Three Seven Zero: Domme

 I've been spending a great deal of time at YouTube, and the other night The Algorithm delivered a recommendation that I needed to see a particular video. Well, fine. The video was an hour-long interview with a woman who calls herself Eva Oh, and I was intrigued.

Eva Oh is a very high-end domme. She seems to be based mostly in Australia, though in the interview she mentioned moving to Britain. She claims very straightforwardly to charge $10,000 a day for her services and to have a very exclusive (if not "closed") book of clients. She also does online classes teaching both potential dommes and potential clients about the procedures and etiquette of the high-end BDSM world. 

I have to say that I quickly developed a crush on her. She's Eurasian-- she describes herself as Anglo-Burmese-Chinese-Irish --and she's very lovely. She seems to have moved around a lot as a girl, and her accent is a delight. It sounds like American English overlaying Australian English with dashes of British Received Pronunciation and what I think of as Singapore English. She has an amazing voice-- smoky, alluring, throaty, precise, measured, confident. It's a voice with command presence-- very much so. It's a voice that would never need to be raised to seem powerful. I immediately thought of it as a voice Tywin Lannister would've appreciated. Eva Oh  was in a very elegant , body-conscious silk slip dress and heels, and she has long, amazing legs...but it's her voice that caught my fancy. She's very coolly distanced, very precise, very elegant, very aware of irony. I like all those things, but...ah, that voice!

I'll note that she's also starred in a film called "Grief Encounter", about an enigmatic woman who attends strangers' funerals in order to seduce grieving men. I like that as a premise, and I like what the trailers show about the psychological dynamics of what her character does.

Eva Oh's biography online says that she worked as a researcher for a couple of human rights organizations in Asia. I'd probably end up letting my academic side take over and spending much of my $10,000 a day asking about where she went and what her research was about and how it was conducted. I've never been able to get away from being an academic. Even trying to discover if she wore anything at all under that silk slip dress (God, I hope not) would take second place to asking about her methodology in research. That's the way my mind works, alas.

I've always been attracted to BDSM, all the way back to reading "Story of O." when I was far too young. S/M for me has always come with a whole set of class markers, and it's always been what Andrew Holleran called "the intellectuals' fetish". It's a fetish that requires literary references and expensive accoutrements. It's a fetish that requires the ability to create and tell stories. What's S/M without a script, without a set of character backstories? 

My relationships have usually involved S/M overtones. I'm older than my young companions, and I was the eldest sibling in my family...so I'm used to having my way. I spent much of my life as an academic, so I'm used to crafting and telling stories. My young ladies are often comparative lit or French lit majors, and they're used to seeing the world as a set of stories...and used to being mentored by older admirers. So affairs for me have always been very much a sort of creative writing seminar. And Eva Oh seems to be someone who has the ability to do be part of stories and scenarios and character play. 

I've never had any particular interest in being submissive, and I'm not someone who feels the need to be "broken down" or punished. So I'm not sure that Eva Oh-- who seems to enjoy psychological games and shaping psychological dynamics --would be a good real-world choice for me, even if I were some tech billionaire or forex trader who could regard $10,000 a day as just a rounding error. Though let's say that I did admire her own accounts of scenarios she's created with her clients, and I am fascinated with her ideas about how to create "headspaces" for clients. My own wish (not quite a fantasy) would be to sit with Eva Oh in some elegant, tiny bar in Melbourne or Singapore and work with her on creating scenarios.

Though let's be honest. I'd probably have the same fear I had about the FMTY girls at Twitter. Would my particular interests seem good enough to her? Would I be good enough to be her client-- to be worth her time and effort, even if I paid in advance? Would I be a project worth her time?

The scenarios wouldn't involve the usual BDSM things, but they would involve complicated scenarios and a fluidity of control. In my own life, as I've said before, my pleasures happen behind my eyes. It's always been very difficult for me to pass control over from my thoughts to my body. It's never been easy to release myself and just experience sensations. I always have to have a script (or at least an outline), and I always have to have a very literary ambience. I could never afford Eva Oh, and I could likely never explain myself properly even if did have the ability to move funds over the aether to her offshore accounts. But the idea is there. Maybe a domme has the auxiliary skills to let me finally feel something outside my own head-- the necessary skills at character creation, scriptwriting, and finding out what's actually going on behind my eyes.

I also found a platform called Soft White Underbelly that had an interview with a young (twenty-five or twenty-six) domme who called herself Monique. She's not anywhere near Eva Oh's price-point, and she's very...American: Los Angeles by way of Minnesota. Very tall (six foot two), very slender, very pretty in a kind of angular way. I liked her interview a lot, liked her attitude and laugh. Monique is very like many of the girls I've sat with at off-campus or hipster-enclave bars down the years, and of course I loved the idea of how long her legs were, and I loved the way you see her hipbones just above her low-rise jeans. Very, very kissable legs, and the sort of dry humor I like. 

She did talk about how it mattered to her that her clients were able to feel a sense of freedom around her and how she was open to adventures and experiments. I could imagine her as someone I could talk to about my needs and hopes and interests and not feel that I might be...boring. I'd have a drink with Monique and simply...discuss prices and services without feeling like someone trying to hire a top-end DC or Manhattan lawyer to represent him in a minor car crash. Monique might be someone I could talk to and feel like I might be an adventure rather than a psychological experiment or corporate project for her. No wire transfers to banks overseas, but I would be happy to bring cash.  I suspect she wouldn't be as coolly precise about things as Eva Oh, but she might be less likely to judge the decor in my flat. 

