It's funny, the broad thesis of Aella's post resonated with me but I agree with you her examples were ridiculous. I think the problematic ideals pushed by romance are closer to what you describe: expecting a long-term relationship to always be filled with passion and excitement, where the woman doesn't have to do any work to foster or maintain her attraction, and if that passion is missing, then it must be bad. The equivalent of the skinny, hairless nympho is a man who is deeply romantic and exciting at all times, yet also somehow stable and happy with domestic life, and never has romantic or sexual needs that the woman herself lacks.
yeah I'm just not sure if we are fed those ideas by romance. If anything, the propaganda is that men do big romantic gestures to get the girl and then they stop.
Thank you for this. Like you I come from an evangelical background, which perhaps adds a particular dimension here for me as a man.
I would like to think I was raised to understand that marriage requires emotional connection and "effort, dedication, paying close attention" - but in a linear, logical, "if...then..." way - IF i just put in enough work, THEN I would have a hot wife who fulfilled my dreams, sexual and otherwise.
It may seem like "entitlement", but from my perspective it was "earning." It wasn't that I saw emotional connection solely as a route to sex, but it was certainly framed in a "his needs/her needs" way and I thought I was ready to do my part.
And of course because we "saved ourselves" and put off sex into marriage, we struggled with the reality (body issues, effects of family dysfunction and poor role models, etc.), and it was a painfully difficult realization for me that I couldn't just work harder to "earn" the sex life I desired. Even the less toxic evangelical teachings on sex (Sheila Gregoire, etc.) carry a lot of these "if..then" assumptions than anyone can have a mutually satisfying sex life if both partners just put in enough of the right efforts. That messed me/us up for a long time.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I very much agree that relationships "require effort, dedication, paying close attention" etc.... but also that they require an openness to wherever that leads, and an acknowledgement that it may not be at all what you intended or hoped. I totally missed learning that second part.
Absolutely. I hate the framing of "his needs/her needs" because ideally both people should want an emotional connection and a satisfying sex life. Trying to find alignment on both is important!
Aella was comparing apples and oranges. I'd argue that extremely porn brained sex acts are the equivalent of the Bachelor helicopter date, and not something most men really want beyond like the fantasy/novelty aspect of it. I think if you're talking about sex most men just want a woman who genuinely finds them attractive and wants to have sex with them without their being made to feel like their desires are an imposition.
I do think it's funny that the example of deep emotional connection is doing lots of talking. That's very female coded. Men do value deep emotional connection but most of us experience it...through having sex.
Talking and language is part of what makes us human. Every couple should be spending lots of time talking. That’s why literally everyone says communication is the key to marriage. I’m sorry, but having sex is not sufficient or enough emotional connection for a relationship. It usually isn’t even purely emotional connection or emotional connection at all. Thinking sliding your dick in and out of someone constitutes appropriate emotional connection is insane.
This comment weirds me out because I’m kind of tired of men thinking they take care of the needs of both people in the relationship by… doing what they already do or getting more of what they already want.
It’s a lot like men say they “provide” and that’s why women should do the housework, even though the housework is providing and she now has to sacrifice her needs and career to take care of both people, while the man loses nothing because working his “providing” job is what he would be doing anyway if he wasn’t married. That isn’t fairness.
Sex is a fundamental part of relationships. It's a big part of what defines a romantic relationship vs a friendship. Every couple should be taking their intimate lives very seriously. I'm sorry, but talking about the boring minutiae of our days is not sufficient or enough emotional connection for a relationship. It usually isn’t even purely emotional connection or emotional connection at all. Thinking running your mouths at each other constitutes appropriate emotional connection is insane.
You see how easy it is to make someone else's needs seem base and embarrassing? Personally I think both communication and physical intimacy are very important for healthy relationships. The point of my comment is that just because women on average place greater emotional weight on talking and men on sex doesn't mean that talking is the 'real' emotional connection and sex is just an afterthought that isn't really important for relationship health. For many men it's core to feeling loved within the context of their marriage, and they really suffer emotionally if their wives decide they're done with physical intimacy or otherwise deprioritize it.
