7 ms·

The article has, I think, one terrible point, which in turn is hiding one good point. The terrible point is, basically, "men and women just can't help being se

by Lazare 15y ago

The article has, I think, one terrible point, which in turn is hiding one good point. The terrible point is, basically, "men and women just can't help being sexually attracted to each other", and it permeates the entire article. Even when the author is attempting to question this basic premise it still warps his phrasing. Why is it terrible? Well, because it's not true, for one. But beyond that, it's a remarkably heteronormative idea; it comes coupled with an inherent mental model that everyone is heterosexual. Consider: Is a male homosexual who hangs out with the other guys on his team going to be unavoidably attracted to every single one? If he hangs out with the girls on his team are they going to be unavoidably attracted to him? Does any homosexual individual, thus, unavoidably cause unrequited feelings of lust, no matter whom he hangs out with? Will a bisexual individual be unavoidably attracted to every person he meets? It it, say, just a feature of gay life that they are constantly frustrated as they keep meeting straight guys whom they can't help but be attracted to (whereas straight males can just avoid hanging out with females and remain unfrustrated)? No. That's not how it works, for anyone, gay or straight. Apart from a few relatively rare mis-fires, we are only sexually attracted to people who are attracted to us. (This one of of the major misconceptions that led to restrictions on homosexuals serving in the military. And there's no question it's a misconception.) Most pairs of people - regardless of gender and orientation - simply don't have that sexual spark. The good point hidden in the article is that American culture has no real idea of "friendship" in a sense that people from other cultures either now or historically would recognize as such. American's just don't have friends. We have weak acquaintencnes. Why? Nobody seems to know. But it's something that probably deserves more attention. But in this context, the question "can men and women be friends", in the context of American culture, actually has an answer. "No". But since the same answer is true of "can men be friends" and "can women be friends", this doesn't mean quite what it seems. :)