And I suspect Monique might be someone with whom I could be more open. She'd be easier to just look at at say, "Well, I've always wanted to be able to just feel something, or just lose myself in something other than books and movies." Maybe. Maybe.

Well, these days I lack the money and the ability to do anything FMTY...or to be on an aeroplane to anywhere. And I'm really not sure just what I'd say to either Monique or Eva Oh. Monique, though...I'd love to hear that laugh while I was kissing her hipbones and thighs. 

 

Three Three Nine: Gates

 Here in the new year, I'm still reading along with Escort Twitter. 

I'm still amazed by many of the FMTY girls, and I'm envious of some of the travel photos they post. I read their Twitter biographies and find myself thinking about what kind of evening I'd have with a "champagne bubble about town" or a girl who describes herself as "your breathtaking dinner date". These days, dinner dates are rare enough for me, even those that aren't highly-skilled and highly-compensated professional companions who'd be at home in Michelin-star restaurants. 

The question remains, of course-- even if I could afford a professional companion's fees, why would someone at their level of skill want anything to do with me? Here in the new year, I am aware of some things. It seems far too clear to me that I'd never make it through a FMTY girl's first round of screening.

Over the last few days, I've been reading Twitter threads about the screening process. I understand the need for screening. Please don't get me wrong about that. An escort, even at the level of FMTY girls, faces risks to her safety. Screening is something necessary. And I have no problem with that. I could pass a basic screening using official records. I am not, as they used to say on "Law & Order", in the system. If my fingerprints are on file anywhere, it's only because I once went through the opening rounds of applying for a State Department job. 

What I'd be afraid of, though, is that somewhere, somehow, there's a long blog post by some now-forgotten ex telling the world what an Awful Person I am. That would be exactly what an FMTY girl would find when she was vetting me. I've no doubt she'd find something like that-- something that would raise a whole Comintern annual congress worth of red flags. And somewhere out there over the aether there would be long-ago blog posts or social media threads I'd made with a train of hostile comments in response. She'd find that, too. Here in the new century, hostile social media comments would be damning. That seems to be the way it works.

We won't talk about financial vetting. I'm unclear about exactly how that would work, but the idea of it terrifies me. A year and a half ago I bought a new vehicle, and the dealership looked at my credit report and was willing to finance a respectable car. But I have no idea what a credit report would turn up now-- that's not the sort of thing I'd ever check out about myself. I might well have saved up cash for a professional companion's fees-- perhaps at least once I could leave that elegant envelope full of $100 bills on the bathroom counter in a stylish hotel, or perhaps I could slide an envelope with a $500 gift card at some high-end lingerie boutique across a table. Maybe. Maybe. But I'd never survive a credit check...or at least I tell myself that. I could never risk letting a potential companion have the information they'd need for a credit check on me. 

I tell myself that I have credentials. I do have post-graduate degrees. I am reasonably well-read. I have some-- some --social capital. I know which fork to use, and I can appreciate gallery hangings and classical music. But my credentials would never be enough. I'd never know what to say.  A high-end professional companion would feel her own talents wasted around me. 

I would not do well with a professional companion-- I'd certainly never survive even a cursory vetting. There's the soul-crushing vision where I contact an FMTY girl and then-- always after a few pleasant initial DM exchanges, or perhaps after a meeting for coffee --I'm screened out. I can't survive a critical analysis. And of course what applies to Escort Twitter applies even more rigorously in civilian life. 

Two Zero Five: Casual Encounters

I read today that Craigslist has shut down its Casual Encounters areas. I have to say that I'm saddened by that.

I was never a user of Casual Encounters. I've never been someone who uses hook-up apps. I've never been at Tinder or Match.com or any of their kin. For all the obvious reasons, I've always been too afraid to go to use hook-up apps. It's hard--- impossible, really ---to imagine that anyone would swipe whatever the direction is to show any interest in me.  Tinder and its rivals aren't places where whatever strengths I have can be brought to bear. The things that I've spent a lifetime working round--- age and looks ---are on immediate display there, and none of my strengths show up in a profile photo and a two or three sentence biography.

Back in the days of my own lost youth (or at least back at the end of the last millennium), I did visit Nerve.com a fair amount. I've no idea if Nerve.com still exists, or if it still has a Personals area. I'm actually wondering if Personals style ads are still done, here almost twenty years into the new millennium--- if a world where even text messages seem like a lot of trouble to do, does anyone under, say, forty have the energy to sit and construct a Personals ad? I also wonder if the corporate panic that's caused Craigslist to shut down Casual Encounters will spell the end of Personals sites (where they still exist).

Nerve.com marketed itself as an erotica-for-intellectuals site. You were encouraged to talk about your interests in books, films, politics, art. I suppose that did encourage a bit of pretentiousness (cf. the old New York Review of Books personals) but it also gave someone like me a chance to be seen as useful. It also brought out a fair number of lovely undergraduate and early twentysomething girls who prided themselves on being both bookish and sexually adventurous.

I did meet a few interesting partners there. There were telephone encounters, and one or two webcam encounters. One girl--- a lovely girl in Cincinnati who went on to joint degrees in Law and Library Science ---did become deeply important to me. I've only come close to marrying a bare handful of times in my life, but she was very much on the small list of girls I'd have been proud to marry or partner with. I remember exchanging messages with her at Nerve.com (she called herself SmartChick in those days), and I remember that first night when we spoke by phone. We stayed on the phone for hours and hours, and for almost two years we never slept (together or apart) without long, long conversations in the dark.

