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Friday, April 30, 2010

"Poon"?

By unpopular demand, back to the well for Roissy's Sixteen Commandments of Poon. Ugh. After this I have to write about, like, bunnies and clouds, or kissing in the rain,or that time that I was fucking this dude and he was ramming my head into the wall on every thrust but I didn't really mind because that kind of sex is worth a little plaster in your hair.

I. Never say ‘I Love You’ first
Okay, so this isn't pickup game, this is deep into the relationship. And yet you're still gaming her, somehow? You've been together for months and you're still insecure enough to be constantly pulling strings? Fuck, man, what do you even want a relationship for if you're not going to relax and enjoy it?

Women want to feel like they have to overcome obstacles to win a man’s heart. They crave the challenge of capturing the interest of a man who has other women competing for his attention, and eventually prevailing over his grudging reluctance to award his committed exclusivity.
Mmm... grudging. I always dreamed of giving my heart to a grudging man.

II. Make her jealous
Flirt with other women in front of her. Do not dissuade other women from flirting with you. Women will never admit this but jealousy excites them. The thought of you turning on another woman will arouse her sexually.

That's true for some women. It's not true for others. This is why I like the sex-positive community: in here, in this rarified little world of kinksters and poly folk and sex nerds, when you come upon a situation like that you can ask. It's not a perfect system, people still bite off more than they can chew or turn "communication" into just another arena for pissfights, but it beats the fuck out of just guessing. Guess-based sexuality annoys the shit out of me.

Also, even if I do get a little wet thinking about you with another woman, I'm still going to get pissed off if I suspect you're going to actually do it. (I mean, without asking. But this isn't the advanced class.)

III. You shall make your mission, not your woman, your priority
Despite whatever protestations to the contrary, women do not want to be “The One” or the center of a man’s existence. They in fact want to subordinate themselves to a worthy man’s life purpose, to help him achieve that purpose with their feminine support, and to follow the path he lays out.

Can I pick Option C? He follows his life purpose and I follow my own goddamn life purpose. I actually agree that it's not healthy to ignore your life goals for your partner--whether you're male or female.

As for "subordinating myself"--I can't tell when Roissy is trolling sometimes. There's a thin line between his "ha ha, I'm a totally bad boy, IN YOUR FACE political correctness because I'm EDGY" and the things he actually means. I'm sure he's proud of this fact but I think it's just a cover mechanism for not knowing the difference himself.

IV. Don’t play by her rules
If you allow a woman to make the rules she will resent you with a seething contempt even a rapist cannot inspire.

Actually, if you don't allow a woman to make some rules you might be a rapist.

The strongest woman and the most strident feminist wants to be led by, and to submit to, a more powerful man. Polarity is the core of a healthy loving relationship. She does not want the prerogative to walk all over you with her capricious demands and mercurial moods. Her emotions are a hurricane, her soul a saboteur. Think of yourself as a bulwark against her tempest. When she grasps for a pillar to steady herself against the whipping winds or yearns for an authority figure to foil her worst instincts, it is you who has to be there… strong, solid, unshakeable and immovable.
Oh. I get it. I actually feel a little sympathy for him now. He's not (just) an asshole, he's kinky! Roissy is totally a Dom! But he's one of those fetishists who doesn't understand that their fetish isn't universal. He's the equivalent of the foot fetishist who thinks that every woman in sandals is doing it on purpose to tease him.

Or he might just be an asshole. I don't want to hastily rule anything out.

V. Adhere to the golden ratio
Give your woman 2/3 of everything she gives you. For every three calls or texts, give her two back. Three declarations of love earn two in return. Three gifts; two nights out. Give her two displays of affection and stop until she has answered with three more. When she speaks, you reply with fewer words. When she emotes, you emote less.

Not only is this supremely assholish, not only is it one of those "why are you in a relationship again?" moments, it just seems hard to keep track of. I'd accidentally emote a full 4/3rds sometimes and it would take weeks of stoneface to get back on track.

VI. Keep her guessing
True to their inscrutable natures, women ask questions they don’t really want direct answers to. Woe be the man who plays it straight — his fate is the suffering of the beta. Evade, tease, obfuscate.

Some of this seems like it was written in an alternate universe where women never just break up with their boyfriends. This kind of thing doesn't say "maybe I'm a man of mystery, you'll never know" to me, it says "I'm totally cheating." I mean, I don't know that he's cheating, he could be addicted to drugs or gambling or just pathologically secretive, but my point is, none of the options are glamorous.

