7 ms·

We expect men to pay for dates. We expect men to be the primary breadwinner in a marriage. Marriage is the only contract that can be annulled if it's not consum

We expect men to pay for dates. We expect men to be the primary breadwinner in a marriage. Marriage is the only contract that can be annulled if it's not consummated with an act of sex. And then we vilify sex work and torture sex workers on the theory that sex in exchange for money is A Bad Thing. Our logic is idiotic and our world is broken.

lalaland1125 5y ago
> Marriage is the only contract that can be annulled if it's not consummated with an act of sex. This is no longer true. Most countries now have no fault divorce laws so withholding sex has no impact on whether or not you can divorce.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- standardUser 5y ago
  Though the fact that this was the case in recent memory tells us a lot. Rape within marriage wasn't even considered a crime in all states until 1993.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Meta rant: Every day there's probably a few thousand morons on the internet clutching their pearls about how you theoretically don't need car insurance in a few states despite the reality that anyone who can afford to opt out is better served by buying insurance and the only people who opt out have very, very, niche use cases. You are using a a similar presentation of the truth but not the whole truth in your comment. States have widely varying laws. Just because something isn't specifically illegal doesn't mean some existing clause wasn't used to prosecute it. If a state doesn't have a lot of frequency of some event it will likely not develop specific laws, it will just use existing laws and precedents in weird ways. For example CA has all sorts of laws about wells and water in order to mediate disputes. Arkansas for example simply doesn't have those laws because those issues aren't as common and the volume is low enough for those issues to go through different parts of the legal system without causing much problem. Saying X wasn't illegal in every state until Y year is about as meaningful as saying Z is known to the state of CA to cause cancer for any value of X and Y you could pick.
    - standardUser 5y ago
      Marital rape didn't start to become illegal until the late 70's. It wasn't universal until the early 90's. So you can pick some date in between and then use that date to draw the obvious conclusion that our deeply mysogynistic society has serious issues with sexuality and gender.
      - smnrchrds 5y ago
        I am not familiar with the history of American laws. You and the comment you are replying to are saying different things using the same terminology, so I am confused which one of you is correct on history. The person you are replying to is saying marital sexual assault did not have its own laws. Rather, it was prosecuted general sexual assault laws. You are saying marital sexual assault did not have its own laws and it was NOT prosecuted under general sexual assault laws. For example, because the sexual assault laws had an exception saying the law does not apply if the perpetrator is married to the victim. So, which one is correct? Did the law before 70's or 90's specifically exclude marital sexual assault? Or was it neutral and used for all sexual assaults, both within and without marriage? We sometimes see laws covering things that are already covered, not changing things, but merely making them more explicit. In more recent memory, once can remember the debate surrounding Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which essentially aimed to criminalize something that was already criminalized by the existing statutes.
        standardUser 5y ago
        "You are saying marital sexual assault did not have its own laws and it was NOT prosecuted under general sexual assault laws." I am saying this because it was a fact in the United States. Laws specifically and unambiguously stated that rape was not a crime if the women was married to the man (and yes, it was gendered in the law). Hence the need for the laws to be changed starting in the late 1970's. Some background: https://nortontooby.com/node/13251 https://nortontooby.com/node/13251
        GPerson 5y ago
  - oh_sigh 5y ago
    How about the fact that in England to this day, it is impossible for a woman to rape anyone, because rape is legally defined as non-consenting penetration with a penis.
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      Pertinent previous discussion like a decade back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1622921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1622921 There are all kinds of diabolical issues with our current laws, etc. related to human sexuality.
- jiveturkey 5y ago
  not sure if you are talking about the same thing. GP mentioned anullment, you said divorce.
kar5pt 5y ago
Society expects sexuality to operate under the cover of euphemisms and metanyms. This is why people talk about "making love" and "sleeping with someone" when they actually mean fucking. It's also why love movies are considered wholesome in a way that pornography is not. For sex to be acceptable, it has to be hidden under a layer of social niceties and be hinted at only indirectly. The problem with sex workers is they're too direct. They force us to confront the bodily appetites that are already there. People can't handle that.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  I understand shit like rom-coms can sometimes perpetuate silly stereotypes around relationships, but "being direct" also isn't the solution. Sex should not be bluntly wielded like a tool. Engaging in it haphazardly can mess with one's brain chemistry around pleasure and reward and have consequences that can last throughout life.
  - pksebben 5y ago
    that's your decision to make for yourself, and I respect that. I don't think any of us have any business making decisions about other people's sexual lives.
  - kar5pt 5y ago
    What makes you think that engaging in sex haphazardly messes up one's brain chemistry?
eesmith 5y ago