Casual Encounters was always something I'd read for amusement more than any thought of placing an ad. The ads were a strange mix of the hilarious, the hopeless, and the grimly earnest. There were disturbing ads that could've come straight from a novel about serial killers and affecting and sad ads that had such obvious backstories of loneliness and empty days. I'd read Craiglist Casual Encounters sites in cities all over the world and try to gauge what the sexual tastes of the lonely, the adventurous, and the desperate were out there across continents and seas. I read the ads the way I'd read short stories, and I'd laugh or sigh or just try to build up an image of who the characters in the stories were and what they were life in what's known as Real Life.

I've seen a couple of eulogies at on-line magazines for Casual Encounters. One girl now in her late twenties wrote about her freshman year at university and realising that she could summon sexual partners to her residence hall and never have to leave the building or put shoes on. Another girl wrote about how Casual Encounters could produce scary results and dull ones both, but how the ads let her finally accept that sex could be adventurous and exciting, let her experiment with all the half-formed hopes and fantasies and dreams she was having. Casual Encounters, they both argued, allowed a belief that there was a world of sexual (and, yes, romantic) experiences and partners out there. The Casual Encounters ads let you believe that there really was someone out there whose interests would mirror yours.  That's no small thing, really.

Anyway... I will miss Casual Encounters. I'll miss the possibilities it offered, the sense of adventure implicit in the idea of following up the ads.  For all that so many of the ads were silly or stupid or incoherent, Craigslist Casual Encounters did make the world seem more open to experience and pleasure and excitement. Those ads made sex (and romance) seem more accessible, more possible. Our world will be a bit less delightful without them.

One Eight One: Seating Arrangement

I've said before that I have my dislikes among the sex bloggers. I'm fine with Karley Sciortino at Slutever and Vogue, who's lovely and a delight.  But the two writers I'm currently regarding as my leading candidates for an enemies list are the blogger who calls himself "Dr. Nerdlove" and the woman who calls herself Arden Leigh.

I'm sure they're both well-meaning. I'll give them that. But reading either of them leaves me depressed and angry. There's nothing in either writer's archives to make me feel the least shred of hope, and both seem to take a positive delight in belittling, haranguing, and mocking hapless male readers. The so-called Dr. Nerdlove enjoys using "tough love" slogans to humiliate and bludgeon male readers. He enjoys mocking any male with limited social skills or who's the least bit shy. Arden Leigh uses New Age and psycho-babble terminology to the same end. Leigh sets herself out as a female PUA, as someone who's studied the skills of seduction...and then lashes out at any idea of romance, or fun, or actual flirtation.

And what have I learned from them recently? Well, I've learned this:

If you're sitting at dinner or drinks with a girl (but should you be? after all, asking anyone out is a show of "entitlement", isn't it?), be sure never to sit directly across from her. Always sit on the diagonal. Make sure you're the one sitting close to the wall and that she's always close to an exit/escape. Never, ever meet her eyes. Never under any circumstances hold her hand. Never touch. Never introduce any topic of conversation. Never attempt to add any information to a topic, never attempt to explain anything no matter what you may know about a topic. Reply only in monosyllables. Never show any emotion in your voice, and of course never raise your voice. Never ask a question, never ask for any information, never ask about anything personal. Never disagree; never defend a viewpoint. Offer nothing. Keep looking away, head down.

If you're on the street with a girl, it goes without saying that you never hold a date's hand or put an arm around her. Always walk just a bit ahead of her so that you're never behind her, where you might seem to be a looming threat. Never stop--- keep walking no matter what. Never give directions. Do not speak while walking--- certainly never speak first. Do not suggest destinations or routes. Call attention to nothing around you. Make no comments on anything. Again--- never meet her eyes, never look directly at her. Keep your body language close, keep your own social space to the barest possible minimum. At a bar, on a subway, on a bus--- keep at least one empty seat between the two of you. There at the bar, sit half turned away. Draw in on yourself. Never allow yourself to seem like a physical presence.

And never, never, never ask for anything, especially not any kind of show of attention or support or affection. Offer none, lest that be taken as being "entitled" to a response, or as a kind of manipulation.

Do all these things. I'm sure "Dr. Nerdlove" and Arden Leigh would approve. This is how we live now.

This is what I've learned.

Though the question remains open: how exactly does one make a dignified withdrawal from the emotional post-apocalyptic hellscape of romantic and sexual interaction?

One Three Six: Kittens

A couple of weeks ago I found an article on line that explained that the Killing Kittens sex parties were opening a New York end. I immediately wrote a friend in London Town about it. She was the first one to tell me about Killing Kittens, and the first girl whoever told me about her own adventures at high-end sex parties--- both as the plus-one of moneyed, older admirers and as staff. (Oh, yes--- the name. It comes from the idea that every time a girl indulges in the solitary vice, God kills a kitten) She's done well enough for herself at high-end sex parties, but I've always been more than a little skeptical about the whole idea. The article that I found only strengthened my skepticism, and it left me more than a bit depressed.

The article I found  mocked Killing Kittens parties as "Slaughtering Pussies" and titled their article about the arrival of KK parties in NYC "There’s A Massive Sex Party In NYC For Elite People This Weekend, So You’ll Know Where To Find Me". Well, the article says that:

If you’re living in New York City and you’re currently short on plans for Saturday night, why not pull yourself together and go to Killing Kittens first-ever NYC sex party with the city’s elite? Sure, you have to be attractive, between the ages of 18-50, very rich, and able to refrain from calling the company “Slaughtering Pussies,” but who among us can’t manage to squeeze themselves into that profile for one night?