And how dumb would you feel if you got dumped for cheating and you weren't even cheating?

VII. Always keep two in the kitty
Oh, so you are cheating. Never mind.

VIII. Say you’re sorry only when absolutely necessary
Apologizing increases the demand for more apologies. She will come to expect your contrition, like a cat expects its meal at a set time each day.

Yeah, because arguments and unhappiness are delicious like cat food. Jesus Christ, if you really think a woman is just a couple "I'm sorry"s away from becoming a mewling emotional vampire, you should probably invest in a Fleshlight and a single bed.

IX. Connect with her emotions
Describe in lush detail scenarios to set her heart afire. Give your feelings freedom to roam. ROAM. Yes, that is a good word. You’re not on a linear path with her. You are ROAMING all over, taking her on an adventure. In this world, there is no need to finish thoughts or draw conclusions. There is only need to EXPERIENCE. You’re grabbing her hand and running with her down an infinite, labyrinthine alleyway with no end, laughing and letting your fingers glide on the cobblestone walls along the way.

Wow, all that douchebaggery and suddenly we're in a romance novel. Actually kind of a good one. I never knew ol' Roissy had it in him. I think there's still some douchey "women are irrational and mysterious" subtext here, but it's so pretty that I irrationally like it.

X. Ignore her beauty
The man who trains his mind to subdue the reward centers of his brain when reflecting upon a beautiful female face will magically transform his interactions with women. His apprehension and self-consciousness will melt away, paving the path for more honest and self-possessed interactions with the objects of his desire.[...] It will help you acquire the right frame of mind to stop using the words hot, cute, gorgeous, or beautiful to describe girls who turn you on. Instead, say to yourself “she’s interesting” or “she might be worth getting to know”.

Oh my God, what's wrong with me, I'm kind of agreeing with Roissy. Not the part where you never compliment her looks, but he's got a point here. Except that I want to know how you train yourself to ignore beauty, but then exclusively pursue 22YOBS anyway.

XI. Be irrationally self-confident
No matter what your station in life, stride through the world without apology or excuse. It does not matter if objectively you are not the best man a woman can get; what matters is that you think and act like you are.

God dammit asshole, stop having good points.

XII. Maximize your strengths, minimize your weaknesses
In the betterment of ourselves as men we attract women into our orbit. To accomplish this gravitational pull as painlessly and efficiently as possible, you must identify your natural talents and shortcomings and parcel your efforts accordingly. If you are a gifted jokester, don’t waste time and energy trying to raise your status in philosophical debate. If you write well but dance poorly, don’t kill yourself trying to expand your manly influence on the dancefloor.

And again. Why did he spend the first half of this page telling people how to be emotionally abusive assholes, and then use some actual insight on the second? It's jarring.

XIII. Err on the side of too much boldness, rather than too little
Touching a woman inappropriately on the first date will get you further with her than not touching her at all. Don’t let a woman’s faux indignation at your boldness sway you; they secretly love it when a man aggressively pursues what he wants and makes his sexual intentions known.

Oh good, there's the emotionally abusive asshole we know and do not love. And he's advocating rape! Or at least groping. I've never played the "faux indignation" game myself, but I have played the "real indignation and never seeing him again" game, and I'm capable of playing the "911, I'm going to need the police... and an ambulance" game if it comes to that, buddy.

(At least I hope I am. Shit, this is sending me into an uncomfortable tangent of wondering whether I could physically defend myself from a date who went too far. I've never been threatened with anything really bad, but fuck, I can't even talk mean to most guys who push my boundaries. I could do it if he was hostile, if he was all "I'm going to hurt you bitch" I could bust out the Krav Maga and/or concealed weaponry, but if took the "I thought you liked it" tactic--and they very often do--I have the hideous suspicion that I'd end up apologizing to him. Still wouldn't see him again, though.)

XIV. Fuck her good
Fuck her like it’s your last fuck. And hers. Fuck her so good, so hard, so wantonly, so profligately that she is left a quivering, sparking mass of shaking flesh and sex fluids. Drain her of everything, then drain her some more. Kiss her all over, make love to her all night, and hold her close in the morning.

Oh Roissy you incurable romantic. This sounds pretty good... assuming it's not being done over her "faux indignation."

XV. Maintain your state control
You are an oak tree. You will not be manipulated by crying, yelling, lying, head games, sexual withdrawal, jealousy ploys, pity plays, shit tests, hot/cold/hot/cold, disappearing acts, or guilt trips.

