From an inanely glib Salon list of lessons about marriage that one woman purports to have extracted from the experience of "dating" one man who was — with permission — having sex with women other than his wife.
ADDED: In the comments, MRG tells me: "No, they were lessons about relationships, not marriage." I look back to the (inane) article to check my reading. Inane things must be read correctly too. The lessons from the married man apply, the author says, to her "new, monogamous relationship."
I see that I read "monogamous" to mean: married to only one person.
I check the (unlinkable) Oxford English Dictionary, and of course, my meaning is the correct original and literal meaning. But: "Now also (in extended use): remaining faithful to one person during the course of a sexual relationship other than marriage."
The historical quote signaling the arrival of the extended-use meaning is from 1987: "Throughout my twenties, I had superromantic, monogamous love affairs with passionate orgasms from intercourse."
The quote is from Betty Dodson (b. 1929) in "Sex for One: The Joy of Self-Loving."
Here's a very recent article about Dodson in The Guardian, and the picture of her at the age of 81 made me wonder whether whether one of the joys of self-loving was the preservation of a startlingly youthful appearance. Oh, I see the article addresses this: Dodson attributes her looks to "masturbation, pot and raw garlic." Also:
Although she was described as one of the "early feminists" by Gloria Steinem, she felt out of place in the consciousness-raising groups of the time. "I always thought sex was a top-priority issue," she says, pouring herself a whisky. "Feminists like Gloria Steinem thought it was private." (She chuckles, "I love Gloria. I used to call her 'the general'.")...Dodson conducts workshops:
"They're afraid of sex because they say it's too controversial. But I feel it's because they're personally too conflicted. They don't want to masturbate, they want Prince Charming. It's Walt Disney. Puke. Barfarama."...
"In the workshop we share our orgasm with the group while being in control of our own clitoris," she says, explaining that the class consists of a "genital show-and-tell" followed by masturbation in a circle. Betty has been known to help out with her vibrator. "No wonder I keep doing it. Are you kidding? The sounds, the sights, the smells. Fat, skinny, one tit gone. Women are so beautiful.""She doesn't believe in monogamy."
[W]omen are "so addicted to romantic love. It's the heaviest drug in the world and we make long-lasting bad decisions because of it. You get married, you give up sex. Pretty much count on it."...My message — keep up your own stream of consciousness, you can have first-rate conversations inside your own head; stop writing what you think your reader wants to see in a blog – seems more necessary than ever in an age when increasing social mediafication of our culture is making these ideals harder for bloggers.
Her message – keep up a sexual relationship with yourself, you can have first-rate orgasms by yourself; stop doing what you think your partner wants to see in bed – seems more necessary than ever in an age when increasing pornification of our culture is making these ideals harder for women.
That is to say: I digress.
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36 comments:
He told me all the time how special I was; he’d message me to let me know how much he was looking forward to seeing me again
That is one man who knows how to bed a woman.
I thought Salon authors are supposed to be smarter than the rest of us.
He told me all the time how special I was; he’d message me to let me know how much he was looking forward to seeing me again
Yes I believe Ann has received and shared with us similar emails she received from Barack Obama.
I told my wife that I would never cheat on her, with one exception. Britney Spears.
She told me Britney Spears would never give me the time of day, let alone sleep with me, so go ahead and have all the sex I want with Britney.
Then I named all my mistresses Britney Spears.
Most of us know that "complete trust" is not possible, nor is it a good idea (or even kind) to "talk about everything."
In any case, it seems improbable that sexual jealousy is entirely a social construct, as it seems to persist to some extent in all cultures (Margaret Mead and Samoa notwithstanding).
Which means that those in "poly" relationships will suppress their sexual jealousy. Until, perhaps, one day they don't. Because it can be an intense emotion, and can take one by surprise. Especially if one has been denying its very existence all along.
Then people get hurt; sometimes badly hurt.
It always surprises me when anyone is so naive as to suppose the species can just be remade to suit, merely by willing it to be so. So where is that New Soviet Man today (the one who'd just as soon feed a stranger as his own children, even if there isn't enough for both) anyway?
Perhaps someday genetic engineering will fix our Darwininian legacy, and the world will be as one. Until then, I'll remain skeptical.
one man who was — with permission — having sex with women other than his wife.
yeah....that never happened.
Salon must be going for that coveted niche market of women with low self esteem.
Perhaps she's readying herself for life on a Mormon compound, or in a Sheik's harem, or to get Sundays and Thursdays with a Salon editor.
So from a man who will never leave his wife for you, to a man who will never live in the same country as you ... this woman sounds pretty afraid of relationships that actually might amount to something real. Wow.
As a commenter on that site observed, Charles sounds like a sociopath and this woman a dupe.
With my expectations managed, I didn’t run into brick walls trying to make the relationship something it wasn’t.
That's SO not how gurls work!
- Krumhorn
Remember when the left claimed that it was silly to suggest that they'd be pushing the normalization of polygamy next?
Yeah, it was a lie then. They've always wanted to normalize it.
A desperate door mat is trying to justify her door-mat-ness.
The bright side, he's never beat her up for questioning his whereabouts. Thanks to Obamacare her condoms are free, and sex with this woman is cheaper than wh*oring.