Oh, there is one other catch. For men to attend, they have to be accompanied by a female. Chicks can attend alone and fuck other chick’s boyfriends or dates, but no single guys. Single guys are not welcome. Single guys are undesirable creeps. (Yes, I read way too far into things.)


The sex party is kind of inexpensive — $100 for women and $250 for couples. Certainly less money than buying a hooker. Not that I would know the costs associated to such a thing. Maybe that price break is because they don’t test for STDs. For $1,000, people would want to know they aren’t going to leave diseased. For $100, they’ll take their chances. But according to the NY Post, Killing Kittens (AKA Slaughtering Pussies) does provide plenty of condoms, which we can all agree is super thoughtful.

You did note, I hope,  that single males are (as always) tagged as undesirable. Single males in the new century are tagged as undesirable in almost every social, romantic, and sexual situation. 

And the Manhattan standards for "attractive" will doubtless be far higher than in London--- that's not even a question. Needless to say, if you read the list of criteria for admission to a KK party, I don't qualify. At all. I'm not sure how to feel about that. My friend in London Town might find the parties an acceptable and amusing way to pass a Saturday night, but I'd never get past the door Nazis and the velvet ropes. Even if I managed to finagle my way inside (bribes? pretending to be Armand Busson? ) my experience would be all about a series of riffs on the theme of rejection and humiliation. All I could do would be...avoid eye contact, stay as fully clothed as possible, and hit the free buffet. The best I could do would be to try to get my money's worth at the buffet and the champagne bar.

Oh, yes. There's a free buffet. Let's just say that I find that idea to be...a problem. A sex party buffet should be, hmmmm....champagne, cocaine, and perhaps something like truffled chocolates. (Veuve, of course. Maybe Bollinger. But not Moët.) The buffet shouldn't ever be an actual buffet--- the Vegas hotel kind. Just...no. As I've said before, naked people and a buffet line don't mix. Two words on that: steam tables.

Oh, yes, I've seen "Eyes Wide Shut" and read both "Story of O" and Anne Rice's "Exit to Eden". When people think about high-end sex parties, they think about "Eyes Wide Shut". They imagine the parties as being about beautiful people having sex in elegant settings charged with mystery. Or is that just me? 

I've written about this before, but it bears repeating. Sex is about stories and social markers. Flesh as flesh is a failure, and physical sensation that doesn't derive from being part of a well-crafted story does nothing for me. I read the article about the Killing Kittens parties and poured myself a drink. I've no idea if there's anything that could live up to my vision of what a high-end sex party should be about (or what sex itself should be about), but I do know that I'd never be allowed past the door at Killing Kittens in either New York or London Town to find out. There's nothing in that article, nothing at the Killing Kittens website, that promises someone like me anything but derision and humiliation.

One Three Four: Cocktails

If you have time, you might go to a blog at Blogspot called The French Exit and look at an essay called "Some Notes Toward A Theory of Male Jealousy" posted on 6. March 2015.  It's an interesting piece by a thoughtful writer, although I disagree with her conclusions.

She does, by the way, quote me in her article. I'd sent her a message once upon a time during a discussion of male jealousy: Jealousy is the gin; envy is the vermouth. She said that she loved the line but didn't know what it meant: I love that, but what could it mean? Wanting what others have makes their wanting what you have more delicious? No--- not that. My line there is incomplete: Jealousy is the gin; envy is the vermouth. But there's more to it. The complete line is Jealousy is the gin, envy is the vermouth, and depression is the olive in the Cocktail of Bitterness. I believe that holds true for both shaken and stirred.

I used to write about the atmosphere of what gets called Forever Alone. JED, I called it: Jealousy Envy Depression.

The writer at The French Exit was clear that women could tell the difference between jealousy and envy, but let's make it clear. Jealousy means Why is she with him instead of me? Envy is Why can't I have what he has? Different things. Jealousy, in the end, is directed at her--- or at her choices. Envy is directed at him--- at his fortune.  Depression, of course, flavors either---- depression usually contains something like I'll never have anyone ever again.  The three things go perfectly together. And of course I love the cocktail metaphor, if only because I see the bartender's pale, slender hands and a very Art Deco cocktail shaker in motion. I have no idea what the Cocktail of Bitterness looks like when poured through a strainer into a chilled glass.

I haven't seen very much written on jealousy in the age of the gender wars. I'll take as a given that if it is written about at all, it's tied to male evil and oppression rather than be taken as part of the human condition. It's one of the oldest of human questions: Why not me? Why wasn't I the chosen one? What's wrong with me? Why did she choose him? Jealousy comes down both to rage at oneself and at the person who didn't choose you. Always both--- always. You fear that you're not good enough, and you hate yourself for that. You hate her for seeing it and for making you see it. You're angry at her for not choosing you, but even more for making you see yourself as not good enough.

Envy of course is the most singular of the Deadly Sins--- the one Deadly Sin that gives no pleasure at all to the sinner. Envy eats away at the self, at any sense of being in the right place in the world. Maybe that's why I call it the vermouth--- just the hint of it to flavour the drink.

Depression of course is the garnish, the olive that you toy with while you sit at the bar, the olive you draw off the toothpick, the olive you crunch on while the drink sits there, perfectly chilled.

Males aren't allowed to feel jealousy in the age of the gender wars. Take that as a given. We're not allowed to even admit to jealousy. But it won't go away. It hasn't gone away in the last few thousand years, and it's there in every human life, waiting. So's envy, but for some reason we're not told that envy is a moral and political failing in the way jealousy is.