While true for the US, this is Sweden. Swedes don't expect men to pay for dates, don't expect men to be the primary breadwinner, and there is no such thing as marriage annulment, while divorces can be without fault. https://everythingsweden.com/dating-in-sweden/ https://everythingsweden.com/dating-in-sweden/ - "Coming from the UK, it’s very common that if you take someone to a restaurant, the guy pays for the meal. If the opportunity is there then great, but don’t be offended if your date demands to split the bill 50/50. Sweden is very serious about being gender neutral and this is a good example." https://www.government.se/4a7738/contentassets/efcc5a15ef154522a872d8e46ad69148/gender-equality-policy-in-sweden https://www.government.se/4a7738/contentassets/efcc5a15ef154... - "Women and men must have the same opportunities for economic independence. In Sweden, some of the most important reforms concerning gender equality took place in the labour market and in social policy in the 1970s. These reforms pushed gender equality and increased women’s prospects to have the same opportunities as men to enter the labour market, and to remain and develop there." including "Separate income taxation for wife and husband", "Development of public child care", and "First country to introduce gender-neutral paid parental leave benefit". And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_law_in_Sweden#Grounds_for_divorce_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_law_in_Sweden#Grounds_... - "One critical feature that marks Swedish divorce laws is the complete absence of any fault requirement when establishing a case for divorce. Fault is entirely irrelevant and has no legal consequences on the results of the proceedings ... under the Swedish laws, there is no preliminary requirement of a separation period before a divorce case can be established." And https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_divorce-45-se-maximizeMS_EJN-en.do https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_divorce-45-se-maximizeMS... - "There are no rules governing marriage annulment in Swedish law."
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  Thank you for that. But they have a ways to go to achieve actual equality: In 2019, female workers in Sweden earned on average 25,500 Swedish kronor on a monthly basis, while the average salary for men was in the same class was 29,500 Swedish kronor per month. https://www.statista.com/statistics/740048/monthly-salary-in-sweden-by-gender-and-class/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/740048/monthly-salary-in...
arp242 5y ago
Don't know where you're from, but I've rarely paid for dates; it's almost always either split or "I'll pay this one, you can pay next one". This has never been an issue, and seems to be the default in most countries I've lived in (Netherlands, England, Ireland, New Zealand, and even Indonesia! Although that last one is a bit more complex.) This comment kind of seems 40 years out of date? Or maybe it's different in other places?
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  Forty years ago is when I swore off dating at the age of sixteen. Maybe future generations will sort this out. In the mean time, the world is being run by a lot of folks who are my age and older. And I think this general paradigm still is the crux of the issue. Women still on average make less than men. Multimillionaire women, like Janet Jackson, can still marry up because men in her league are billionaires.
  - epicureanideal 5y ago
    > Women still on average make less than men. That's true, but as I understand it, it's not because of discrimination but because of different choices. https://www.amazon.com/Why-Men-Earn-More-Startling/dp/1542751292/ https://www.amazon.com/Why-Men-Earn-More-Startling/dp/154275... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pdnkbs4l_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pdnkbs4l_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl0JcZfFGQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl0JcZfFGQw
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      That boils down to an excuse at best and a justification at worst. Historically, teachers made relatively good pay and were respected. That was when it was a mostly male profession. That changed when it became a mostly female profession. Conversely, programing was originally a more female dominated profession and not well paid nor respected. Now it is a male profession and very well paid. Humans tend to pay men better for the same work. We come up with myriad explanations for the phenomenon but it's stubbornly persistent. I think it's more complicated than "Women just entirely voluntarily choose something else."
aikah 5y ago
> We expect men to pay for dates. Where are you from? This is not true everywhere. > We expect men to be the primary breadwinner in a marriage. In a mysoginistic vision of marriage in your culture, maybe. It's fine if you see marriage as a business arrangement (readily available sex for money AKA prostitution). But don't pretend everybody views marriage the exact same way.
- epicureanideal 5y ago
  > In a mysoginistic vision of marriage in your culture, maybe. "Men expected to work hard and die early to provide for the family, women most affected." /s Men being expected to provide is not misogynistic. It places a burden on the man. Yes, if the woman were PREVENTED from working that would be misogynistic, but that's not what the parent comment said. The parent comment merely said that men are expected to pay, not that women are prevented from earning, and these are not the same thing.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- jessaustin 5y ago
  TFA is about Sweden. GP is comparing the misogyny of "expecting men to pay for dates" to the misogyny of Swedish persecution of sex work.
  - aikah 5y ago
    > TFA is about Sweden. GP is comparing the misogyny of "expecting men to pay for dates" to the misogyny of Swedish persecution of sex work. There is no misogyny in cracking down on prostitution. The amount of trafficked women forced into prostitution greatly outweighs the amount of willing participants in that "business". Believing the opposite certainly is misogyny.
slibhb 5y ago
Likening relationships to prostitution is pretty cynical. Some relationships may basically be an exchange of money/status for sex but not all of them are, right? Ideally a relationship is about getting to know someone, experiencing mutal attraction, forming an emotional connection, and so on. Sex is part of it but it's not all of it and mutual desire is important to most people.
brnt 5y ago
> We expect men to pay for dates. We expect men to be the primary breadwinner in a marriage. Marriage is the only contract that can be annulled if it's not consummated with an act of sex. I know nobody outside of 19th century books and Americans online argue these points. I'm not trying to be facetious: do people currently alive actually think these things?
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  I sincerely believe it isn't dead yet, though some progress has been made. People no longer default to assuming that women should be full-time wives and moms. Women in the US no longer need their husband's permission to seek employment. Etc. But the general pattern still shapes a great many social phenomenon and I think it is a serious ongoing problem, yes. Annulment isn't a "thought." It's a legal reality. You don't typically seal contracts with "and then we have sex and the contract is null and void if that doesn't happen at least once."
  - brnt 5y ago
    In my jurisdiction annulment is certainly not a legal reality. Canon law has not been of any legal importance since the separation of church and state. I do see now that some countries achieved the latter by importing some church laws into their legal system, so I suppose that's how in some western countries annulment is indeed still a reality. Amazing!

