it. As it stands, I want little to do with the place.
Somerset Maugham said: A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn’t pretty it won’t do her much good. This brings to mind a conversation I had with L about passing. Because I look the way the world wants me to look, at least for now, I can get away with being the bad woman—up to a point. Because let’s face it, the world at large punishes the bad woman. Most femmes fatale, those breakers of hearts, get their necks broken for their pains. The woman who kills is a monster, a demon; the woman who seeks her own desire a slut. The world is not safe for the bad woman.
I’m happy, and safe, only with those people who get me, who get the desire to reject the role I’ve been assigned. Which brings me back to Woody Allen and Groucho Marx. I need the people in my life desperately, but sometimes I worry, altogether too humanly, that I’m missing out on something out there in the world. That life for the good woman is better, happier. Of course, deep down I know that I can’t have it any other way—I am, at the very core of me, a bad woman, however hard it is to be one. And as one, I’m lucky to have a community of—let’s call ourselves feminists—who love and support me the way I am. I only wish there were more of us. That’s why this conversation, the one we almost never have, is so important.
To be a feminist in today’s world is every bit as difficult as it was at the outset of the movement—it’s just that the tactics used to keep us in check have changed. If we can’t talk about what feminism means today, and what we’re really up against, too many of us will suffer needlessly alone. We owe it to ourselves to be a better community.
It brings back, perhaps inevitably, the discussion I had yesterday with L and G about sex. Well, maybe it was really a conversation about sex and love. I’m not really sure. I find it really difficult to identify the latter. I’m bad with love, a beautiful mess with desire.
A friend has said, on numerous occasions, that he sees me as the hysteric par excellance. Until yesterday I think I didn’t really know what he meant. Now that I’m closer to getting his point, I’m not sure how to feel about it. I wrestle, perhaps more than I ought, with my desire—for independence, and perhaps somewhat paradoxically, for power and control. I wonder: does this make me a bad woman? Even more to the point, is a bad woman precisely the thing I want to be?
Why so much consternation over the question? Well, it’s a problem of belonging. Where, pray tell, does the bad woman belong? With whom? Does she belong only in and to herself? If so, will she be lonely? I really want to believe that the answer to that question is no. That the bad woman can find other bad women, or men who appreciate bad women, and have a sense of community, of belonging. However, she’ll have to work much harder at it than the good woman. The world doesn’t address itself to the bad woman. After all, to the meek go the Earth. Hell, let ‘em have it. As it stands, I want little to do with the place.
Somerset Maugham said: A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn’t pretty it won’t do her much good. This brings to mind a conversation I had with L about passing. Because I look the way the world wants me to look, at least for now, I can get away with being the bad woman—up to a point. Because let’s face it, the world at large punishes the bad woman. Most femmes fatale, those breakers of hearts, get their necks broken for their pains. The woman who kills is a monster, a demon; the woman who seeks her own desire a slut. The world is not safe for the bad woman.
I’m happy, and safe, only with those people who get me, who get the desire to reject the role I’ve been assigned. Which brings me back to Woody Allen and Groucho Marx. I need the people in my life desperately, but sometimes I worry, altogether too humanly, that I’m missing out on something out there in the world. That life for the good woman is better, happier. Of course, deep down I know that I can’t have it any other way—I am, at the very core of me, a bad woman, however hard it is to be one. And as one, I’m lucky to have a community of—let’s call ourselves feminists—who love and support me the way I am. I only wish there were more of us. That’s why this conversation, the one we almost never have, is so important.
To be a feminist in today’s world is every bit as difficult as it was at the outset of the movement—it’s just that the tactics used to keep us in check have changed. If we can’t talk about what feminism means today, and what we’re really up against, too many of us will suffer needlessly alone. We owe it to ourselves to be a better community.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)