From "She’s Not Celibate — She’s ‘Boysober’/The comedian Hope Woodard is spreading the word about her yearlong break from sex and dating. One fan calls it 'this year’s hottest mental health craze'" (NYT)(free access link).
"A big part of the yearlong break from sex and romance is unlearning the unhealthy relationship patterns that often get passed down from generation to generation. 'Maybe we are one of the first generations of women where we don’t actually have to plug into a man for, like, energy and power and whatever,' Ms. Woodard said."
1. What do you think of the efficacy of 1-year breaks? If generations and generations have programmed a tendency into you, what are the chances you could "unlearn" it in one year?
2. What "generations of women" do you think she is referring to? She was born in 1996, which is said to be the last year of the Millennials, but I don't think if you're in the last year of one of these "generations," you really feel that you belong to it? Do people born in 1964, a year after the JFK assassination, feel like Baby Boomers? Impossible! I guess if you're born on the cusp, you're doomed to making your observations with verbosities like "we are one of the first generations." As a core Boomer, born in 1951, I've enjoyed the convenience of talkin' 'bout my generation.
3. "Boysober" implies that you couldn't handle the intoxication of boys. But if boys are like booze, can you go back after one year, or do you have to become that thing you didn't want to have to say: celibate?
4. Mimi suffers from dementia. I wouldn't say her interaction with her dead husband is "fucked up." It's fucked up to say that about a person with a disability. She's enduring within her limitations, and it's beautiful that her husband still lives for her. She can't absorb the fact of his death. She can believe he's close by. He just hasn't responded yet. How many of us, if our husband or wife died, would spend much of our time feeling that they were just in the next room or had gone out for a walk and would speak to us again soon? It wouldn't take dementia to create that illusion.
5. Why "boy"? Why not "man"?
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42 comments:
"What "generations of women" do you think she is referring to?"
Whichever software version or 'wave' feminism we're on now. By my count we're somewhere around 7.2 or 8th wave feminism. It won't be until 20th wave feminism that women realize they're actually just gay and fall back in love with penises instead of tryharding to be sub-optimal men who do a shitty job attempting to run the world. Your great great grandmothers had sex and loved it. So can you if you update your software honeybunnies.
From under her pic: Hope Woodard, a comedian and influencer,...
She's an influencer. It's for clicks.
From under her pic: Hope Woodard, a comedian and influencer,...
She's an influencer. It's for clicks.
"mental health craze" Now there is a turn of phrase.
This "break" business just sounds like another excuse lonely women can use to rationalize their loneliness. Sad.
What "generations of women" do you think she is referring to?
Probably all of them.
She was born in 1996, which is said to be the last year of the Millennials, but I don't think if you're in the last year of one of these "generations," you really feel that you belong to it? Do people born in 1964, a year after the JFK assassination, feel like Baby Boomers? Impossible!
I was born two days before the Kennedy assassination and I sure as Hell don't fell very Boomerish or Gen X-ish for that matter. At least not as those generations are generally described.
The Professor is correct about Hope Woodward, though. Being a slut and blaming it on everyone else is a total Gen Z move.
My sister died five years ago, and I still have her on "Find My" on my iPhone. And I still check it sometimes, like it's going to tell me something.
My dad has dementia, and he often thinks my sister's daughter is my sister. And we think that's kind of nice.
All through her life, I ME MINE, I ME MINE, I ME MINE.
I was born in 1964 and feel Boomer adjacent. My musical tastes are definitely Boomer but I was too young for most of the other cultural touchstones like the assassinations. My Vietnam War experience was first grade in Wisconsin while my dad served a year over there. I also spent 3rd-6th grades on military bases in Germany and could not understand the tumult in the US. Patty Hearst, an occasional bombing. “They treat black people differently than white people? What the heck?”
My parent kept writing letters to her dead mother, would read them and cry and leave them for me to read. Grandma was a proto feminist, my mother too, but they didn't know it. They just knew they were unhappy in marriage. And the husbands had bigger fish to fry.
Two generations of divorce, baby!
It didn't all start in 1963.
She can choose to avoid sex for a year but she can't choose to avoid romance. Romance chooses you.