And if you really think that sex within the context of a loving relationship is merely sliding your dick in and out of someone...I'm sorry you've had such terrible intimate experiences.
I can tell now that you think this because your idea of emotional connection is “talking about boring minutiae of day to day life” and if that’s what you think it is, then… I’m sorry you’ve had such terrible intimate experiences.
Emotional connection involves vulnerability, sharing your deepest wishes, wants, dream, and needs. Deep conversations about the world that keep you up until 1 am. That is the kind of emotional connection relationships are built on.
You say sex is a fundamental part of relationships but it’s not. It is only fundamental to sexual relationships. Not even all romantic relationships are sexual, as asexual people and people who otherwise are not interested in sex exist.
Emotional connection is superior and more important to society as it is the cornerstone of literally any type of relationship. So acting like sex is “more important to men” is like saying that men can somehow get away with not participating in the very base function of human connection and simply get all of what you want from sex, which sounds predatory and weird.
Communication and working together is a relationship. Sex is a physical bonus in relationships. That’s how relationships work.
Some people prioritize sex lives or sexual compatibility as important in choosing a partner. Some don’t and they’re perfectly happy with it.
Sex is physical, and cannot replace mental closeness and intimacy.
Please don't take my feminist card here but I'm going to have to side with the dude on this one... he never said communication was less important. "Talking and language" isn't the only thing that makes us human... sex is also an important part of an intimate, romantic relationship... for both men and women. I don't understand the desire to pit the two things against each other. Let's just all strive for awesome relationships where we have satisying conversations, strong emotional connections and great sex that both partners are happy with 🤷🏼♀️
I think you are underestimating the level that porn affects men's real, lived sexual appetites. Violent, harmful sex acts are extremely common, look at the rise in women's anal related injuries. It is not just a "fantasy" thing for a lot of men, for some of them it becomes an expectation of what sex is.
I might be being very literal, but over saturation from porn is literally more harmful physically and psychologically than having a disney-fied view of the world.
The Romance portrayed in unworldly animated situations is just nice and generally well-meaning, as opposed to porn that is brutally visceral.
If we then add Romcoms into the mix, chivalry and prosocial behaviour are mainly beneficial, even in pursuit of a person of desire.
Indeed, is it not the general process of maturing throughout our lives that we become more giving to others, and being especially giving towards someone we are seeking to build a fulfilling relationship with is not a bad facet to cultivate.
However any relationship develops, they each have their own dynamics, and perhaps mimicking an an element of the experience in an exaggerated manner is Art.
We would surely not have the same objections with Sexualised or overly-Romantic songs...
Yeah, I think the disneyfied worldview thing is a cope for the fact that social media and the very real pornography problem that women have is a much harder truth to handle than disney love. Women are closing in on men in terms of porn usage, and anyone who believes that romance novels in the modern day are anything less than porn catered to women is wrong. I think the root of ignoring this issue is that porn is made to be an issue for the boys, and the millions of women who struggle with it are made to feel like men for having a problem with pornography.
Loved this essay. Genuinely surprised that anyone finds it controversial and horrified at both the Aella position and its number of defenders. Good thst I am getting older, as this world is rapidly becoming a place I do not want live in.
Yeah, I usually agree with Aella, but that tweet through me for a loop for most of the reasons you brought up. It seems reasonable to want a partner you have a deep emotional connection with. I would say though: 1) Men show their emotions differently, and not always in the obvious ways that women look for… but women should be at least open to more tmasculine ways of showing care/attention 2) Men are socialized to not show as much emotion , so average the man will require some patience and work with a partner to be emotionally expressive… the important thing is if he is willingly to honestly try and put in the work as well.
Such an introspective piece! More commonly, I read about the horrors of presumed expectations of men from their current/potential female partners, but not so much about the validity of the aforementioned stigma. It’s refreshing!