lalaland1125 5y ago

> Marriage is the only contract that can be annulled if it's not consummated with an act of sex. This is no longer true. Most countries now have no fault divorce laws so withholding sex has no impact on whether or not you can divorce.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
standardUser 5y ago
Though the fact that this was the case in recent memory tells us a lot. Rape within marriage wasn't even considered a crime in all states until 1993.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Meta rant: Every day there's probably a few thousand morons on the internet clutching their pearls about how you theoretically don't need car insurance in a few states despite the reality that anyone who can afford to opt out is better served by buying insurance and the only people who opt out have very, very, niche use cases. You are using a a similar presentation of the truth but not the whole truth in your comment. States have widely varying laws. Just because something isn't specifically illegal doesn't mean some existing clause wasn't used to prosecute it. If a state doesn't have a lot of frequency of some event it will likely not develop specific laws, it will just use existing laws and precedents in weird ways. For example CA has all sorts of laws about wells and water in order to mediate disputes. Arkansas for example simply doesn't have those laws because those issues aren't as common and the volume is low enough for those issues to go through different parts of the legal system without causing much problem. Saying X wasn't illegal in every state until Y year is about as meaningful as saying Z is known to the state of CA to cause cancer for any value of X and Y you could pick.
  - standardUser 5y ago
    Marital rape didn't start to become illegal until the late 70's. It wasn't universal until the early 90's. So you can pick some date in between and then use that date to draw the obvious conclusion that our deeply mysogynistic society has serious issues with sexuality and gender.
    - smnrchrds 5y ago
      I am not familiar with the history of American laws. You and the comment you are replying to are saying different things using the same terminology, so I am confused which one of you is correct on history. The person you are replying to is saying marital sexual assault did not have its own laws. Rather, it was prosecuted general sexual assault laws. You are saying marital sexual assault did not have its own laws and it was NOT prosecuted under general sexual assault laws. For example, because the sexual assault laws had an exception saying the law does not apply if the perpetrator is married to the victim. So, which one is correct? Did the law before 70's or 90's specifically exclude marital sexual assault? Or was it neutral and used for all sexual assaults, both within and without marriage? We sometimes see laws covering things that are already covered, not changing things, but merely making them more explicit. In more recent memory, once can remember the debate surrounding Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which essentially aimed to criminalize something that was already criminalized by the existing statutes.
      - standardUser 5y ago
        "You are saying marital sexual assault did not have its own laws and it was NOT prosecuted under general sexual assault laws." I am saying this because it was a fact in the United States. Laws specifically and unambiguously stated that rape was not a crime if the women was married to the man (and yes, it was gendered in the law). Hence the need for the laws to be changed starting in the late 1970's. Some background: https://nortontooby.com/node/13251 https://nortontooby.com/node/13251
        GPerson 5y ago
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  How about the fact that in England to this day, it is impossible for a woman to rape anyone, because rape is legally defined as non-consenting penetration with a penis.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    Pertinent previous discussion like a decade back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1622921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1622921 There are all kinds of diabolical issues with our current laws, etc. related to human sexuality.
jiveturkey 5y ago
not sure if you are talking about the same thing. GP mentioned anullment, you said divorce.