JED--- Jealousy Envy Depression. Those things blend so well together, mixed in the proper proportions. The Cocktail of Bitterness, yes. It'll be on the bar menu for a very, very long time.

One One Eight: Interviews

Not so very long ago, Ms. Flox  raised the issue of discussing one's sexual interests on a date. Her own argument was that this was very much something one should do on a first date. After all, she wrote,  your interests and desires are a critical part of who you are. Discussing them up front allows a potential partner to know more about who you are and about what a relationship with you would be like.  It also, she says, opens up a process of negotiation and consent. A potential partner has an opportunity to discuss what you're looking for and explain how they feel about those things.

That's all of it very true. I can't disagree with Ms. Flox on this in principle. And yet...and yet...I'm not sure I can accept her thoughts on an emotional level. Or a tactical one. I'm finding it harder and harder to imagine discussing sexual interests on a date...or even in the bedroom. It's certainly something that's far riskier than it was back in my undergraduate days.

It may be that I've been reading too many websites like Jezebel and Gawker. I've been reading the comments at articles, too, and that's never a good thing. I need to pay more attention to the rule about never reading the comments. What I'm finding, though, is a world where you'd never, never risk discussing your interests and desires on a date. The "call-out culture" of the gender warriors is absolutely hostile to you doing anything like that. To raise the issue at all wouldn't be seen as presenting an important part of yourself, or as part of developing a relationship, or even as beginning a process of negotiating with a potential partner over what she'd like herself and what she'd be comfortable with.

I'm pretty clear that in the age of the gender wars, raising the issue at all would be regarded as aggression and condemned as assuming that sex would be part of a relationship or that the person across the table would have any interest in sex with you at all. Raising the issue or trying to discuss it would be seen as "sexualizing" both the situation and the person you're out with. It would be "called out" as creepy and pervy and an act of male privilege and aggression. I'm not going to risk being called out, and I'm not going to risk having a date suddenly launch into a politicized rant where I'm the villain.

I'm also not going to risk being laughed at. I don't know where the fear is coming from, but I'm becoming more and more reticent about admitting to any of the things I like or desire. At twenty or even thirty, I'd have talked about all those things with some kind of self-assurance. This is what I like, this is what I am, this is what I hope we can do together and both enjoy.  Once upon a time, I could say those things. I wasn't afraid that girls would laugh at me or turn away in disgust. I took it for granted that experimenting was part of sex, and that both parties would be willing to try out new things or at least accommodate someone's interests in return for reciprocity. No one's ever made a disgusted face in real life, and no one has ever burst into derisive laughter. But suddenly I'm aware that they could--- that they might.  That fear has come out of nowhere, or, well...it's come from reading the comments sections at web articles about dating and male sexuality. So much hostility there, and so much contempt for things a male might ask for or say that he likes.

Ms. Flox is right, I think, about what you desire and what you like sexually being a  key part of what you are and a key part of any relationship. But somehow it's become a very risky thing to admit to desires and particular interests, and certainly risky to admit that you see sex as part of a relationship--- that you see a date as part of a social ritual where sex is one of the ends.  The world here in the new century is a lot less open to desire than it was twenty years ago, and it's certainly more harsh and less forgiving.

I was never very good at job interviews, and I have this growing feeling that I can't do the kinds of interviewing that you do on a first date. I'm going to talk myself into a kind of paralysis about ever discussing what I like to do with partners or about ever admitting that I see being out with someone as involving desire and physical contact. The trick to things in the age of the gender wars isn't honesty or negotiation. It's silence and refusing to admit to anything ever.

One Zero Five: Semaphore

I do have to think about the concept of misogyny, about what it means, and about how the definition has become so unfocused, so overly broad, as to render the word almost meaningless. Like "narcissist" or "entitled", it's become a generalized term of abuse and condemnation without any clear standards. "Misogyny" is one more word, one more concept, that the gender wars have rendered too broad to be of any real use except as a way to condemn and dismiss out of hand.

I want to sit down and write about the whole idea of "misogyny" and about what it means, or at least about what it means to me. I suppose I might wait a bit, or at least until the #YesAllWomen furor has died down a bit.

What I will think about, though, is signals between men and women--- how both sides seem to be losing the ability to read signals from the other, or maybe losing the will to accept what signaling involves.

Whenever I read articles or commentariat rants about the "nice guy" issue, one thing that always comes up is women's anger that a male is being "nice" to them but has ulterior motives, motives that are seemingly always regarded as despicable or sinister. I've never quite understood that.  It may be that my own grasp of "nice" is outmoded. But it's always been my view that "nice" is a signal that one is interested in a girl. This isn't base-level politeness or mere ordinary daily social pleasantry. "Nice" has always meant something else to me--- paying particular attention to a given person, going out of one's way to do small favors or offer kindnesses. It's more than ordinary politeness, and it's based on things that one male isn't likely to do for another.  Being "nice" to a girl, paying particular attention to a girl, is a courtship signal. It's a way of signaling that you're willing to do out-of-the-ordinary things for one particular person.  It's a way of signaling romantic interest, of signaling that you find this girl to be somehow special. I've always argued that "nice" is something more than ordinary politeness. If you weren't interested in this girl, you wouldn't be rude or impolite, but you wouldn't go beyond mere ordinary courtesy in how you treat her.