Jesus, if she's throwing all that at you, maybe it's time to go be an oak tree somewhere else.

XVI. Never be afraid to lose her
Solid advice. After you've cheated on her, been emotionally withholding, ignored her desires, completely bafffled her with erratic behavior and impenetrable arrogance, continuously treated her like she's a crazy manipulative bitch, and possibly physically violated her a little, you'd better be ready to lose her.

39 comments:

  1. Guess-based sexuality annoys the shit out of me.

    Interesting point. Frankly, Roissy is writing a guide for guess-based men to pick up guess-based women. I don't know how good a guide it is, but that relationship culture is so foreign to me that you've just created a terrified suspicion that he may actually know what he's talking about.

    None of which is to say that I understand why guess-based men or women would be seen as such prizes. But anecdotal evidence would suggest Roissy's disciples might at least be fishing out of a bigger pool.

    Polarity is the core of a healthy loving relationship.

    I actually think the "taken in hand" folks have a point: relationships do seem to work better when one partner has the final say in family decisions (assuming healthy communication and mutual respect, and only for specific practical values of "working" that may or may not be any individual's priority). But the leap of logic it takes to assume that the decisionmaker must be the one with the Y chromosome? Baffling.

    [Okay, not "baffling" so much as "comically convenient".]

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  2. V. Adhere to the golden ratio
    ( ... stuff about 2/3 ...)

    Dammit, the golden ratio is fucking a half plus half the square root of five. He's not just an asshole; he's an _incorrect_ asshole.

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  3. He's an Alpha, Anon. He don't play by your rules. As long as Roissy's in the room, the golden ratio is 2/3, like how pi used to be 3.0 in Indiana.

    And while we're at it, fuck the Axiom of Choice! In here we use the Axiom of A Man Chooses, A Slave Obeys,[1] under which Roissy can choose an arbitrary element from an uncountable infinite set and that's the element you deserve, bitch.


    [1] Andrew Ryan, Bioshock.

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  4. Elmo - Unfortunately, the ridiculousness of the "dating value" tests takes away from any "maybe he sort of has a point" factor here. And I really don't think even guess-based women are nearly such horrible harpies as he makes them out to be here.

    Anon - Hey, that's a good point. Really you need to output one unit of giving a shit for every ~1.61 units she does.

    Mark Z. - Would you kindly continue being awesome.

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  5. I actually think the "taken in hand" folks have a point: relationships do seem to work better when one partner has the final say in family decisions (assuming healthy communication and mutual respect, and only for specific practical values of "working" that may or may not be any individual's priority).

    Sure that's not your own bias as a person in a very structurally polar relationship talking?

    I've had people tell me this often, and it's like hearing I'd be better off if I spoke Mandarin instead of English. Neither of us is "the final decision-maker" and it's never remotely hindered us; final say defaults to a combination of who cares the most about the whatever plus who has the most experience/expertise in the issue's area. I literally cannot think of a single example of when making a decision would have been easier or had a better outcome if one of us had the "executive order".

    Most of the cases I can think of in other people's relationships when joint decision-making went poorly is when the mutual respect and communication wasn't there, or nobody wanted to take responsibility for the decision and kept trying to push it off on the other person.

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  6. If it makes you feel better, I'm going to point out why point XI is idiotic and Roissy is still a moron.

    Self-confidence is good. IRRATIONAL self-confidence is NOT good. Self-confidence is not letting people who don't matter get you down with their catty remarks. Irrational self-confidence is completely ignoring people who DO matter. It's the guy in the first year biology class smugly telling the PhD'd professor why evolution doesn't exist because if humans came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys, huh? Huh? Yeah, that's what I thought.

    There's a VAST difference between listening to people's criticisms of you and consciously deciding those criticisms are invalid and just blindly saying, "Anybody who thinks anything different from me is dead wrong."

    People who are constantly apologizing for breathing or talking too loud or existing are annoying. But if you're striding through life throwing out misogynystic statements left and right and ignoring any criticisms of you because you have some life philosophy whereby you refuse to apologise? Um...no.

    --Andy

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  7. I can't understand how Roissy's points hang together, I can't imagine what it would be like to live up to all of them simultaneously, and it hurts my head to think who might read his list and nod. And is it just me or does the guy in those points bear only passing resemblance to the alpha who scored so well on Roissy's test?

    I don't think there's any mystery why guys like Roissy are lonely, confused, and bitter. They're like North Koreans exposed to the truth of their American counterparts after decades of propaganda.