noibl 15y ago
> we are only sexually attracted to people who are attracted to us Taken literally, this is a pretty absurd claim. I think your post would be more convincing without it.
- Lewton 15y ago
  Should probably be rephrased to "We are only sexually attracted to people who we believe are attracted to us" Which might still be stretching it a bit, but I believe it to be mostly true
  - pagekalisedown 15y ago
    I'm no psychologist, but I think you're correct. Nobody likes to be rejected, so the safest option is to go for people who we think are attracted to us.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  - throwawaymar2 15y ago
    A world in which this was even mostly true would have considerably less emotional pain in it. Nice to imagine, anyway. At my workplace, there are probably 30 or 40 women I come into contact with during the course of my job, out of maybe 60 or 70 people in my area. One or two are over 50, and hence not very attractive to me (I'm 40). One is probably over 400 lbs, and I am not especially attracted to her sexually, but as she's a great person otherwise, she may be the only example of a woman I get along with at work with whom I would not have sex (were I single, etc...). So, I'm sexually attracted to all these women, though of course I have no way to know which are attracted to me -- certainly I hope they have no way to know that I'm attracted to them... it's the workplace, after all. So, my experience bears out the author's assumption that if circumstances permit, sex would almost always be "in the way" of a friendship between two mutually possible sexual partners. I can only imagine how much more this must be a problem for those who are bisexual.
  - kstenerud 15y ago
    Really? So you've never felt attracted to a sexy film star? Or the person next door you have a crush on? That flame from afar who doesn't even know you exist?
  - Lazare 15y ago
epo 15y ago
But most people are heterosexual, it is the "norm", it is a good assumption to make.
- withad 15y ago
  It's a good assumption to make if someone points out a random person on the street and asks you to guess their sexual orientation. But in an article about male and female relationships and sexual attraction? It's a pretty bad sign that the author just assumes heterosexuality for everyone, especially when anything else would defeat (or at least greatly complicate) their argument.
- rmc 15y ago
  There is a difference between assuming an individual is heterosexual if you know nothing about them, and assuming everyone is heterosexual, and hence pretending there are no homosexuals (and others). It is wrong, and damaging to never show or talk about homosexuals, since you're pretending they don't exist. For example, the majority of the USA is white, and not black. It used to be the case that all TV shows would have fully white casts, and never really have black characters. Sometimes people make this mistake when dealing with homosexuals (etc.)
ShardPhoenix 15y ago
While mutual attraction is self-reinforcing, I wouldn't say that unrequited attraction is rare.
xam 15y ago
The thing is, homosexuals can be attracted to heterosexuals. For instance, there's a large section of porn for gay men dedicated to displaying straight men in sexual situations, usually with other men. (Source: http://www.amazon.com/Billion-Wicked-Thoughts-Largest-Experiment/dp/0525952098 http://www.amazon.com/Billion-Wicked-Thoughts-Largest-Experi...)
- rmc 15y ago
  Yes, some homosexual men have been attracted to heterosexual men (and some heterosexual women have been attracted to homosexual men, etc.), but it is not the norm at all. And yes, there is some porn aimed at gay men that shows 'straight' men engaging in gay male sexual acts, and there is porn aimed at straight men showing women engaged in same-sex sexual acts (just look for "girl-on-girl"), and there is porn aimed at straight women showing men engaged in same-sex acts (just look for "slash-fic"). The vast majority of porn consumed by gay men is gay male porn though. It is completely wrong to presume that heterosexuals are constantly at threat of advanced from gay men.
rdtsc 15y ago
> The good point hidden in the article is that American culture has no real idea of "friendship" in a sense that people from other cultures either now or historically would recognize as such. American's just don't have friends. We have weak acquaintencnes. Why? Nobody seems to know. But it's something that probably deserves more attention. I think that is a very interesting point. I have mentioned that as well in the past a couple of times. There was a difference in how friendships worked in my old country (in Eastern Europe) and how they work here. Here "friendships" are just acquaintances as you said. People gather lots of acquaintances but no or few good friends. I'll propose a couple of reasons: * People are more mobile. They move more so they don't have time to really make friends. This starts in childhood when kids move with the parents from school district to school district from neighborhood to neighborhood. There is a non-negligible network effect here and that is even if you don't move and live on one street and go to one school, chances are your friend's family will. * Education system. At some point kids stop being in one class and are allowed to pick individual classes and schedules. So they stop seeing or spending time with the same classmates. There is extracurricular activities of course but it is not the same as starting with 1st grade and potentially being with the same group of people until the 12th grade. * More individualism. Being a friend means sharing more and means relying on other more. In other words it means asking for help and offering help. This means "being in other people's business" which is a no-no in U.S. But the other side of being too individualistic means never really opening up to a friend. And at the end of the day one can only get so close talking about the weather, after some time it gets boring. So there is the wall that people don't let others through. * Affluence. I think in countries where it is harder to survive on your own. People will stick together better for support. They have to have a support group to survive. In richer countries people can get by easier living alone and being more independent. * It is not as much countries as times. In other words in the past, people used to have fewer but closer friends anywhere in the world. And, say, in the last 30 years people started to become more isolated. Could be technology, or globalization (people have to move because of jobs). * It is not the world it is you. You just got older, more paranoid, and more withdrawn. The perception is that there just aren't that many friendly people around. But maybe other people just don't want to be friends with "you" in particular. They are still people with very good close friends but because you don't have them now, it seems like nobody does.
cafard 15y ago
"Apart from a few relatively rare mis-fires, we are only sexually attracted to people who are attracted to us." I don't know. It seems to me that desire expects to met with desire. There were and perhaps still are quite a few men out there who thought that lesbians simply needed some attention from a good studly guy (themselves) to straighten them out.
sethg 15y ago
Regarding the hidden point: I think there’s an expectation in contemporary American culture that emotional intimacy is women’s work, i.e., they provide support and counsel and do other semi-therapeutic for their boyfriends, their husbands, and their female friends. Straight men are uncomfortable turning to other men for that kind of intimacy. In cultures with a greater social separation between men and women, men can have intense and emotionally intimate friendships with other men, because there isn’t the same kind of expectation regarding women, and because a man will understand what another man is going through in a way that women, living in a “separate sphere”, would not.
- ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
  > Straight men are uncomfortable turning to other men for that kind of intimacy. I personally don't really want that kind of intimacy from other men. The kind of association I want with other men is more of a "playing on the same team" sort of thing, like you'd get from playing sports together, maybe working on a side project together, or even just forming a group that always meets at the same bar on a certain night. The focus isn't on sitting around talking, it's half having a group identity and half working together towards a common goal.
  - rayiner 15y ago
    You've pretty much reiterated his point.
    - ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
      I know? I'm not sure what you mean, I agree with the great-grandparent post and was trying to elaborate on it.
Alex3917 15y ago
"American's just don't have friends. We have weak acquaintencnes. Why? Nobody seems to know." I thought it was because we replaced our communities with networks, is that not correct?
nollidge 15y ago
> American's just don't have friends. Wait, what now? I mean, I'll be the first to admit that most of my ~250 Facebook "friends" are acquaintances of varying degrees, but there's a good 10-20 people who I'd consider great friends, who I feel a great emotional affinity for. Are you saying this is rare in American culture? It certainly doesn't seem so to me, but of course all I have is my experience.
blahedo 15y ago
> "The terrible point is, basically, "men and women just can't help being sexually attracted to each other", and it permeates the entire article." What? The author of the article specifically addresses this and does not conclude that the sexual attraction is unavoidable: "But it doesn’t always get in the way." "I don’t see that platonic friendships are actually rare at all or worthy of a lot of winks and nudges." Etc. > "it's a remarkably heteronormative idea" Yes, the author agrees: "Close friendships between members of the same sex, after all, are also suspect." He specifically deconstructs the exact issues you seem to be worried about. I'll assume you did actually read the article, because you said you did, but you are radically misportraying the author's claims in order to make your own points as if arguing against his (when actually, he's already made many of them himself).
Duff 15y ago
Hanging out with people on a team isn't a friendship. For one, teams are ephemeral. More importantly, people generally don't behave like dogs, humping everything in sight... Some folks find themselves "in lust" at first sight. Others take longer to develop the bond that they share. I think that in any long-term business or personal relationship between two people, you're going to have a point where at least one of the two has some level of attractiveness to each other. Whether that manifests into a sexual relationship depends on the people and their circumstances.

