Notice that I am not just single currently, but that I am staying single. This was not a conscious decision. I did not sit down one day, feminist ideology in hand, and decide to stay single for political reasons. It just happened. I haven't been in a relationship for two years. For a woman in her twenties, this is so odd as to be alien.
When I was in middle school, nothing could have been more important than being in or wanting to be in a relationship. Boys were just beginning to notice me, probably because I was one of the first girls to have her breasts grow beyond the mosquito bite phase. Luckily for me, I did not grow up in the Paris Hilton era. Britney Spears was still keeping most of her clothes on the late 90s when the pre-teen girl uniform of choice was polo shirts, short shorts, and high ponytails.
Regardless, my desire for a boyfriend and to look good had nothing to do with my sexual desire. Although I had curves and breasts to rival any grown woman, my sexual drive had not matured. I heard about masturbation, mostly from the eighth grade boys, but such things held no interest for me. Even the extremely progressive books on puberty that my parents bought me detailed male masturbation explicitly, although some of them spend a bit of time on female masturbation as well. Curious, I attempted this masturbation a couple of times. Nothing really much happened, presumably because my sexual drive had yet to develop (it would in high school), so I gave that up.
Why then, was the pinnacle of pre-teen social life the drive to attract boys? I obviously did not know what to do with them when I got them, and I had no sexual desire for them. I was putting on a performance, plain and simple. The dominant social message of the time, and I assume it has gotten worse lately, was that a girl should aim to look sexy and have sex, but her own enjoyment of the sexual act had nothing to do with it. This held true for my twelve year-old self: I was not attracted to boys in a sexual manner, and I had no personal desire for sex. I was simply responding to social norms. If I said a boy was cute, it was not the case that I was attracted to him. I simply recognized that he fit within the acceptable range of male appearances, and I wanted him to want me. My desires did not play into the equation at all.
As I moved on from middle school and entered high school, my sexual drive finally blossomed. I had a healthy desire for sex and masturbation by the time I was fifteen. Still, however, I cannot think of a time that I wanted a boy more than I wanted him to want me and the social power I would gain by being sexy and attached to a suitable male. I was also doing battle with my monstrous crush on my female friend at the time by denying to myself that I probably was not as straight as I would like to be. Nevertheless, the idea of a boy competing for me or spending time on his appearance for me was laughable. By the time elaborate hair and makeup routines were the norm for girls my age, boys had yet to grasp the concept of showering daily.
Simply put, being sexy was more important than being sexual. The conflicting messages of abstinence and MTV had done battle, and the result was "be sexy, be hot, be available and wanted. Your sexuality is shameful." It was not important that boys were attractive, and they largely were not, it was important that I was attractive to them. Due to my extremely extroverted personality and unwillingness, even then, to play weak or dumb, I never succeeded.
In college, the drive to be wanted and not to want became funny in its intensity. The antics of my peers inspired mental images out of a porno: buckets of male ejaculation everywhere, but no elusive female orgasm. Men were still boys, and still had not grasped the basics of hygiene that were common sense to the average eleven year-old girl. And why would they? All around them women were wearing next to nothing and viciously fighting for their attention with deeper tans, deeper v-necks, and higher shoes. All they had to do was sit back and enjoy.
After a disastrous series of boyfriends where the male orgasm was far more present in our relationships than the female orgasm, I had the luck to fall into Feminism by way of a Women's Studies course. Among the considerable changes in my life, I stopped wanting men to want me if I did not want them back.
Simply, if my sexual pleasure had no part in the equation, I wanted nothing to do with men. If they were not attractive, their attention was gross and creepy. It was surprisingly easy to find my dry spells becoming longer and longer, only broken up by my mostly pleasurable forays into lesbian relationships.
How was this so? Once I gave up performing the sexy routine, guys largely did not want me. Which was fine with me, because most guys my age hadn't touched a razor or bar of soap in half a week. My university was like a scene out of a pornography: most of the women were conventionally attractive, but the men were as lazy with their appearances as they were with their health.