    The comments on this post about ranking women are fantastic, by the way: http://roissy.wordpress.com/female-photo-submissions/

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  8. Give your woman 2/3 of everything she gives you
    Give your woman 2/3 of everything she gives you. For every three calls or texts, give her two back.


    If they're both playing this game at the same time, eventually they'll have to stop talking to each other entirely!

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  9. Bruno - Unfortunately, although I shouldn't give a shit what assholes think, I actually have a hard time reading that thread, because god DAMN there's only so much I can take of being told I'm uglier than the ugliest 1 ever. I know it's just these guys' way of stroking off their own egos and the actual women are just props for the "my standards are so high I think runway models are fat" game, but it gets to me.

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  10. Sure that's not your own bias as a person in a very structurally polar relationship talking?

    Nope. It's just an observation based on my very limited sample of families I've known intimately enough to have seen a decent number of their family decisions. Within that limited sample, there are very loose bell curves of bad and good decision-making families, and the curve for "head of household" families seems to be a bit ahead of the one for "equal partnership" families as far as smoothly making decisions is concerned.

    Most of the cases I can think of in other people's relationships when joint decision-making went poorly is when the mutual respect and communication wasn't there, or nobody wanted to take responsibility for the decision and kept trying to push it off on the other person.

    To beg the question for a minute, I suspect this is most of the reason for head-of-household arrangements working "better": very poor communication can make any relationship fail, and good communication can make almost any relationship succeed, but having a mutually-agreed decision maker can compensate for _slightly_ poor communication or noncommittal-ness. In this case, all healthy and unhealthy relationships may be equal for all practical purposes, but HoH arrangements could skew the average by boosting some number of middlin' relationships.

    Or, again, I could be completely wrong. My sample is disproportionately heavy on the DS-based families, and it's possible some coincidental variables are making correlation look like causation. Off the top of my head, maybe intensely kinky relationships are less likely to survive without good communication, therefore a sample of long-term DS relationships is likely to have better communication by necessity, simply because the uncommunicative ones have completely self destructed.

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  11. Nope.

    That is to say, "No, I'm not sure", not "No, you're wrong".

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  12. Rolling this over a bit more in my head.

    I've had people tell me this often, and it's like hearing I'd be better off if I spoke Mandarin instead of English.

    What I'm trying to say is more "I've known a hundred Mandarin speakers and two hundred English speakers, and the Mandarins seem to be better debaters than the Englishes". Just pointing out for discussion a correlation I've seen from a small sample--not intended to imply that you'll become a better debater if you switch languages.

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  13. elmo--

    Decisions might go more smoothly with a designated decision-maker, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll go better. Especially in a situation where there's poor communication; what that basically amounts to is the person who doesn't get the final say getting stomped all over.

    And it's an impossible dynamic to force, except through artificial means that are deeply fucked up (ie, giving women no options outside the home). My husband usually ends up having more of a say in a lot of decisions because he's strongly opinionated about them and I in most cases couldn't give a shit. But if I really disagree with him, I will say so and we will have to work it out; I'm not going to just default to him because 'he's boss'.

    I know a lot of couples where one partner tends to make the final decision more often; I don't know any functional relationships where one person has the power to make decisions regardless of what their partner thinks.

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  14. To the questions you've already raised, I'd also add that it probably makes a massive difference to effective decision-making on the "head of household" model to find a polar relationship satisfying in and of itself to begin with.

    If you don't, it can suck from both ends- the partner who makes all final decisions is stuck with the weight of responsibility for all of them, and the partner who doesn't is stuck with their consequences whether he or she had much power in making them or not. I know one reason I've always rejected the model is I would find both positions equally unsatisfying.

    That does feed back into your "debate contest" model some, but you've already pointed out that your sample size is not only biased, but biased in a situation that requires everyone to have excellent communication skills to begin with.

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  15. aebhel, note:

    ...(assuming healthy communication and mutual respect, and only for specific practical values of "working" that may or may not be any individual's priority). But the leap of logic it takes to assume that the decisionmaker must be the one with the Y chromosome? Baffling.

    The kind of relationship I'm talking about doesn't involve anybody getting stomped on, (unless he's into it ;) ), nor does it make decisions regardless of what any partner thinks, nor is it default-patriarchal (off the top of my head, I think I know more female-led households than male-led ones). I'm talking specifically about relationships in which decisions are discussed and if a disagreement results, one person chosen by mutual consent makes a final call based on what he or she thinks is best for everybody. That person can be a man, a woman, the person with the most experience in the relevant subject, or whoever rolled highest on the percentile dice that morning.