But what really got me thinking was the notion of Disney and RomComs indoctrinating teen girls the way porn has indoctrinated teen boys. It reminded me of @sinecurve ‘s piece about the experience of teenage Disney stars titled, "Tween Royalty: The Disney Channel Tween Star as Disney Princess."
She talks about how teenage girls in the limelight of Disney parallels the lives of Disney princesses’, with their own version of prince charmings, evil stepmothers, and pressures of upholding societal expectations. The article observes the girls’ adoption of a palatable persona, and, ultimately, of some varying misrepresentation of femininity. She also clocked that Disney tales almost always follow the princesses’ journey, the same way you clocked the princes’ lack of meaningful identifiers aside from their social status. So, I definitely see why Disney is a catalyst for the accessorization and depersonification of men. Who knew that putting this twisted view of femininity on a pedestal would result in men as collateral damage?
THANK YOU for pointing this out, you have a great eye! The fault is in the system, and as patriarchal as the world is, I think having realistic and humanistic media available to ALL teens might just be the start of undoing it.
I will read and learn from all your words. Cogent arguments and conclusions are well thought and have me looking forward to your next topic. Thank you, Emily
This is truly weird, because somehow post-2000 men got the opposite message, that we are now supposed to become family therapists, that is, the how was your day emotional talk that in the past women discussed with each other, now men are supposed to listen to. This was a new, post-2000 thing and quite honestly I did not like it one bit. No, it is not psychopathy to think emotions don't matter. It is just stoicism, either solve the problem that causes the emotion, or learn to live with it, but why discuss it? It makes as much sense as discussing uncomfortble shoes.
I mean from my perspective, emotion-talk is to be reserved for the big, important stuff. Like a beloved pet dies, for example. But some coworker was slightly asshole today? It is not worth talking about.
Pre-2000 it was understood that women will just call each other on the phone and talk about this with each other and not expecting husbands to listen to this. There was this old joke, how do you tell the sex of a fly? The female one is buzzing around the phone, the male one is buzzing around the wine bottle. I remember my parents had uncomfortable discussions about phone bills, because that kind of emotion talk was like 2 hours straight.
"What bothers me the most about this whole discourse is comparing [the worst interpretation of what men want] as a comparison to [the most benign and wholesome version of what I want]"
At no point dmin the essay do you consider that these things *are* comparative, even if they are not symmetrical. Every time you compare the two sides of the coin one is worded as to be unnacrptabke and the other benign (which is telling of what your hidden expectations/assumptions are - what your "should be"s are.)
Consider that they actually are a gendered image of something desired. Start another paragraph with "Okay, let's assume that what she's saying is true. Let's just explore that" and see where it takes you.
Men value something that is not often delivered by women for completely intelligible reasons. Women value something that is not often delivered for completely intelligible reasons. Aella's point isn't that a man wants a female to do nasty sexual shit *to* just as a woman does not want a man who will *put up* with an emotional overbearance that he cannot understand nor cope with when it is expected (think an autistic guy who just does not get what relaying emotional information is like).
A man (may) want a woman who *wants* and *enjoys* high sexual novelty and with high sex drive with him only. A woman (may) want a man who is naturally thoughtful because he *wants* to know about a woman's interiority. Now naturally there is often a lot of overlap between these; most women want a sexually novel man with hi& sex drive *sometimes* and most men want a naturally thoughtful woman who wants to know about his interiority *sometimes*.
But by the language in your piece it's clear that only one is demonised (as I said before you demonise it everytime you bring it up) and one is expected (you treat it as a given everytime you bring it up)
I would still say that only one of these things are needed to have deep and meaningful relationships with multiple people who are not a romantic partner.
I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting a partner who values sexual novelty, but they are still not comparable things.
I get what you're saying, that only one of these exists outside a romantic partner, but what you're talking about is the very mundane version - thoughtfulness. The Disney version, one where thoughtfulness for another has increased until it is qualitatively different - dates and deep emotional presence, is not something you generally do withh someone who you are not romantically involved with.
I'm not comparing sexual novelty to thoughtfulness, I'm comparing it to deep emotional presence and dates. You are comparing deep emotional presence and dates with likely-unwanted sexual demands.