Today, I find it pathetically funny how my pursuit of my own pleasure--wanting attractive men, wanting sexual fulfillment--removed me from the dating scene. By raising my standards to men that I wanted, instead of men that wanted me, I had to find men that spend a comparable amount of time on their appearance and would be invested in my pleasure as much as their own. Unsurprisingly, the men who spent as much time in front of a mirror as I did (which wasn't much, considering that I stopped tanning and wearing large amounts of makeup) were the ones that dated the most feminine women, who had the personality of swine, or who were more interesting in acting out their favorite pornography than pleasing their significant other.
What I realize today is that the dating scene revolves around male pleasure. Male orgasms, male lust, male appreciation of beauty. If I wanted female orgasms, my lust, and my appreciation of male beauty I was holding out for something that did not exist. Or, if it did, it was not available to me once I stopped tanning, obsessing about how flat my abs were, and wearing hundreds of dollars of makeup.
In conclusion, I stay single because it's pathetically easy, but not by my design. Perhaps one day I might stumble upon a man who is as invested in looking good for me as I would be invested in looking good for him. Instead of me wanting him to want me and him wanting me, I would want him and he would want me. Then we could meet in the middle, form a relationship based on mutual attraction, admiration, and lust.
How sad that society has made such things the exception, and not the norm.
4 comments:
I found your blog through I Blame the Patriarchy. You posted a comment that made me think: "Why I am I not this articulate?" I love your blog, and I am linking it to my insignificant blog. You are awesome. Keep being great, I will definitely be back. :)
Thanks a bunch! More readership is always welcome.
You say you expect men to dress up for you, but I'm wondering.
At the end of the day, why should I? What benefit is there for me (or men in general) for doing such a thing? What do *I* get out of it?
As you haven't replied, I felt the need to clarify, as I don't like how my question came off.
I ask, because, in great majority, women are taught that men will come to them. Men are taught that we have to go to women.
A woman will dress up for a male, because if one wants to attract a partner, one needs to be in some way attractive.
Ergo, a woman will dress up, to attempt to attract someone.
I can guarantee you, as a male, that were I to dress in my very best, spend vast amounts of money on getting myself groomed and go out, looking as handsome as I am capable of...that nothing whatsoever would happen.
Inversely, if a woman did the same, I can guarantee you, someone would ask for her phone number.
That is why I say "what's in it for me?". It won't make a woman approach me, if I dress up nicely. It won't make any woman approach any man.
Sure, there's the very scarce minority of women that have no fear of approaching a man to inquire as to his relationship status and to potentially get his phone number, but they are so few and far between, that they might as well not exist.
I'm not really attempting to argue the reasons why things are this way, just to point out that they are this way, and that a male making himself attractive doesn't do any good, because it doesn't attract anyone.
That would be why more males don't bother. Because we know that whether we're wearing our favorite, ancient jeans with 100 holes in them, or a finely cut suit, if we want a date, we have to be the ones pursuing women, not the other way around.
Hell, I can even offer an example from my own life. A while back, I decided that I was done with relationships until, for once, a woman asked ME out on a date.
In five solid years, it hasn't yet happened.
No matter what I wear, no matter the status of my facial hair, scent, or anything else.
Did you ever consider that perhaps it's because of this, that more men don't bother dressing up?
If most women weren't so deathly afraid of the potential rejection that comes from asking someone out, I can bet you more men would be dressing nicely, in order to attract someone. Because they'd know that women would be out there, looking at men to pursue.
We know they aren't, so after a while, we stop caring about how nicely we're dressed.
(Coincidentally, from a male POV, there's also the factor that many of us figure that the nicer we dress, the more it will appear that we have money, and that runs the risk of attracting women who only want money.)
I didn't mean to offend with my question, and I assume from your lack of answer that I did. I hope the clarification helps, as your perspective is what I was seeking.
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