    This doesn't work if the head-of-household capriciously makes self-serving decisions at the rest of the family's expense, but I'd question the wisdom of putting that person in charge of the family (or, for that matter, staying in _any_ relationship with him or her).

    And it's an impossible dynamic to force...

    I'm not saying it should be mandatory. And again, I'm not sure it's even advice. I'm pointing out for the sake of discussion a correlation I think I see, not suggesting that you'd get the perceived benefit if you switched to that kind of relationship.

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  16. That person can be a man, a woman, the person with the most experience in the relevant subject, or whoever rolled highest on the percentile dice that morning.

    Now I'm confused. What on earth is the meaningful difference between a "head of household" model and an "equal partnership" model if who actually makes the final call is in fact this changeable?

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  17. "If you allow a woman to make the rules she will resent you with a seething contempt even a rapist cannot inspire."

    He's not actually as opposed to women making the rules as you might seem. You see, Roissy thinks that all women really want to be raped. So if he tells you that she'll hate you more than a rapist, maybe it'll just be mild annoyance!

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  18. OK, i haven't gone to their pages, but i just assumed from the name "Roissy" that it was either the kind of Dom who thinks his kinks are universal, or a Pauline Reage type who's just making all this up to amuse her friends.

    flightless

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  19. I'm with Andy on "XI. Be irrationally self-confident"

    Roissy's advice there is probably useful to someone who is irrationally self-doubting; to push the self-opinion toward a reasonable and accurate point. Holly, from your writing I believe you are an example of someone whose self-opinion is inaccurately low.

    I know people who fully live out irrational self-confidence, though, and they are socially destructive assholes, wandering through life leaving a string of wrecked relationships and wounded people behind.

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  20. I'd also add that it probably makes a massive difference to effective decision-making on the "head of household" model to find a polar relationship satisfying in and of itself to begin with.

    Absolutely. Which is why I said "only for specific practical values of 'working' that may or may not be any individual's priority". Again to beg the question, even if I could prove that HoH arrangements raise the family's decisionmaking effectiveness foo percent, "decisionmaking effectiveness" is hardly the be-all and end-all of rewarding relationships.

    That does feed back into your "debate contest" model some, but you've already pointed out that your sample size is not only biased, but biased in a situation that requires everyone to have excellent communication skills to begin with.

    I was taking it as implicit that I was discussing essentially healthy relationships in which all partners are at least trying to articulate their preferences, have each other's wellbeing in mind, and aren't looking for excuses to abuse each other. It was obviously less implicit to people who live outside my head. ;)

    Now I'm confused. What on earth is the meaningful difference between a "head of household" model and an "equal partnership" model if who actually makes the final call is in fact this changeable?

    The real-life "head of household" relationships I've known _aren't_ that changeable, but I see no reason they couldn't be. The idea is simply that relationships work to a certain extent like any other group that shares common goals: there are times when different people have different opinions, and a decision still needs to be made. Having a person who can end debate and make that decision, however he or she is chosen, is valuable in getting shit done.

    You and Stingray clearly have excellent communication and don't have this problem, but I've known plenty of otherwise healthy middlin'-communicative families that can hit a bit of an impasse in those cases.

    Naming a head-of-household is just one possible prearranged method of stasis-breaking. Frankly, in most of these presumed-healthy "head of household" relationships, I expect you could get essentially the same advantage from agreeing to flip a coin when decision-stasis comes up.

    I didn't mean to suggest there was special super-relationship mojo in HoH relationships. I just wanted to make fun of Roissy for assuming household heads needed to be male.

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  21. Except that I want to know how you train yourself to ignore beauty, but then exclusively pursue 22YOBS anyway.

    I think the idea is that you're still supposed to be aware she's a woman who would be considered beautiful, but you're not supposed to derive actual pleasure from her beauty.

    So basically, the whole "women are status symbols, not relationship partners" thing again.

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  22. Elmo: "But the leap of logic it takes to assume that the decisionmaker must be the one with the Y chromosome? Baffling."

    Not particularly suprising if you look from an empirical rather than rational angle. It's not like there are a shortage of cultures where one gender is culturally assumed to be the decisionmaker. Now go to the art museum and check out the contributions to art from non-patriarcal societies. Science? Music? How about mean living standards in non-patriarchal cultures compared to the patriarchal ones? How do they do in the competition of 'cultural evolution'?

