Sleeping beauty, or similar.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other night about sexual - I was going to say politics, but I really mean expectations and behavior.

I can only speak for myself, but I was raised in a relatively conservative household.  About my parents' marriage, the less said the better, but they stayed in it for a long time because...I don't even know why, but it seemed to me that a large part of it was an inability to visualize an alternative, inertia and a belief that you were supposed to.  And that supposed to is a powerful thing. 

I was a sport, a natural liberal, resistant, if passive, and  I have spent a lifetime undoing those assumptions of supposed to.  I keep finding new layers  - fewer these days, but I do still stumble over these automatic beliefs.

I suppose it is on my mind partly because I kissed a boy, and partly because of the recent public discussion of Supreme Court Nominee Alito's apparent position that a woman is really the same as a child, and partly because of that conversation I mentioned and partly because of Maureen Dowd - but here I am 36, self-supporting, single, independent, not particularly shy in general, and yet I feel in some ways as if I have spent my whole life waiting to be noticed, waiting to be asked, waiting for someone to make the first move.   Passive still.

Because that's what nice girls do, is wait.  Because men are dogs, or sexually predatious, or they won't respect you if you have desire of your own, or they'll be put off if you don't let them be the aggressor, and for god's blessed sake, be smart enough to not be too smart, too verbal, to aggressive with who you are because you'll intimidate and that will make you a slut, cheap,  a spinster, a freak, alone and oh yes, a failed woman.   Oh, and take off some weight.  No one will marry you if you're fat.

It's a lot to keep track of.

No wonder the critical roar in my head sometimes drowns out the desires of my body and the impulses of my heart.

So I had dinner with this friend and filled her in on the trip to Boston, and we got to talking about some of the men I've dated and the patterns of initiation that are emerging and I realized something - the ones I've known who fall into the pattern I was raised to wait for - the sexual aggressor - are usually the ones who are less experienced (not that it is a crime to not have gotten a lot of play, but the correlation is.....interesting).  And if not less experienced, I would say that many have also been a little immature, less sensitive to the human being on the other end of their groping hand, less aware in general as people.  It's the chicken of experience and the egg of an approach without nuance.

I hear a female voice in my head saying that's just the way men are. Is it a friend?  my mother?  But I don't agree.  I mean, I've been less experienced, less mature, less sensitive at times in my life too.  I'm not trying to make a global condemnation.

I was raised to think that if I asked for something sexually - asked someone to date me, asked someone to kiss me, asked someone to sleep with me - I had lost somehow, lost desirability points, lost status as a woman, that it meant I wasn't really wanted.  But what I've experienced in the past few years is that that isn't right - or true.  The men I've really enjoyed the company of, whom I've cared for, remained interested in - the ones I still respect after knowing them a while - are the ones who hang back a little bit, not remotely, not setting up a game of pursuit, but in an engaged way, sometimes explicitly asking for a go ahead, sometimes looking for the non-verbal cue. 

You know when someone is attracted to you - there is awareness, the touch on an arm or shoulder, a way of holding your eyes; these are real things, a true measure of attraction and desire.   And in an exchange of equals, potential partners, there is a delicate subtext that makes these conventional tired ideas of object and aggressor particularly useless and foolish and obsolete.   I know nothing turns me off more than being backed into a corner - physically or figuratively.   You have to court these things carefully, not fuck them to death.

Hmm.

I asked one of these men about a year ago whether this hanging back was characteristic - he said yes, it was his natural inclination, but that he had noticed that if you gave women room to set the pace themselves generally it worked better, and they stayed glad to see you longer than if you pulled out the full court press.    The men I know who get the most play all seem to follow this pattern.   The men I know whom I've enjoyed the company of the most, whom I like the most, all follow this pattern.

When I first began to encounter this,  I was confused by it.  I thought that they weren't that interested.  But if they aren't that interested what ARE we doing here in bed together?  But, you say, men will do anything for sex.  There's that female voice again. But, well, yes and no.  I think this goes back to maturity and immaturity again.  The thing is, so will women.  Some men and some women.  Or all men and women under some circumstances. 

I've gotten used to it - if someone is hanging around in my life, but not making big moves, sometimes I will.  And look - I'm not less attractive.  Or less anything else.  Except maybe less unhappy.  I haven't been struck by lightning.   Sometimes it works out.  Sometimes it doesn't.  How is that different from the rest of life?

But you have to know what you want to ask for it.  You have to admit you want in order to act on it.   And that means you have to give away the secret princess in a tower moral refuge of the passive participant.    I know a lot of women who want the equality of feminism in the workplace, in politics, under law, but who still have trouble accepting this scary stuff, the responsibility of knowing their own desires and acting on them. 

We can't have it both ways.  And I think I'm finally at a point where it isn't just something I'm used to.  I like it.  I like the potential between people treating each other as  peers, and I no longer know how to be that nice girl, with the pretending and the subterfuge and the detachment from an active role.   Really, she's just as immature as the back-you-into-a-corner guys, two sides of a coin, and a relic of an old way of thinking.

Comments

[clarelight]

Juno, just got to reading this post, and WOW! I had just been thinking along these lines as I begin a new relationship and how the dynamics in this seem so different from previous ones, because I took responsibility for my part in the "dance" Thank you for your insight, in language clearer than mine.