I think that they are comparative even in the sense that these are physioculturally generated expectations that are often unmet because one is seen as unimportant or even undesirable by the other. I think this is the misunderstanding.
As an autistic person, no, being autistic is not an excuse for emotionally depriving your partner and not communicating which is the basic function of relationships.
"Taking the time to care about other people is pro-social behavior that extends beyond sexual partners and makes relationships better." Men around me do this all the time - but differently from women. One example: in Norway we change tires twice over the year - snow tires in winter, "regular tires" in summer. It is expected of every man that he knows how to do this. A collegue (a woman) was recently widowed and her kids were away. A male co-worker asked her -"would you like me to change your tires?" She broke down in tears. Men, in general" care about other people in practical ways. When a male friend have been dumped you take him to the gym, on a hunt, practical, physical things. If he wants to talk, you talk. If he wants to be quiet, you shut up. He needs to reaffirm his competence, his worth - no amount of talking will accomplish that. The only way to improve self confidence is actual, real mastery.
As for romance and sex - it's a bit like making love and fucking - they are not the same.
Anytime you say to a woman "lower your standards" you can guarantee you will be met with resistance. Most women would rather be single forever than be with someone who doesn't genuinely care about her inner world, who doesn't make her feel loved and seen and special. A woman lowering her standards and settling for a man who doesn't do this guarantees a divorce down the road. Maybe Aella is referring to the helicopter dates and millionaire werewolf boyfriend expectations though? Is that the equivalent to surprise anal? But both of those seem like such obviously unrealistic expectations that it's not even worth talking about
I think that women often seem to expect a peak into a man's interior life on the third date, which is definitely an unrealistic expectation. I also think men should not being trying to pull a woman's pants down on the third date but, thats a different problem.
That sounds a little cynical. And it assumes that a woman's emotional life is the same thing as a developed interior life. Feeling emotions does not depth make.
You did not, I was extrapolating from your comment. An interior life is an uncommon thing in the modern age, most people have an interior dialogue but the inability of that dialogue to shape action or present alternate points can lead to the conclusion that it does not avail much.
There's an interesting quirk here that doesn't seem to show up in either your article or her tweet: biological differences. And by biological differences I mean whether you are in a testosterone dominated hormone regime or an estrogen dominant one- how you feel about sex and how you process emotional connection really will change if you move between them.
It's not crazy to say that what feels like an obvious need from one side is easily overlooked or dismissed from the other, and it's not just enculturation.
There isn' a ton of evidence that men and women have intense biological differences like that, though. Outside of things like throwing velocity/upper body strength, we are extremely adaptable.
I'm speaking from personal experience of switching, and conversations with others that have switched as well. Its subjective enough that external testing is hard to make relevant, and I don't think people who have lived in one regime their whole lives have enough visibility into what the other looks like.
“ I think wanting an enthusiastic sex partner with an aligned libido is a reasonable desire just as much as I think wanting a partner who attunes to you is reasonable”
Reasonable as in you shouldn’t stay in a relationship without those things, or reasonable as in most people will experience that? My suspicion is that most people won’t find that. Aella is unique, so I cannot claim to have any special insight into her thinking, but I took her to be speaking hyperbolically for rhetorical effect, when what she really meant was something like “we criticize men for the fantasy they indulge in while watching porn, which is that they will fin an enthusiastic sex partner with an aligned libido”.
The emotional connections seems like a pretty reasonable standard. The grand romantic gestures in those movies are more of a problem. Every grand romantic gesture requires either money, magic, or breaking laws. Aladdin manages to have all three.
It's funny, the broad thesis of Aella's post resonated with me but I agree with you her examples were ridiculous. I think the problematic ideals pushed by romance are closer to what you describe: expecting a long-term relationship to always be filled with passion and excitement, where the woman doesn't have to do any work to foster or maintain her attraction, and if that passion is missing, then it must be bad. The equivalent of the skinny, hairless nympho is a man who is deeply romantic and exciting at all times, yet also somehow stable and happy with domestic life, and never has romantic or sexual needs that the woman herself lacks.
yeah I'm just not sure if we are fed those ideas by romance. If anything, the propaganda is that men do big romantic gestures to get the girl and then they stop.