    "But we've *always* done it this way" is actually a pretty good rule of thumb until you have a proven alternative. Before that, it's not a plan, it's an experiment.

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  23. Mousieoo--

    Cultural evolution isn't a competition, unless you consider homogeneity of culture 'winning.' Cultures interact; they eradicate each other; they isolate from each other; they bump uglies and produce bastard children.

    It's a constantly shifting sort of thing, and the fact that a culture may be viral doesn't necessarily make it better in any objectively verifiable sense.

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  24. The idea is simply that relationships work to a certain extent like any other group that shares common goals: there are times when different people have different opinions, and a decision still needs to be made. Having a person who can end debate and make that decision, however he or she is chosen, is valuable in getting shit done.

    Right, but my point is that you've expanded the definitions to the point where there is no real difference, effectively speaking, between your relationship and mine. Decisions have to be made in an equal partnership, and usually the way that's done in my relationship and Aebhel's is one partner defers to the other based on that "I think you're better qualified to make this decision" factor, or else "you care more so we'll do things your way because I don't really".

    You said earlier that in the "head of household" arrangement the decision-maker decides based on what's best for everyone, but isn't that how all healthy relationships work? Does the other person not get to decide because they *don't* have everyone's best interests in mind or can't be trusted to?

    As to my own biases, out of four families I've been a part of or been close enough to to watch that had a definite decision-maker, three of them were deeply unhealthy and miserable situations.

    It seems to me that if we make the default standard couples who consciously chose their power dynamic, have excellent communication skills, and have mutual respect for one another, who has ultimate decision-making power may no longer be very relevant...

    How about mean living standards in non-patriarchal cultures compared to the patriarchal ones? How do they do in the competition of 'cultural evolution'?

    Do we get to compare Western countries after allowing the other half of their population's brainpower into the economy, single or married, versus their more strongly patriarchal former selves?

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  25. The comments on the photo submission linked in Bruno's post was kind of mind-bogglingly hilarious. I mean, since when was Britney Spears a 5? She's gorgeous. The most mysterious part was this "all feminists hate Asians" thing-- where did that even come from? They're all accepting it as gospel, too. I would be mildly offended if it wasn't so...alien.

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  26. You said earlier that in the "head of household" arrangement the decision-maker decides based on what's best for everyone, but isn't that how all healthy relationships work? Does the other person not get to decide because they *don't* have everyone's best interests in mind or can't be trusted to?

    I was responding specifically to Aebhel's discussion of relationships in which one partner _doesn't have everybody's best interests in mind.

    As far as individual relationships are concerned, two people can share the same goal but disagree on how to achieve them. Two people can have the whole family's best interests in mind and still be unable to agree on what's right in a specific case (I'm not talking about people with _excellent_ communication skills, just people who _try_ to communicate; they may not always get it right). In those cases, it can be useful to have some prearranged means of making the decision. The "you care about it more" solution is a fine one, as is the "I know more avout X" solution, and (again assuming both partners can be trusted to act in good faith) so can flipping a coin. Yes, the head-of-household model works the same way; it's just a different way of achieving the same thing.

    Again, the HoH thing was just setting up my criticism of the "therefore man rules" extension of HoH-philosophy. I've obviously communicated badly myself and come across as advocating much more than I actually believe. A more clear original comment for me would have been something like:

    "You know, I do think the head-of-household concept can be a good fit and offer some advantages to some families. But Roissy's a dumbass for thinking that means his penis inherently makes him the household head."

    As to my own biases, out of four families I've been a part of or been close enough to to watch that had a definite decision-maker, three of them were deeply unhealthy and miserable situations.

    Out of curiosity, were these religious, kinky, self-aware family engineering, or other?

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  27. Ah, and I managed to ignore your main point:

    Right, but my point is that you've expanded the definitions to the point where there is no real difference, effectively speaking, between your relationship and mine. Decisions have to be made in an equal partnership...

    Fair point. In my family, we _are_ all "equal", and all decide the shape of our relationship and how we make decisions. If anybody isn't okay with how decisions are being made or how we relate to one another, we'll talk it over and make changes. It wouldn't be the first time. So contrasting our arrangement with yours in that regard isn't really correct; we're both finding ways to accommodate everybody's preferences, and the methods we use are essentially the same, just "phrased" differently.

    I'll concede that saying HoH relationships "seem to work better" was wrong; it's more that HoH relationships done right can be one way of practicing a good relationship model.