You signal a girl that you're interested in her on a romantic or sexual level. You do that by showing her individualized attention. She's no longer treated as simply someone in the background, someone to whom you distantly say "thank you" or "pardon me". She may or may not offer up a favorable response to your signal, she may or may not be interested in returning the signal, but there really shouldn't be any question that "nice" is a courtship signal. I've no idea how it became taken for granted that "nice" implies some sinister ulterior motive. It's part of courtship, part of the mating dance, and it is obvious enough. Why is "nice" somehow sinister? Why is it somehow disreputable or despicable to be sexually or romantically interested in someone and signal that interest by showing individual attention?

Again, now, there's no guarantee of a favorable response. Let's take that as a given. But if the male needs to accept that, the girl needs to admit that what's happening is a signal about someone's interest in her. It should be simple enough to tell.  One basic question the girl should ask herself is whether the attentions being paid her are something one (straight) male would do for another. If the answer is no, then the girl shouldn't pretend to be surprised or shocked: there's a mating ritual in play. Say yes, say no--- that's your choice if you're the recipient. But don't pretend to be surprised.  Recognize, too, and accept that if you say no, you may have to simply walk away from the male in question. Unrequited desire and unrequited love are perfectly ordinary and commonplace, but they're still painful and awkward. If there's nothing in the signal to interest you, then say no and make a clean and immediate break. Don't--- don't ---keep someone around just to benefit from the signals, just for the favors.

I'm never sure what signals the gender warriors find acceptable between males and females. To straightforwardly, directly announce sexual or romantic interest is regarded as aggression. To offer up individualized attention as a way of announcing interest, to try to make it especially pleasant--- "nice" ---to be around you is seen as having evil ulterior motives. It may well be that the gender warriors don't think males should demonstrate any interest at all. After all, they already regard seduction--- persuasion ---as evil.

There are signals out there.  It's exhausting and depressing to think that we're losing the ability to read others' courtship and mating signals...or, worse, refusing to admit that signals exist and admit what they mean.

One Zero Two: Transactions

There's a particular writer out there in the gender wars who calls himself "Dr. NerdLove", and whose columns always leave me irritated, dejected, and angry. His tagline at his website is "Helping Nerds Get The Girl", but of course his columns do exactly the opposite. They discourage anyone male from approaching a girl, they discourage romance and flirtation and seduction, and they discourage anyone male from having particular sexual interests or needs. "Dr. NerdLove" (who isn't a PhD or an MD, by the way) claims to be "sex-positive", but of course so many of his columns are devoted to telling his readers not to have sex. His vision of a proper relationship is exactly that of some very stodgy 1950s advice columnist--- the only proper affair is one that begins with the clear intent of becoming a "committed", lifelong relationship and proceeds without involving any sort of passionate sexual interest or sexual engagement. He very much dislikes the idea that anyone--- anyone male ---might be interested in a partner in any way that involves physical desire and any kind of social play. His especial ire is reserved for the idea that sex is "transactional" in any way, or that affairs or dates are tainted with being transactions of any sort.

I've never understood the disdain for the idea that sex is "transactional". I suppose some of that must be based on the idea that sex can only be a good thing if it's based on the pure joining of souls and spirits, and some of it is based on a fear that saying something is "transactional" is yielding ground to the patriarchy and to MRA/PUA types who declare that all women are "whores".  I've never seen anything wrong with the idea that sex and romance have a transactional element; I thought those things were built in from the start.

I've always thought that any kind of social life was about transactions and strategies. Yes, I read Marcel Mauss and his followers when I was at university--- about symbolic exchanges and the role of gifting in tribal and archaic societies. But even before that, I knew that there was something called "transactional analysis" that had its moment in the sun back in the early and mid-1960s. I knew that it involved looking at human interactions in terms of games, of strategies and transactions. I hadn't read any of the works, but I knew from book reviews and review articles that it existed, and basically what it was about. And of course I'd read things like Austen and Henry James. I always thought social life--- personal interactions, romances, marriages, friendships ---were about strategies and transactions. I took that for granted.

The idea of sex and romance as transactional seems quite natural to me--- after all, I grew up in a culture that valorizes the market and the idea of exchange.  I can't see it as degrading to either party, and it seems to me that it's an efficient way to move forward in any kind of developing affair. After all, I've always preferred rituals and procedures. They have the advantage of reducing friction, of reducing the need to agonize over decisions and choices. In terms of a particular social structure, if you do A, then B will follow.  X does this, and Y knows that in terms of the structure, one responds with that.

When I was younger, the point of a date--- of an affair ---was to engage with someone attractive and bright and move towards bed: through hanging out to making out. I always expected that the girl across the table or in the passenger seat of the car knew that and was there for the same thing. We'd each go through the symbolic exchanges that underlay a seduction, and, yes, that did involve taking her to dinner or for drinks and paying. I was signaling that I valued her enough to expend resources; she responded by presenting me with her time and attention.  That seemed, and still seems, straightforward enough.  And both parties knew that we were going through ritual moves to reach a goal both of us understood.

We're social animals. We build structures and systems, and we create rituals and procedures to move through them. We deploy strategies to seek social advantage, and we participate in exchanges--- some symbolic, some concrete, often both ---as part of those strategies. I've never seen a problem with that. At the very least, looking at sex and romance as transactional forces both parties to be very clear about what they want and about what they're prepared to give up for that.  It forces us to acknowledge that there's a goal--- a physical goal ---in any affair. The soi-disant "Dr. NerdLove" is very good at chastising and browbeating his readers and anyone seeking his advice, but he's no good at all at admitting what an affair is about or that any relationship occurs within a web of social maneuvers. He doesn't really try to "help the nerd get the girl"--- he really seems to be doing quite the opposite. And he refuses to admit that sex and romance, like pretty much everything else in a social structure, proceeds by strategy and exchange.