And that her No becomes a Yes if you do the right big gesture.
Thank you for this. Like you I come from an evangelical background, which perhaps adds a particular dimension here for me as a man.
I would like to think I was raised to understand that marriage requires emotional connection and "effort, dedication, paying close attention" - but in a linear, logical, "if...then..." way - IF i just put in enough work, THEN I would have a hot wife who fulfilled my dreams, sexual and otherwise.
It may seem like "entitlement", but from my perspective it was "earning." It wasn't that I saw emotional connection solely as a route to sex, but it was certainly framed in a "his needs/her needs" way and I thought I was ready to do my part.
And of course because we "saved ourselves" and put off sex into marriage, we struggled with the reality (body issues, effects of family dysfunction and poor role models, etc.), and it was a painfully difficult realization for me that I couldn't just work harder to "earn" the sex life I desired. Even the less toxic evangelical teachings on sex (Sheila Gregoire, etc.) carry a lot of these "if..then" assumptions than anyone can have a mutually satisfying sex life if both partners just put in enough of the right efforts. That messed me/us up for a long time.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I very much agree that relationships "require effort, dedication, paying close attention" etc.... but also that they require an openness to wherever that leads, and an acknowledgement that it may not be at all what you intended or hoped. I totally missed learning that second part.
Absolutely. I hate the framing of "his needs/her needs" because ideally both people should want an emotional connection and a satisfying sex life. Trying to find alignment on both is important!
Thanks for sharing your experience. I think a lot of couples go through that and it's not often spoken about v
Aella was comparing apples and oranges. I'd argue that extremely porn brained sex acts are the equivalent of the Bachelor helicopter date, and not something most men really want beyond like the fantasy/novelty aspect of it. I think if you're talking about sex most men just want a woman who genuinely finds them attractive and wants to have sex with them without their being made to feel like their desires are an imposition.
I do think it's funny that the example of deep emotional connection is doing lots of talking. That's very female coded. Men do value deep emotional connection but most of us experience it...through having sex.
Talking and language is part of what makes us human. Every couple should be spending lots of time talking. That’s why literally everyone says communication is the key to marriage. I’m sorry, but having sex is not sufficient or enough emotional connection for a relationship. It usually isn’t even purely emotional connection or emotional connection at all. Thinking sliding your dick in and out of someone constitutes appropriate emotional connection is insane.
This comment weirds me out because I’m kind of tired of men thinking they take care of the needs of both people in the relationship by… doing what they already do or getting more of what they already want.
It’s a lot like men say they “provide” and that’s why women should do the housework, even though the housework is providing and she now has to sacrifice her needs and career to take care of both people, while the man loses nothing because working his “providing” job is what he would be doing anyway if he wasn’t married. That isn’t fairness.
Sex is a fundamental part of relationships. It's a big part of what defines a romantic relationship vs a friendship. Every couple should be taking their intimate lives very seriously. I'm sorry, but talking about the boring minutiae of our days is not sufficient or enough emotional connection for a relationship. It usually isn’t even purely emotional connection or emotional connection at all. Thinking running your mouths at each other constitutes appropriate emotional connection is insane.
You see how easy it is to make someone else's needs seem base and embarrassing? Personally I think both communication and physical intimacy are very important for healthy relationships. The point of my comment is that just because women on average place greater emotional weight on talking and men on sex doesn't mean that talking is the 'real' emotional connection and sex is just an afterthought that isn't really important for relationship health. For many men it's core to feeling loved within the context of their marriage, and they really suffer emotionally if their wives decide they're done with physical intimacy or otherwise deprioritize it.
And if you really think that sex within the context of a loving relationship is merely sliding your dick in and out of someone...I'm sorry you've had such terrible intimate experiences.