>Why "boy"? Why not "man"?<
Because she was at a misandrist gig, doing that schtick for a bunch of feminists and lesbians (most of whom would have gone apeshit if it had been a male comedian talking about "girlsober").
unlearning the unhealthy relationship patterns
Or, you could just have your dad or brothers vet the guys you want to date.
It's worked for millennia even though it's out of favor right now.
What "generations of women" do you think she is referring to?
The ones in Mitt Romney's binders.
My mom has dementia. When he’s not around, she constantly asks about my dad. She remembers him and feels safe around him.
"Why "boy"? Why not "man"?"
Many years ago I had some housemates who had gone to Connecticut College for Women. While there, it went co-ed and they referred to it as Co Co for Wo and Bo: Connecticut College for Women and Boys. It was a pretty deliberate put-down of the males.
first generations of women where we don’t actually have to plug into a man
Question number 6...why does she believe this is how it works? Basic biology people!
There's your problem, Ms. Woodard, you "don’t actually have to plug into a man for, like, energy and power and whatever," because you don't have a plug. You've got the receptacle. Your real problem is "plug envy."
“we don’t actually have to plug into a man for, like, energy and power and whatever“
Come and get your whatever.
https://youtu.be/bc0KhhjJP98?si=pCUC9j72iThYI4CD
When the year's over, what do you do with all the cats?
What "generations of women" do you think she is referring to?
You tell us, Ann. You're from an earlier generation than her. Did you "have to plug into a man for energy and power"?
There will always be an audience for people who tell you that you're problems come from outside you. Telling women to blame men for their unhappiness, telling men to blame to blame women.
Remember the way the Times described males who had similar feelings about females?
They certainly didn't praise them, to put it mildly.
27 year old women should abstain from having sex with "boys" for the rest of their lives, because that's statuatory rape.
What she said about her grandmother is incredibly cruel.
Now I have to go wash my brain.
Love 'til the end of time. Sweet.
Telling women to blame men for their unhappiness, telling men to blame to blame women.
Men, women, and our Posterity are from Earth. Feminists are from Venus. Masculinists are from Mars. Social progressives are from Uranus. War of the worlds.
Widows and widowers are often advised to write letters to their late spouses as a way to collect their thoughts. It is a form of journaling which does not require one to be demented to benefit from it.
"You tell us, Ann. You're from an earlier generation than her. Did you "have to plug into a man for energy and power"?"
No, and I didn't even consider doing that. I thought that was something women did in the past, but not anymore. There were times in later years when I marveled that I had not even thought of the idea and evaluated it. Why not endeavor to marry a rich man and enjoy a leisurely life of love and beauty?
Paul Zrimsek said...
"When the year's over, what do you do with all the cats?"
Excellent.
my friend's 20 year old daughter claims to be "abstinent" for Why she doesn't date.
btw, the daughter (ex-cheerleader) it drop dead gorgeous and could get a date instantly.
But,
she doesn't want to date "losers"* (most men), and Won't be in the harem of some "Chad"**
SO.. She abstains.. Which, if you think about it.. Is what most women did for the last thousand years
In a year or 2.. GOD willing,
she'll meet a nice Christian man.. And pop out several kids (like her mom (and grandma))
"losers" most young girls consider 80% of young men to be ugly
Chad** Chad is a usually disparaging internet slang term used for a popular, confident, sexually active young white male.
"plug envy" Brilliant, planetgeo.
"Boys and not men" because women like to think of themselves as girls.
20 years ago I called a 50 year old Mexican lady I worked with senora.
She responded "senorita". Then after a pause, "por favor"
I probably haven't used the word "ma'am" since then, only "miss".
"Why not endeavor to marry a rich man and enjoy a leisurely life of love and beauty?"
Sometimes it's only later in life that we find our Holy Grail.
Most of what you need to know in the piece can be derived from the following: "The audience of mostly women and nonbinary people often burst into knowing laughter..."
It's sweet and sad that grandma still texts.
I looked her up...she's cute and probably gets lots of offers on the road.
Ann Althouse said...
"You tell us, Ann. You're from an earlier generation than her. Did you "have to plug into a man for energy and power"?"
No, and I didn't even consider doing that. I thought that was something women did in the past, but not anymore.