One Zero One: Gateways

There's a trope that the gender warriors are fond of deploying--- one that comes up at Good Men Project, too. It's the the image of the gatekeeper, of women as gatekeepers to sex. Both the gender warriors and their awkward allies at Good Men Project insist vehemently that one of the graver sins of evil male culture is that women are seen as "gatekeepers". I can read the paragraphs where the idea is disparaged, but I have no emotional connection to the idea, and I really can't grasp it.

If you'd asked me at seventeen about the gatekeeper idea, I'd have thought for a second, sighed, and said that yes, of course it was true. All these years later, I'd still say that. It seems like an obvious thing--- males apply to women for sex, women decide whether their suitors are to be allowed past the velvet ropes into the Heavenly City. I am a bit puzzled about why the gatekeeper image is supposed to be a bad thing. Isn't it just another way of presenting consent--- that it's always the girl's choice?  I do wonder what the gender warriors and the GMP columnists see as the downside to the gatekeeper image. I've never seen a satisfactory explanation of why it's a bad thing from the girl's point of view. Is it just that the gatekeeper role is supposed to be passive? Does the trope assume that waiting and (yes) passing judgment is necessarily something that removes "agency"?

If you're male, the gatekeeper image seems to be a very clear depiction of reality. Go to any bar or dance club on a Friday night. Every male knows the scene. The single males are gathered at one end of the bar, building up their courage. The attractive girls are gathered down at the other end, waiting for suitors to approach, marking which ones meet the night's standards, waiting to be paid court to.

I can recall so many female friends in my university and grad school days who looked forward to Friday and Saturday nights at the bar without ever worrying about money.  The protocol was simple enough. A girl would carry her ID and cash for cab fare home. She wouldn't need anything else. She certainly wasn't buying drinks--- "That's what boys are for," the girls would have said. One friend was notorious for announcing that she was "like the Queen--- I never carry cash".  I don't recall ever being angry about that. It was just the way things were. I understood the idea--- you bought girls drinks to get them to grant you dances or grant you time to make your presentation. I never thought buying girls drinks was a way to pay them to go home with me, but I did understand that it was buying time where I could try to persuade them that I was worth hanging out with.

The ritual was simple enough. A girl allowed you to buy her a drink or allowed you to dance with her for a song.  You tried to make a case for why she needed to be spending time with you and making out with you. Buying the drink was a recognition for her value, of the value of her time and attention. The final decision to pay attention to you at all was always hers. I think I once quoted a line from Christopher Coe's "I Look Divine" about the difference between Trade and Tribute, and the line applies here. The girls at the end of the bar waited for tribute, for acknowledgment that they were desired, for acknowledgment that here--- in this place, on this night ---they were the ones with the power to choose.

In all my long life, I can't recall a girl asking me to dance, let alone buying me a drink.  I'm male, after all, and my particulars aren't impressive. I'm a petitioner, not a gatekeeper. I've understood that all my life. The girls at the end of the bar don't need to pursue. They just have to wait. They wait, and then they choose.  That's something I can envy, but there's no point in feeling bitter. It's the way the world works, or at least the way the world works there in the club on a Friday night. If a girl walked down the bar and asked me to dance or asked if she could buy me a drink, I'd be...wary and suspicious. Why was she violating established ritual? Could I trust someone who'd break protocol? Was I being set up for something?

One day I'll have to find an explanation for why being a gatekeeper for sex is a bad thing. It certainly has its advantages for the girls at the end of the bar. It may only be power that works inside clubs and at parties--- a very narrowly-focused kind of power. But that's...not negligible. The power to acquire free drinks, the power to choose or dismiss potential hook-ups--- it's not being a cabinet minister, but it's something that matters in social lives and on weekend nights.    

Eighty-Four: Tango

A friend who writes a fairly well-known sex blog once chided me for liking ritual too much in terms of sex and encounters. I think she finds the whole idea of ritual vaguely dehumanizing, or at least something that's too cold. I've never felt that way. Ritual and formality have always been part of my love life. Mind you, I'm not especially talking about anything s/m there. I'm talking about something else altogether. I've always seen ritual as very much a social lubricant, a social buffer.

When I was in my teens, the whole process of dating was highly formal, highly ritualized. There were social rules that defined the mating dance, and they did make life easier. I've always liked procedures and protocols, and I do appreciate them for what they're designed to do: make things simpler and less awkward. Procedures and protocols are designed to get you from Point A to Points B and C simply, clearly, and without having to constantly re-invent the wheel.

I always think of the idea of the Mass here. There's the Mass, and there are highly formal procedures for how it proceeds. There's a goal for all the ritual, and that's the moment of transubstantiation, the moment when the bread and wine are suffused with the Real Presence. When the Mass begins, there's a defined goal, and everyone knows what it is. The ritual doesn't just stop midway through, and it doesn't suddenly turn into bingo night.

When I was young, dating had its own goal.  You went out with a girl, you did certain things--- a film, dinner, a concert ---and the end of the evening was about making out. Dating was a mating dance. You weren't expecting to find your soul mate; you weren't expecting to fall into a lifelong relationship. Dating was a series of steps that ended with making out. It provided a framework, and provided steps that moved you along through and past awkwardness and insecurity. My memory is that both parties understood what was happening, and that both parties thought that being able to make out--- to just experience excitement and pleasure ---was a goal worth reaching, and that they were there together so at the end of the evening there actually would be making out. My memory of those days is that girls at my high school knew where the best places to go parking were, knew where to go to be able to make out--- and that they weren't shy about giving boys directions.