I can tell now that you think this because your idea of emotional connection is “talking about boring minutiae of day to day life” and if that’s what you think it is, then… I’m sorry you’ve had such terrible intimate experiences.
Emotional connection involves vulnerability, sharing your deepest wishes, wants, dream, and needs. Deep conversations about the world that keep you up until 1 am. That is the kind of emotional connection relationships are built on.
You say sex is a fundamental part of relationships but it’s not. It is only fundamental to sexual relationships. Not even all romantic relationships are sexual, as asexual people and people who otherwise are not interested in sex exist.
Emotional connection is superior and more important to society as it is the cornerstone of literally any type of relationship. So acting like sex is “more important to men” is like saying that men can somehow get away with not participating in the very base function of human connection and simply get all of what you want from sex, which sounds predatory and weird.
Communication and working together is a relationship. Sex is a physical bonus in relationships. That’s how relationships work.
Some people prioritize sex lives or sexual compatibility as important in choosing a partner. Some don’t and they’re perfectly happy with it.
Sex is physical, and cannot replace mental closeness and intimacy.
Please don't take my feminist card here but I'm going to have to side with the dude on this one... he never said communication was less important. "Talking and language" isn't the only thing that makes us human... sex is also an important part of an intimate, romantic relationship... for both men and women. I don't understand the desire to pit the two things against each other. Let's just all strive for awesome relationships where we have satisying conversations, strong emotional connections and great sex that both partners are happy with 🤷🏼♀️
Look, I fixed it.
I think you are underestimating the level that porn affects men's real, lived sexual appetites. Violent, harmful sex acts are extremely common, look at the rise in women's anal related injuries. It is not just a "fantasy" thing for a lot of men, for some of them it becomes an expectation of what sex is.
I might be being very literal, but over saturation from porn is literally more harmful physically and psychologically than having a disney-fied view of the world.
The Romance portrayed in unworldly animated situations is just nice and generally well-meaning, as opposed to porn that is brutally visceral.
If we then add Romcoms into the mix, chivalry and prosocial behaviour are mainly beneficial, even in pursuit of a person of desire.
Indeed, is it not the general process of maturing throughout our lives that we become more giving to others, and being especially giving towards someone we are seeking to build a fulfilling relationship with is not a bad facet to cultivate.
However any relationship develops, they each have their own dynamics, and perhaps mimicking an an element of the experience in an exaggerated manner is Art.
We would surely not have the same objections with Sexualised or overly-Romantic songs...
Yeah, I think the disneyfied worldview thing is a cope for the fact that social media and the very real pornography problem that women have is a much harder truth to handle than disney love. Women are closing in on men in terms of porn usage, and anyone who believes that romance novels in the modern day are anything less than porn catered to women is wrong. I think the root of ignoring this issue is that porn is made to be an issue for the boys, and the millions of women who struggle with it are made to feel like men for having a problem with pornography.
Loved this essay. Genuinely surprised that anyone finds it controversial and horrified at both the Aella position and its number of defenders. Good thst I am getting older, as this world is rapidly becoming a place I do not want live in.
Yeah, I usually agree with Aella, but that tweet through me for a loop for most of the reasons you brought up. It seems reasonable to want a partner you have a deep emotional connection with. I would say though: 1) Men show their emotions differently, and not always in the obvious ways that women look for… but women should be at least open to more tmasculine ways of showing care/attention 2) Men are socialized to not show as much emotion , so average the man will require some patience and work with a partner to be emotionally expressive… the important thing is if he is willingly to honestly try and put in the work as well.
Such an introspective piece! More commonly, I read about the horrors of presumed expectations of men from their current/potential female partners, but not so much about the validity of the aforementioned stigma. It’s refreshing!