Even knowing Charles was juggling multiple partners, I never doubted how important I was to him, because he never left an information gap for me to fill in.
Wanna bet?
When I was in graduate school I noticed that the really great looking women were often found with hippies. It took me a while to realize that the hippies had nothing to do other than listen ("talk") to women. Highly effective. Those of us who had stuff to do could not possibly compete with the amount of attention the hippies paid to those women.
What could possibly go wrong with this sort of arrangement?
"From an inanely glib Salon list of lessons about marriage..."
No, they were lessons about relationships, not marriage. It's another model. The monogamous dating model has some problems, especially for (older) people not looking to create a family. Of course the poly model has problems too, but it's another option, and the author pointed out some (not all) of the advantages.
Glib is the perfect word for that list.
It made me sad to read.
Few people can cheerfully incorporate the "lessons" she learned from her experience into their lives.
Speaking from personal experience: unless you have no feelings at all or have decades of Buddhist-style unattachment practice, no matter how much you talk through the fine print, you are going to run aground sometimes, often in uniquely painful and lonely ways. It's enough to make you wonder why you bother in the first place. The highs are great, but the lows are shit.
Don't be such a square Captain Bringdown; if they're not hurtin' you who cares, let 'em do what they feel, man. If someone objects it's probably 'cause they're not getting as much action and they're jealous.
Just from the excerpt this fellow seems to have mastered the "phrasing statements and arguments in a way women find persuasive" deal Prof A. encourages, though -- GOP take note!
Waiting for a delayed meeting to start, I clicked on that Salon link. It turned out to be funnier than I expected. A sample of the humor:
"I’ve always felt like past boyfriends compared me to other women. Some of them directly pointed out attractive women who were thinner, younger or, in one case, more innocent-acting than me. Others did not, but I still assumed they were at risk whenever a thinner, younger, more attractive, different woman was around."
"He told me all the time how special I was; he’d message me to let me know how much he was looking forward to seeing me again"
Dumb sluts always fall for this. It must be the low self esteem.
Whoa; is Althouse reading Heartiste these days???
That’s quite a lot of lessons learned from some “wasted time.”
You mean the time reading the article, Nicola?
Experience tells me that the guy's marriage is doomed. this chirpy chick going on about how wonderful it was to be the other woman needs to have whatever is in her head scooped out with a melon baller and replaced with brain matter.
Quote me no lies or statistics, but "open marriage" works in perhaps one in a hundred instances, if that. One day He or She in the relationship will come home and announce that they have found "The One" the man refers to and that will be that. You can't hold a relationship together when your are spending your spare time dating other people.
I wonder, after whites have sold your family members everywhere, raped your sisters, mothers, and grandmothers, castrated many of the males, destroyed every vestige of a conventional family life AND made it perfectly clear any relationship you engage in can be whisked away at the whim of a master, mistress, or any debt they incur that necessitates a sale (or jealousy by the wife, etc.) not to mention the prison industrial complex's interruption of black life - after all that:
Is this wrong?
Troll
Sounds like an iffy 80s song ...
Articles about polyamory are published for the same reason that carnivals used to host freak shows.
Annie Savoy: Despite my rejection of most Judeo-Christian ethics, I am, within the framework of the baseball season, monogamous
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: So is somebody going to go to bed with somebody or what?
Thorley Winston FTW.
...and the picture of her at the age of 81 made me wonder whether whether one of the joys of self-loving was the preservation of a startlingly youthful appearance
Ernest Borgnine offers relevant testimony concerning this question.
By 2022, "monogamy" will have yet another definition:
"bedding only one sexual partner during the course of an evening."
People can rationalize anything.
Notice that she took his word that his wife knew about it?
Equivalence! Progress.
The problem is, of course, cultural shaming, which prevents normalization of this behavior.
It is much easier to sustain a relationship when there is no relationship. There is no there there. As I read it, her arrangement with the married man features all the benefits of a high-end escort service but lacking any of the hard parts that make a relationship worthwhile in the long run. (OK, there was one hard part involved, but that is to be expected on something based mostly on sex and lead-ups to sex.)
As to Madame Self-Pleasure, civilizations often fall because its citizenry become decadent in some way. Societies become so rich that they treat military service as something they pay other people to do, or the entrenched powers that be become so corrupt that the society exists merely to service them above all else, or various factions put their agenda above the population at large, or whatever. Usually failing to have enough sex to produce the next generation is not a problem. From a general societal perspective, someone like Betty Dodson is certifiable insane. Or suicidal. Or perhaps both. In small enough numbers it can be amusing. If someone like her to get real power, her name would be one that would be cursed by future generations and I don't mean while they are wanking. (Assuming there are future generations, of course.)
Don't you want to look at a photograph of the author of the linked article? Yes, you know you do
Dobson's criticism of feminism ("...they want Prince Charming") is devastating. They wanted Prince Charming, didn't get him and now their pissed that their fantasies didn't become reality--since it clearly wasn't their fault, it must be the fault of men and men will pay!
In other words, Feminism is unbelievably narcissistic; Feminists behave like spoiled brats who don't get their way. And, like brats, if they don't get their way, nobody will. This is why young women, like my daughters, completely reject Feminism--it's far more oppressive and nasty than the thing they claim to fight.
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