Procedure and ritual carry you along step by step. Follow the procedure and you don't have to think about things--- you don't have to worry and overthink and obsessively analyze everything. That's very much a way of doing things that needs to be valued.  Know what the goal is, whether that's transubstantiation of the bread and wine or a lovely girl straddling you in a parked car and pulling off her top. Know the goal--- be part of a ritual, a set of procedures that will get you to the goal. These days, we all overthink and over-analyze. And we miss the charm of the steps toward the goal.

Both parties in the dating world were physical creatures back in my own lost youth.  Even if you didn't talk about it, everyone knew about making out and that it was worth doing.  When you asked a girl out in the halls at school, or when the girl accepted, everyone knew that you were attracted to one another, or at least found one another acceptable enough to be seen out with and acceptable enough for physical interaction. Dates themselves were designed to make everything...simple. Everyone understood why he or she was there. You went to some kind of activity, you went somewhere like a pizza place or a cafe afterwards, you made conversation, and then you went parking. No one had to agonize over what has happening or about what the other party was really thinking. There was much less pressure and anxiety than here in the new century. With even a bare minimum of politeness on both sides, the evening would go along well.

I miss dating. I really do. I miss the idea of the mating dance, of knowing that there's a framework for social encounters, that there's an understood goal. I miss a set of accepted steps designed to carry both parties along to the goal. The rituals of dating, like the rituals of politeness at a dinner party, are designed to keep you from having to re-invent the wheel, to keep you from having to constantly think and worry. I can't imagine why we don't see the value in those things.

Twenty-Five: Grisettes

A British journalist I've chatted with once published an article not long ago about the websites that offer to bring together "sugar babies" with "sugar daddies". The article itself isn't bad at all, and she does ask a number of interesting questions. One thing that I wish she'd addressed, though, is the question of how one distinguishes a "sugar baby" from the classic idea of a mistress. 


How do we distinguish between "sugar baby" and the traditional--- meaning the 18th and 19th.-century --idea of the mistress? What differentiates one from the other? Is it that a "sugar baby" is simply given gifts, while the traditional mistress is "in keeping"--- living somewhere supplied by her patron, all (or at least most) of her expenses paid? Is it the level of the arrangement--- the mistress expected either to be on call or to abide by a carefully-crafted schedule for meetings, while the "sugar baby" is more able to set her own schedule? I do think there's a level of display that's expected with a "sugar baby" that isn't expected from a girl taken "into keeping" in Paris or London in an earlier age. A "sugar baby" is given gifts by her "sugar daddy" and she's taken out to be shown off, even if that's somewhere where friends of his wife or his business colleagues aren't likely to find them. I might argue that display is a key function of the "sugar baby", that she's there precisely to be shown off in her new dresses and jewels. The classic mistress was kept more discreetly. What's the old phrase--- "the somebodies whom nobody knows"? The semiotics here interest me. There's a difference between a mistress and a "sugar baby" that says something about display and how wealth is to be seen in the modern day.


There may also be a question of class here. In French or English or even Russian novels, the mistress is the ex-governess, the ballerina, the actress, the grisette. While there are fallen gentlewomen who appear once in a while, the mistress is usually from a lower social class than her keeper. The "sugar baby", though, is something different. The idea of the websites is that the girls are presented as university girls, as students who need financial support to finish a degree and are willing to accept gifts from a "sugar daddy" and offer up sexual favours. The girls may be impoverished at twenty, but the idea is that they are from a class that goes to university and can expect to be financially successful on their own in a few years. The "sugar daddy" who visits the websites isn't taking a shopgirl into keeping. He's making an arrangement with someone who comes from his own social class, and it's the middle and upper-middle class status of the girls that's a selling point.


I've never taken a mistress. I've never taken a girl into keeping or been anyone's "sugar daddy". Genteel poverty hasn't allowed for that. I suppose I'd rather take a mistress than a "sugar baby".  If I had the money, I'd prefer to take a girl as a mistress in the 18th-c. kind of arrangement. It's a more literary thing to do, and whatever I may do in the realms of sex and romance, there has to be a literary reference. It'll never be any other way. Though I will note that I'd want the girl to be someone who'd otherwise be the "sugar baby" type, the undergraduate girl with the bookshelves filled with critical theory and high lit. I wouldn't be comfortable with someone who didn't have the right academic (and, yes, class) markers. 


The article noted that so many of the men presenting themselves as "sugar daddies" were in IT that the question really had to be asked: why were IT or tech types so prevalent? I might suspect that the men who'd made serious money in those fields had devoted their twenties to staring relentlessly at computer screens and had never learned social skills. A "sugar daddy" arrangement would allow them to have a social trophy and be with someone who wouldn't mock them for geekery. Or is that only dealing in stereotypes? It's certainly dealing in stereotypes to speculate that MBA and finance types might prefer escorts to "sugar babies" as more efficient and less likely to make any emotional demands. But am I wrong? If you're reading this, do comment. I'd like to hear what you think.


I think I will be acquiring a copy of Marcel Mauss' "The Gift" and David Graeber's "Debt" as reading for a next note here. I find articles out on the web that discuss the idea of "sexual economics" or an "economy of sex", though usually in terms of attacking the idea. I'll have to think about that. I hope you'll comment on that, too. It's a discussion I'd like to have.