But what really got me thinking was the notion of Disney and RomComs indoctrinating teen girls the way porn has indoctrinated teen boys. It reminded me of @sinecurve ‘s piece about the experience of teenage Disney stars titled, "Tween Royalty: The Disney Channel Tween Star as Disney Princess."
https://sinecurve.substack.com/p/tween-royalty-the-disney-channel?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fsine%2520survival%2520society&utm_medium=reader2
She talks about how teenage girls in the limelight of Disney parallels the lives of Disney princesses’, with their own version of prince charmings, evil stepmothers, and pressures of upholding societal expectations. The article observes the girls’ adoption of a palatable persona, and, ultimately, of some varying misrepresentation of femininity. She also clocked that Disney tales almost always follow the princesses’ journey, the same way you clocked the princes’ lack of meaningful identifiers aside from their social status. So, I definitely see why Disney is a catalyst for the accessorization and depersonification of men. Who knew that putting this twisted view of femininity on a pedestal would result in men as collateral damage?
THANK YOU for pointing this out, you have a great eye! The fault is in the system, and as patriarchal as the world is, I think having realistic and humanistic media available to ALL teens might just be the start of undoing it.
brooooo the slippery slope from princes charming and eric to cl*v*c*l*r … shudder !!! well done jbb & @Emily's Version
I will read and learn from all your words. Cogent arguments and conclusions are well thought and have me looking forward to your next topic. Thank you, Emily
THANK YOU. This fixed me!
This is truly weird, because somehow post-2000 men got the opposite message, that we are now supposed to become family therapists, that is, the how was your day emotional talk that in the past women discussed with each other, now men are supposed to listen to. This was a new, post-2000 thing and quite honestly I did not like it one bit. No, it is not psychopathy to think emotions don't matter. It is just stoicism, either solve the problem that causes the emotion, or learn to live with it, but why discuss it? It makes as much sense as discussing uncomfortble shoes.
I mean from my perspective, emotion-talk is to be reserved for the big, important stuff. Like a beloved pet dies, for example. But some coworker was slightly asshole today? It is not worth talking about.
Pre-2000 it was understood that women will just call each other on the phone and talk about this with each other and not expecting husbands to listen to this. There was this old joke, how do you tell the sex of a fly? The female one is buzzing around the phone, the male one is buzzing around the wine bottle. I remember my parents had uncomfortable discussions about phone bills, because that kind of emotion talk was like 2 hours straight.
“How dare men have to regularly engage with the women they are supposed to be doing life with 😱”
Alright you gotta let some snark in
"What bothers me the most about this whole discourse is comparing [the worst interpretation of what men want] as a comparison to [the most benign and wholesome version of what I want]"
At no point dmin the essay do you consider that these things *are* comparative, even if they are not symmetrical. Every time you compare the two sides of the coin one is worded as to be unnacrptabke and the other benign (which is telling of what your hidden expectations/assumptions are - what your "should be"s are.)
Consider that they actually are a gendered image of something desired. Start another paragraph with "Okay, let's assume that what she's saying is true. Let's just explore that" and see where it takes you.
Men value something that is not often delivered by women for completely intelligible reasons. Women value something that is not often delivered for completely intelligible reasons. Aella's point isn't that a man wants a female to do nasty sexual shit *to* just as a woman does not want a man who will *put up* with an emotional overbearance that he cannot understand nor cope with when it is expected (think an autistic guy who just does not get what relaying emotional information is like).
A man (may) want a woman who *wants* and *enjoys* high sexual novelty and with high sex drive with him only. A woman (may) want a man who is naturally thoughtful because he *wants* to know about a woman's interiority. Now naturally there is often a lot of overlap between these; most women want a sexually novel man with hi& sex drive *sometimes* and most men want a naturally thoughtful woman who wants to know about his interiority *sometimes*.
But by the language in your piece it's clear that only one is demonised (as I said before you demonise it everytime you bring it up) and one is expected (you treat it as a given everytime you bring it up)
I would still say that only one of these things are needed to have deep and meaningful relationships with multiple people who are not a romantic partner.
I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting a partner who values sexual novelty, but they are still not comparable things.
I get what you're saying, that only one of these exists outside a romantic partner, but what you're talking about is the very mundane version - thoughtfulness. The Disney version, one where thoughtfulness for another has increased until it is qualitatively different - dates and deep emotional presence, is not something you generally do withh someone who you are not romantically involved with.
