Thus it was that I didn’t see the RantLifestyle article by
Michael Peckerar, “The Girls You Marry vs. the Girls You Hook Up With”, until
almost a month had passed since it was published. And not until I
read Peckerar’s article did I know about the RantChic article by Regina
Phalange, “Men You Marry vs. Men You Bang” to which Peckerar’s article
is either a complement or a response. When a man uses an obscenity to describe
sex, he’s crude and boorish; when a woman does so, she’s edgy and tough.
I played around with both articles on Monday, hoping to
extend them into a commentary on role expectations and the standards of a good
spouse. One thing I'd noticed was that, despite the provocative title of
her piece, at only one point does Phalange suggest that a man from what we
could call the “reject pile” might be good for a one-nighter or “friendship
with benefits”; in the other seven categories, we’re almost forced to
wonder why any woman would consider sleeping with such a loser, let alone
marrying him. By contrast, on several points Peckerar leaves us no doubt that
there are women a straight man should want to sleep
with ... but not necessarily espouse.
Exempli gratia: The woman you marry, Peckerar contends, lives by herself, in an apartment she pays for herself, decorated with furniture from IKEA and knickknacks from Pier One. She likes to have nice things, “and having nice things is awesome.” However, the girl you hook up with lives:
With roommates. Hot ones.First of all, her roommates are instant friends when she’s starting to get old [and we’re not talking age here]. You stay over, she’s in the shower, her roommate will pour you coffee. It’s nice to have another pretty girl to look at sometimes.Plus, the chance to unlock this achievement is just too sweet to pass up. [Do you really need me to decode this last statement?]
Okay, men are pigs. But getting this perennial complaint
behind us, let’s acknowledge the difference this shows us. Both titles imply
the uncritical acceptance of sexual stupidity as the social norm. Nevertheless,
Phalange is much more obviously ambivalent about men who aren’t good husband
material. Unlike Peckerar, Phalange can’t give us a rationale for assuming that
any of these clowns might be a worthwhile lay, except for the bum who can’t
hold a job longer than two months (he’s most likely impetuous, and more likely
to be sexually adventurous, y’know). She could have just titled the article “Men
You Marry vs. Men You Dump”.
But she didn’t call her reject pile “Men You Dump”. She
called them “Men You Bang”.
Perhaps it seems like I’m getting a lot of custard out of a
very small cat (sorry, Blackadder reference). As well, it
may seem that I’m paying a lot of attention to Phalange’s reject pile and
not enough to Peckerar’s, or to the male behavior that drives it. Here I
should note that Peckerar actually ends his piece by impeaching his lists:
There’s no clear way to decide who you marry and who you hook up with. When it’s all said and done, each woman is her own person and is a human being. You might find women who have traits of either side who you enjoy or don’t. You wouldn’t want a girl to pass you by because you don’t drive a BMW, would you? Same thing.Don’t let silly lists tell you who to love.
Nevertheless, both articles occur within the context of our
sexually stupid and deranged culture, which takes for granted that women
will have premarital sex with men, and that both will have more than one sexual
partner prior to meeting Mr./Ms. Right. Both lists essentially
reduce the denizens of their “reject piles” to masturbation
tools. Yet even as masturbation tools Peckerar’s B-list women aren’t completely
dehumanized or stripped of value; they’re desirable as sexual partners (well,
if you’re adventurous), and not without redeeming qualities as persons. By contrast, Phalange’s B-list men are dildos
with legs.
Whenever feminists discuss sexual double standards, inevitably
the role of women as “gatekeepers” arises. If I remember my Sociology 2010
correctly, since men’s supply of gametes is replenishable and therefore
theoretically infinite, his best reproductive strategy is to couple as
often as possible. Conversely, because women’s supply of gametes is limited,
her best reproductive strategy is to restrict male access (hence, “gatekeeper”).
This difference of
approaches, feminists argue, is inherently unfair, as it puts the onus on women
to say “no” even though they enjoy sex as much as do men, and creates a social
context in which women must be functionally monogamous but men can be
polygamous. To be equal to men, the argument goes, women must be able to have
multiple partners and to say “yes” without needing to prescreen men as
candidate fathers.
Hence, the presumed need for contraception and the
extrapolated need for abortion upon request.
But beyond the confusion of equality with sameness —
the concepts aren’t coterminous — the job of “gatekeeping” didn’t go away with
the advent of the Pill and the legalization of abortion. Instead, the woman’s
ability to effectively exercise that power was severely reduced.
Because the near-omnipresence and darn-near-100%
effectiveness of the Pill allows women to exercise less
sexual restraint (in theory at least), they have become expected
to exercise less restraint. Competition for the most desirable
mates practically demands that women put out early and put out often: “If I don’t,
another woman will.” Contraception is not simply her right but more and more
her obligation and responsibility, especially since sex with condoms is almost
universally considered unsatisfactory. Likewise, because whether or not
she will give birth is “her right to choose”, pregnancy is “her
problem, not mine” ... that is, when the presumptive father doesn’t try to
push her into having an abortion. (When was the last time you heard anyone
express concern over the number of “deadbeat dads”?)
“No Means No” ... but the culture tends to discourage women
from actually saying “no”. The gate is broken.
I’ve
said it before, and I’ll say it again: For women, there is no better
expression of reproductive autonomy than to walk away from a sexual opportunity
when you’re not ready for children. “No” is an empowering word; “no” puts you
in the driver’s seat. If you can say “yes” but not “no”, you’re not really
free, and your “sexual freedom” is really a kind of slavery.
But, pace
Peckerar, the lists aren’t about who you love but rather whom you build a
family with. The lists concede implicitly that certain personality traits and
social skills are needed to build a long-lasting family life; sex by itself
does not do the job. And Phalange’s gatekeeper list, as cold-blooded as it is,
reminds us that in the end sex, childrearing and marriage are still interrelated.
The smartest thing feminists could do is allow women to be gatekeepers again.