Of course not! You were the new, self-centered feminist version of Western womanhood. All about you, sister! Your mothers and grandmothers were family-centered on the balance. Homemakers, even. Well, how has it all worked out? You drilled it into young women that the most important thing in world is to do whatever they want and they deserve it all! And here they are, less happy with their lives. YOU killed off the homemakers and with them went the homes. Such a surprise that young men want nothing to do with them aside from occasional vaginal access.
There were times in later years when I marveled that I had not even thought of the idea and evaluated it. Why not endeavor to marry a rich man and enjoy a leisurely life of love and beauty?
Why not marry a decent man and enjoy a normal life? Oh, quelle horreur! But seems like you got around to it eventually. Have you ever marveled that you would have probably had NOTHING to do with the young Laurence Meade?
my friend's 20 year old daughter claims to be "abstinent" for Why she doesn't date.
She was just trying to turn you down politely.
(Kidding, sorry, sorry).
Take it from a 70 year old. If you're young and you think its cool or fun or cutting edge to avoid sex or relationships, you're wasting a part of your life you'll be hating yourself for in about 40 or so years. Cut the crap. Be human. Live.
I have no regrets.
“She can choose to avoid sex for a year but she can't choose to avoid romance. Romance chooses you”
One of the things that my partner and I share is that we both had a rule of no romance (or sex) for a year after the end of a major relationship. My justification was avoiding love on the rebound. Hers wasn’t much different. I watched my college GF bounce through a throwaway boyfriend into a marriage to a cad, less than a year. I think that, deep down, she was looking for an Mrs degree, and got it. She very clearly wasn’t over me at her wedding. My partner almost (because she never looks back) regrets one guy after she was widowed. I can’t say that it helped either of us, but it’s something we share.
5. Why "boy"? Why not "man"?
I think it is psychological defense mechanism. If a woman has a string of past relationships with 'boys' it makes them (the relationships, but I also suppose the men) feel less serious. And if they are not serious then it is ok that they didn't work out. It is not a big deal and doesn't require any serious self-examination and perhaps a conscious effort to change behavioral patterns.
As far as the 24 year old woman from the article who mentioned that sometimes her and her friends, 'go celibate,' for a while. I will say that it has been my experience that the overwhelming amount of people who say they are 'going sober' for a bit, drink a large amount and frequently to an unhealthy degree.
Althouse said: Do people born in 1964, a year after the JFK assassination, feel like Baby Boomers? Impossible!
I was born in those last couple of years of the baby boom, and music is the only thing I feel kinship with the Boomers. (IMO, 1964 to 1977 was probably the greatest period in popular music we’ll ever know.) I think it’s very difficult to call yourself a Boomer if you’re a male who was not yet of draft age in 1973, or a female who had not attained a similar age; neither would have had the same formative experiences of the core Boomers. The cohort born from, say, 1956 to 1964 absolutely shouldn’t be counted among the Boomers.
Bubbie is not as vibrant as she will be... was, but she is still viable with a caring heart.
Ann's #4. Yes, she has shoehorned other people's behavior into her new favorite shoes, whether it fits or not. Her grandmother's behavior is not based on generations of conditioning anymore than her grandfather's would be in the same circumstance. There is likely an enormous genetic component to pair-bonding, which a year of boysober (Stop! Stop! You're killing me here! She actually said "boysober?") I need to go see this and see how the audience reacted - but only if they show who is in the audience. I want to see the faces of the women who think this is inspired reasoning. I won't count the men doing it. They're just hoping to get laid and are trying to be first in line when the girl abandons this plan in a couple of weeks. Could be a fun evening if you play your cards right.
The use of "boy" instead of "man" pretty clearly announces she wants to be a girl, not a woman.
As for generations, I am a core Boomer, and we may be the first generation to think we were the first generation about anything, except maybe immigration.
A sure-fire way to steer someone away from romance for the foreseeable future:
1. Lock them in a 15’x25’ padded cell.
2. Pipe in “Afternoon Delight”, a swingin’ hit from 1976… volume up, but not too excessive.
3. Do NOT unlock and open the door for 72 hours.
I haven’t tried this myself, but I have heard that song repeated 3 times in 60 minutes and I can guarantee this prescription will work.
Don’t it always seem to go…that you fall in love when you’re not looking for it.
…or you’re looking in all the wrong places…
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