I'm not comparing sexual novelty to thoughtfulness, I'm comparing it to deep emotional presence and dates. You are comparing deep emotional presence and dates with likely-unwanted sexual demands.
I think that they are comparative even in the sense that these are physioculturally generated expectations that are often unmet because one is seen as unimportant or even undesirable by the other. I think this is the misunderstanding.
As an autistic person, no, being autistic is not an excuse for emotionally depriving your partner and not communicating which is the basic function of relationships.
"Taking the time to care about other people is pro-social behavior that extends beyond sexual partners and makes relationships better." Men around me do this all the time - but differently from women. One example: in Norway we change tires twice over the year - snow tires in winter, "regular tires" in summer. It is expected of every man that he knows how to do this. A collegue (a woman) was recently widowed and her kids were away. A male co-worker asked her -"would you like me to change your tires?" She broke down in tears. Men, in general" care about other people in practical ways. When a male friend have been dumped you take him to the gym, on a hunt, practical, physical things. If he wants to talk, you talk. If he wants to be quiet, you shut up. He needs to reaffirm his competence, his worth - no amount of talking will accomplish that. The only way to improve self confidence is actual, real mastery.
As for romance and sex - it's a bit like making love and fucking - they are not the same.
Anytime you say to a woman "lower your standards" you can guarantee you will be met with resistance. Most women would rather be single forever than be with someone who doesn't genuinely care about her inner world, who doesn't make her feel loved and seen and special. A woman lowering her standards and settling for a man who doesn't do this guarantees a divorce down the road. Maybe Aella is referring to the helicopter dates and millionaire werewolf boyfriend expectations though? Is that the equivalent to surprise anal? But both of those seem like such obviously unrealistic expectations that it's not even worth talking about
I think that women often seem to expect a peak into a man's interior life on the third date, which is definitely an unrealistic expectation. I also think men should not being trying to pull a woman's pants down on the third date but, thats a different problem.
Unfortunately, many men never give women insight into their interior lives, bc they haven't developed them.
That sounds a little cynical. And it assumes that a woman's emotional life is the same thing as a developed interior life. Feeling emotions does not depth make.
I didn't say anything about feeling emotions!
You did not, I was extrapolating from your comment. An interior life is an uncommon thing in the modern age, most people have an interior dialogue but the inability of that dialogue to shape action or present alternate points can lead to the conclusion that it does not avail much.
An interior life is not uncommon among my female friends. We talk about our inner worlds all the time!
There's an interesting quirk here that doesn't seem to show up in either your article or her tweet: biological differences. And by biological differences I mean whether you are in a testosterone dominated hormone regime or an estrogen dominant one- how you feel about sex and how you process emotional connection really will change if you move between them.
It's not crazy to say that what feels like an obvious need from one side is easily overlooked or dismissed from the other, and it's not just enculturation.
There isn' a ton of evidence that men and women have intense biological differences like that, though. Outside of things like throwing velocity/upper body strength, we are extremely adaptable.
I'm speaking from personal experience of switching, and conversations with others that have switched as well. Its subjective enough that external testing is hard to make relevant, and I don't think people who have lived in one regime their whole lives have enough visibility into what the other looks like.
I'd encourage people to try for themselves if it didn't reliably lead to dysphoria for people who aren't trans.
“ I think wanting an enthusiastic sex partner with an aligned libido is a reasonable desire just as much as I think wanting a partner who attunes to you is reasonable”
Reasonable as in you shouldn’t stay in a relationship without those things, or reasonable as in most people will experience that? My suspicion is that most people won’t find that. Aella is unique, so I cannot claim to have any special insight into her thinking, but I took her to be speaking hyperbolically for rhetorical effect, when what she really meant was something like “we criticize men for the fantasy they indulge in while watching porn, which is that they will fin an enthusiastic sex partner with an aligned libido”.
The emotional connections seems like a pretty reasonable standard. The grand romantic gestures in those movies are more of a problem. Every grand romantic gesture requires either money, magic, or breaking laws. Aladdin manages to have all three.