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  28. I've obviously communicated badly myself and come across as advocating much more than I actually believe.

    Don't worry about it, I'm actually really interested in the question in general. Healthy, functional relationships with power dynamics radically different from mine are interesting.

    Out of curiosity, were these religious, kinky, self-aware family engineering, or other?

    The fourth, functional one self-aware kink/engineering. Of the other three, unhealthy ones, one was a woman shoving all the decisions onto a man who didn't actually want the full weight of the pressures and responsibilities, and two were domineering women who felt they knew what was best for the rest of the family whether they agreed or not.

    I'll concede that saying HoH relationships "seem to work better" was wrong; it's more that HoH relationships done right can be one way of practicing a good relationship model.

    Yeah, at the end of the day we have a very similar beef; no matter what our culture says about who should lead a family, it seems to be my observation that who takes the lead if anyone is determined by who wants it. I've known a lot of religious, ostensibly submissive women who were UNQUESTIONABLY the heads of their household in all but lip service. People are unhappy and nonfunctional forced into roles they're temperamentally ill-suited to, and people that talk as though there's the One True Way To Gender Role Happiness piss me off.

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  29. "Do we get to compare Western countries after allowing the other half of their population's brainpower into the economy, single or married, versus their more strongly patriarchal former selves?"

    Sure, please do. It's an interesting point, though when considering the standard of living in the same culture at different times one should find a way to allow for the increase in learning from the previous time. It would be fascinating to see whether there was a noticeable change in the rates of, say, patent applications, corresponding to this change. I have no idea. A good starting point might be WWII, because an enormous number of women first entered the workforce at that time. Lots of other factors at the same time, of course.

    There is an assumption built into the question that I think is utter bunk, though: "after allowing the other half of their population's brainpower into the economy...". Which is easier to replace with a robot, Homemaker Mom or Assembly Line Person? The specific example of Homemaker Mom changing to Microchip Inserter Person is clearly a loss in the brainpower in use in the culture, though not directly in the economy in the narrowest sense of that word. For that matter, I don't think being a good homemaker mom or dad is simpler than my own field of software engineering (though I have no experience with parenting myself). From observation of my dad I don't even think lab research is more intellectually challenging than raising kids; it just has a much higher bar for entry.

    None of which says that working on a case-by-case basis isn't better than making generalities rules, or even establishes beyond the need for investigation that the existing generalities are the best generalities. It's just not particularly suprising or baffling that people from Earth cultures might assume the Y chromosome marks the decisionmaker.

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  30. A good starting point might be WWII, because an enormous number of women first entered the workforce at that time. Lots of other factors at the same time, of course.

    Like our enormous industrial momentum, among other things. But one other thing I find interesting is that the degree to which cultures have held on to the strongest elements of their historical patriarchy often tends to predict economic and technological stagnation, with exceptions in the case of countries with tremendous oil wealth.


    There is an assumption built into the question that I think is utter bunk, though: "after allowing the other half of their population's brainpower into the economy...". Which is easier to replace with a robot, Homemaker Mom or Assembly Line Person?

    There's an assumption built into YOUR question- that any woman entering the economy in a full-time capacity would otherwise be Homemaker Mom. Even when gender roles were much more strictly enforced, there were single women, infertile women, women who hadn't yet married, and women who had already had their children. It's not just women who'd rather not be Homemaker Mom who benefited, it was women who never would have been- previously to the acceptance of the idea that they could put their talents and energies to other aims, they were considered basically useless.

    My point isn't just that having women be engineers, doctors, and scientists and the like is good for the economy, it's that the idea that a woman can make effective decisions and lead in a relationship is inextricably tied to the idea that she can make effective decisions and lead outside that context as well. Speaking of highly patriarchal cultures, there's a tremendous amount of emphasis in them of the idea that a woman cannot have authority over a man- expressed most pointedly in Saudi Arabia, but hell, look in the Bible. "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." The idea that a woman can be the head of household (or an equal partner) and that she can grow up to be an astronaut are inextricable.

    I don't find it mysterious that patriarchy would be so common. It's a pretty natural outgrowth of the intensity of childcare requirements and the absence of effective birth control prior to the modern age. What I question is to whether we're losing much, if anything, in leaving behind the assumption.

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  31. "There's an assumption built into YOUR question- that any woman entering the economy in a full-time capacity would otherwise be Homemaker Mom."

    Nope. The assumption is that SOME women, between one and all inclusive, entering the workforce would otherwise be Homemaker Mom. Also, Homemaker Mom is part of the economy.