[Julia]

I think my college roomate said it best: "You want to leave the choosing up to them? Who knows what you'll get!"
I think my relationship with Moxie has been pretty balanced, with each of us taking the lead at any given time. It's nice that way. And it's good when both people know what they want, and get it. Enjoy the journey.

[Kim]

Fab post. So true. Sadly, smart women usually intimitate most men. And who wants that? Sigh. Excellent points all the way thru. Love the LBS too.

[Em]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I am so totally buying you a drink next time I see you.

[Laurie]

So complex. Roles we learn from our parents, all the weird messages from society at large, and trying to reconcile that with what is good for US. Clashing. I couldn't figure out what wasn't working at my tender age with the first type of guy you describe. DH DID propose, but the approach to it was the second you describe. (I'm sure it helped we had an on-line relationship first, and he was raised by European parents.)

[Sarah]

I have had a blog draft in progress for the last week, trying to give voice to the tumult of responses that were brought to mind by Maureen Dowd's latest piece. Reading your entry gave me a kind of peace knowing that you had expressed just what I have been trying to spit out for so long. Bravo.

[Susanne]

You are a very wise woman! thank you for your thoughtful post:)

[Nathania]

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. As a young woman, desperate for my father's approval and finding it not forthcoming, I cast about wildly for men to pay attention to me. But it was always their choice, their move, their decision. I was told later in my life that as a teenager I was intimidating, too confident, too self-contained to be approachable. The only men who responded well to me were the ones who were much older and more experienced. Why is it though that being swept off one's feet, carried by the momentum of someone else's desire is so intoxicating? Is it the replication of that relationship we had with our father? The lack of responsibility for one's actions, where someone else is calling the shots is in some cases in and of itself what we desire. Part of the challenge is in knowing what we truly want and finding a way to communicate that. It feels like a tremendous risk. Women are programmed to run as fast from rejection as they can, retreating into that passive role for fear that our worst fear will be realized: that we are undesirable, we are unloveable. And so in some twisted way we hold fast to that belief that we have to put up and shut up and agree tacitly to things we might not really want in order to be loved.

[Norma]

ahem: correction. WE raised OUR daughter to be the same way. Honestly.

[Norma]

Ditto 100% what Margene said. Same here in my marriage of 23 years. And after we had been dating for two years, living together for one, I actually proposed marriage. And I have ruminated on this recently, as well -- I think in a conversation with Cate at my home? Can't remember specifically. I do know that men don't/wouldn't ask me out. If I were suddenly on my own and without David, guys would NOT come around, because I believe I intimidate them. I don't think it's because I'm unattractive or undesirable. I think they believe I'm untouchable or unattainable, which is really silly, but Cate said, "confidence can be intimidating." So there you have it. You go, girl. (and, P.S., I raised my daughter to be the same way. And she is. And she's got a guy who can handle it. Pretty cool, that.)

[JoVE]

Well said. Have had similar thoughts about how heterosexuality works if we assume gender equality. Nice to read the musings of another.

[Kat with a K]

Very interesting. I am just starting to consider dating as an adult (I was with the man I started dating at 17 until very recently) and am more or less scared to death about the whole thing... but I should try to keep the things you said in mind.

[Miriam]

*applauds* Very well written post! And I've been through that realization as well. After 2.5 years of marriage, I'm finally shedding those ideas of how a wife should behave, etc... And we're happier and I'm more confident than I've ever been before.

[margene]

You have stated pretty clearly the dynamics of the realtionship Smith and I had as we started to date. If I hadn't made the first move we wouldn't be together 26 years later.

[Cathy]

A beau once told me "the woman always chooses". With that kind of attitude - a woman can make a safe choice (no rapes - date or otherwise - etc etc).

[julia fc]

The boys I missed the boat on, it really was just as well. Personally, I function better with fewer junked relationships cluttering up the old belfry. But that said, if you want to live an entertaining sex life, wouldn't you be happier with partners who were comfortable with you as you are, rather than as some idea of what you should be? I concur, dear girl. And well said.

[Lee Ann]

Thank goodness Beauty woke up, eh? Gives new meaning to the concept of a power nap ;-)

Go, you. Desire, know it, and be happy. Ayuh, it most certainly does work better that way.

[Rachel H]

Very thoughtful and well said. Cool post.

[stephanie]

Nicely done Juno. A+. Now, how interesting is it that what you have observed is (and now of course you will note that I am generalizing wildly, as well as procrastinating on writing a book) that the more confident and experienced a man becomes, the less aggressive he behaves, and that the more confident and and experienced a woman becomes...the MORE agressive she behaves.
Interesting. Very interesting.

(Also quite gripping is that it seems to work better that way, but that's an argument for another morning.)

[Cassie]

Wooo! Wooooooo! (rambunctious cheering breaks out)

Now how scary is this Alito thing? Sheesh...

[Katy]

Ah, it's all so complicated. My partner and I started out in somewhat nontraditional roles--I proposed to him, after all!--but then it's so easy to slide into those cultural gender patterns. We are constantly reinventing things. Which, you know, keeps life interesting!

[claudia]

Nicely said. Perhaps you'll be coming to Boston more?

[Kathy]

YES! True partnership is an amazing thing, without games or subterfuge of any kind on either side. So freeing, really, to be able to just talk and *be* with another person instead of staying within the "proper" role someone else assigned each one. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we were all simply ourselves, without the crazy dances most people go through each day?