kar5pt 5y ago

Society expects sexuality to operate under the cover of euphemisms and metanyms. This is why people talk about "making love" and "sleeping with someone" when they actually mean fucking. It's also why love movies are considered wholesome in a way that pornography is not. For sex to be acceptable, it has to be hidden under a layer of social niceties and be hinted at only indirectly. The problem with sex workers is they're too direct. They force us to confront the bodily appetites that are already there. People can't handle that.

JohnWhigham 5y ago
I understand shit like rom-coms can sometimes perpetuate silly stereotypes around relationships, but "being direct" also isn't the solution. Sex should not be bluntly wielded like a tool. Engaging in it haphazardly can mess with one's brain chemistry around pleasure and reward and have consequences that can last throughout life.
- pksebben 5y ago
  that's your decision to make for yourself, and I respect that. I don't think any of us have any business making decisions about other people's sexual lives.
- kar5pt 5y ago
  What makes you think that engaging in sex haphazardly messes up one's brain chemistry?

eesmith 5y ago

While true for the US, this is Sweden. Swedes don't expect men to pay for dates, don't expect men to be the primary breadwinner, and there is no such thing as marriage annulment, while divorces can be without fault. https://everythingsweden.com/dating-in-sweden/ https://everythingsweden.com/dating-in-sweden/ - "Coming from the UK, it’s very common that if you take someone to a restaurant, the guy pays for the meal. If the opportunity is there then great, but don’t be offended if your date demands to split the bill 50/50. Sweden is very serious about being gender neutral and this is a good example." https://www.government.se/4a7738/contentassets/efcc5a15ef154522a872d8e46ad69148/gender-equality-policy-in-sweden https://www.government.se/4a7738/contentassets/efcc5a15ef154... - "Women and men must have the same opportunities for economic independence. In Sweden, some of the most important reforms concerning gender equality took place in the labour market and in social policy in the 1970s. These reforms pushed gender equality and increased women’s prospects to have the same opportunities as men to enter the labour market, and to remain and develop there." including "Separate income taxation for wife and husband", "Development of public child care", and "First country to introduce gender-neutral paid parental leave benefit". And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_law_in_Sweden#Grounds_for_divorce_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_law_in_Sweden#Grounds_... - "One critical feature that marks Swedish divorce laws is the complete absence of any fault requirement when establishing a case for divorce. Fault is entirely irrelevant and has no legal consequences on the results of the proceedings ... under the Swedish laws, there is no preliminary requirement of a separation period before a divorce case can be established." And https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_divorce-45-se-maximizeMS_EJN-en.do https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_divorce-45-se-maximizeMS... - "There are no rules governing marriage annulment in Swedish law."