    "I don't find it mysterious that patriarchy would be so common.... What I question is to whether we're losing much, if anything, in leaving behind the assumption." I take it you mean on balance, taking the good with the bad. It's a good question. Dividing it up, it seems pretty clear we're losing a lot, and pretty clear that it's worth it for justice for all the women who don't want to be Homemaker Mom.

    What I really wish is that society would acknowledge the enormous contribution Homemaker Mom makes.

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  32. Speaking as a Homemaker Mom, I'm ... not clear on what we're "losing" at all.

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  33. Dw3t-Hthr, do you think Little Foot would grow up just as well if you stuck her in daycare while you went to work? That's the biggest thing we're losing as a culture; so many children reared by interested professionals rather than loving parents. To reiterate, it's worth it for justice for all the women who don't want to be Homemaker Mom. And it's good that there's a starting to be a little acceptance for men who want to be Homemaker Dad.

    I'm sorry that you're having a tough time with the isolation from your old social circles that tends to follow being Homemaker Mom. But what you are accomplishing is a worthwhile thing. I hope your efforts to find new circles are fruitful.

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  34. We lost that a long time ago, when we lost extended family/tribal networks that actually provided some support to parents and caregivers (which have, anthropologically speaking, never been identical groups).

    The idea that parents have the ready capacity to do all (or most all) of the caregiving for young children is one of the more damaging and idiotic traits of the culture I live in. I live in an anti-child, anti-family culture that nonetheless wants to pretend that it's all about Mom and Apple Pie.

    A hypothetical me who could work and get the assistance of professional caregivers would probably do so, in much the same way as the parents in my extended social network do: with careful interview and observation of potential caregivers to make sure they were in accord with our valueset. The actual me who is invisibly disabled and works at home anyway can't justify the expense.

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  35. Sorry about the delay. Show weekend.

    Labrat,

    ...no matter what our culture says about who should lead a family, it seems to be my observation that who takes the lead if anyone is determined by who wants it. I've known a lot of religious, ostensibly submissive women who were UNQUESTIONABLY the heads of their household in all but lip service.

    Y'know, I suspect it's always been that way, to a certain extent. Whatever the "official" social policy, individuals and smaller groups tend to stretch the standards and find creative loopholes until they can make it accommodate their unique situations. It's unreasonable to assume that because Culture X had such-and-such a more, that means everybody in it lived by that more. A society with rigid rules of conduct based on arbitrary factors like sex or "race" will almost certainly have more unhappy people in it, but assuming no ancient, strictly Judeo or Christian families could have simply decided the wife was better at decision making is a _real_ stretch.

    Mousie00,

    It's just not particularly suprising or baffling that people from Earth cultures might assume the Y chromosome marks the decisionmaker.

    I never referred to "people from Earth cultures". I referred to a specific person from a specific Earth culture that's had at least fifty years to adjust to women openly holding positions of authority in functional systems, even if we accept the premise that it was reasonable to assume universal male decisionmaking in antiquity.

    That a random society might assume male dominance isn't at all unexpected. That a random human from anywhere in history might do the same may also be a reasonable assumption. For a modern American to do it is again, if not baffling, extremely convenient.

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  36. "Poon" is just such an erotically stimulating term. Almost as good as, I don't know, his purple meatpole of love slammed through her roastbeef curtains. Command on, Roissy, you silver tongued balladeer!

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  37. He's not (just) an asshole, he's kinky! Roissy is totally a Dom! But he's one of those fetishists who doesn't understand that their fetish isn't universal.

    I'm sayin'. Introducing him to the wonderful world of BDSM wouldn't make him any less of an asshole, it'd just give him more ways in which to be an asshole.

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  38. I can't tell when Roissy is trolling sometimes. There's a thin line between his "ha ha, I'm a totally bad boy, IN YOUR FACE political correctness because I'm EDGY" and the things he actually means. I'm sure he's proud of this fact but I think it's just a cover mechanism for not knowing the difference himself.

    "Irony": the all-purpose ass-cover since at least 1990-something. More accurately known in most of these cases as "kidding on the square," and/or "unfunny smarm, but also serious as a stroke."

    "Bored now."

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  39. Anyway, overall, yes: aliens. This post from a few years back covering some dude who was a bit too honest/bitter/something to quiiiiiiite be a PUA candidate, as well as a bit on the other side of the "guess based sexuality" people, probably sums up my impressions of the whole thing.

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