DoreenMichele 5y ago
Thank you for that. But they have a ways to go to achieve actual equality: In 2019, female workers in Sweden earned on average 25,500 Swedish kronor on a monthly basis, while the average salary for men was in the same class was 29,500 Swedish kronor per month. https://www.statista.com/statistics/740048/monthly-salary-in-sweden-by-gender-and-class/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/740048/monthly-salary-in...

arp242 5y ago

Don't know where you're from, but I've rarely paid for dates; it's almost always either split or "I'll pay this one, you can pay next one". This has never been an issue, and seems to be the default in most countries I've lived in (Netherlands, England, Ireland, New Zealand, and even Indonesia! Although that last one is a bit more complex.) This comment kind of seems 40 years out of date? Or maybe it's different in other places?

DoreenMichele 5y ago
Forty years ago is when I swore off dating at the age of sixteen. Maybe future generations will sort this out. In the mean time, the world is being run by a lot of folks who are my age and older. And I think this general paradigm still is the crux of the issue. Women still on average make less than men. Multimillionaire women, like Janet Jackson, can still marry up because men in her league are billionaires.
- epicureanideal 5y ago
  > Women still on average make less than men. That's true, but as I understand it, it's not because of discrimination but because of different choices. https://www.amazon.com/Why-Men-Earn-More-Startling/dp/1542751292/ https://www.amazon.com/Why-Men-Earn-More-Startling/dp/154275... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pdnkbs4l_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pdnkbs4l_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl0JcZfFGQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl0JcZfFGQw
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    That boils down to an excuse at best and a justification at worst. Historically, teachers made relatively good pay and were respected. That was when it was a mostly male profession. That changed when it became a mostly female profession. Conversely, programing was originally a more female dominated profession and not well paid nor respected. Now it is a male profession and very well paid. Humans tend to pay men better for the same work. We come up with myriad explanations for the phenomenon but it's stubbornly persistent. I think it's more complicated than "Women just entirely voluntarily choose something else."

aikah 5y ago

> We expect men to pay for dates. Where are you from? This is not true everywhere. > We expect men to be the primary breadwinner in a marriage. In a mysoginistic vision of marriage in your culture, maybe. It's fine if you see marriage as a business arrangement (readily available sex for money AKA prostitution). But don't pretend everybody views marriage the exact same way.

epicureanideal 5y ago
> In a mysoginistic vision of marriage in your culture, maybe. "Men expected to work hard and die early to provide for the family, women most affected." /s Men being expected to provide is not misogynistic. It places a burden on the man. Yes, if the woman were PREVENTED from working that would be misogynistic, but that's not what the parent comment said. The parent comment merely said that men are expected to pay, not that women are prevented from earning, and these are not the same thing.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jessaustin 5y ago
TFA is about Sweden. GP is comparing the misogyny of "expecting men to pay for dates" to the misogyny of Swedish persecution of sex work.
- aikah 5y ago
  > TFA is about Sweden. GP is comparing the misogyny of "expecting men to pay for dates" to the misogyny of Swedish persecution of sex work. There is no misogyny in cracking down on prostitution. The amount of trafficked women forced into prostitution greatly outweighs the amount of willing participants in that "business". Believing the opposite certainly is misogyny.

slibhb 5y ago

Likening relationships to prostitution is pretty cynical. Some relationships may basically be an exchange of money/status for sex but not all of them are, right? Ideally a relationship is about getting to know someone, experiencing mutal attraction, forming an emotional connection, and so on. Sex is part of it but it's not all of it and mutual desire is important to most people.

brnt 5y ago

> We expect men to pay for dates. We expect men to be the primary breadwinner in a marriage. Marriage is the only contract that can be annulled if it's not consummated with an act of sex. I know nobody outside of 19th century books and Americans online argue these points. I'm not trying to be facetious: do people currently alive actually think these things?

DoreenMichele 5y ago
I sincerely believe it isn't dead yet, though some progress has been made. People no longer default to assuming that women should be full-time wives and moms. Women in the US no longer need their husband's permission to seek employment. Etc. But the general pattern still shapes a great many social phenomenon and I think it is a serious ongoing problem, yes. Annulment isn't a "thought." It's a legal reality. You don't typically seal contracts with "and then we have sex and the contract is null and void if that doesn't happen at least once."
- brnt 5y ago
  In my jurisdiction annulment is certainly not a legal reality. Canon law has not been of any legal importance since the separation of church and state. I do see now that some countries achieved the latter by importing some church laws into their legal system, so I suppose that's how in some western countries annulment is indeed still a reality. Amazing!