by Lazare 15y ago

noibl 15y ago

> we are only sexually attracted to people who are attracted to us Taken literally, this is a pretty absurd claim. I think your post would be more convincing without it.

Lewton 15y ago
Should probably be rephrased to "We are only sexually attracted to people who we believe are attracted to us" Which might still be stretching it a bit, but I believe it to be mostly true
- pagekalisedown 15y ago
  I'm no psychologist, but I think you're correct. Nobody likes to be rejected, so the safest option is to go for people who we think are attracted to us.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- throwawaymar2 15y ago
  A world in which this was even mostly true would have considerably less emotional pain in it. Nice to imagine, anyway. At my workplace, there are probably 30 or 40 women I come into contact with during the course of my job, out of maybe 60 or 70 people in my area. One or two are over 50, and hence not very attractive to me (I'm 40). One is probably over 400 lbs, and I am not especially attracted to her sexually, but as she's a great person otherwise, she may be the only example of a woman I get along with at work with whom I would not have sex (were I single, etc...). So, I'm sexually attracted to all these women, though of course I have no way to know which are attracted to me -- certainly I hope they have no way to know that I'm attracted to them... it's the workplace, after all. So, my experience bears out the author's assumption that if circumstances permit, sex would almost always be "in the way" of a friendship between two mutually possible sexual partners. I can only imagine how much more this must be a problem for those who are bisexual.
- kstenerud 15y ago
  Really? So you've never felt attracted to a sexy film star? Or the person next door you have a crush on? That flame from afar who doesn't even know you exist?
- Lazare 15y ago

epo 15y ago

But most people are heterosexual, it is the "norm", it is a good assumption to make.

withad 15y ago
It's a good assumption to make if someone points out a random person on the street and asks you to guess their sexual orientation. But in an article about male and female relationships and sexual attraction? It's a pretty bad sign that the author just assumes heterosexuality for everyone, especially when anything else would defeat (or at least greatly complicate) their argument.
rmc 15y ago
There is a difference between assuming an individual is heterosexual if you know nothing about them, and assuming everyone is heterosexual, and hence pretending there are no homosexuals (and others). It is wrong, and damaging to never show or talk about homosexuals, since you're pretending they don't exist. For example, the majority of the USA is white, and not black. It used to be the case that all TV shows would have fully white casts, and never really have black characters. Sometimes people make this mistake when dealing with homosexuals (etc.)

ShardPhoenix 15y ago

While mutual attraction is self-reinforcing, I wouldn't say that unrequited attraction is rare.

xam 15y ago

The thing is, homosexuals can be attracted to heterosexuals. For instance, there's a large section of porn for gay men dedicated to displaying straight men in sexual situations, usually with other men. (Source: http://www.amazon.com/Billion-Wicked-Thoughts-Largest-Experiment/dp/0525952098 http://www.amazon.com/Billion-Wicked-Thoughts-Largest-Experi...)

rmc 15y ago
Yes, some homosexual men have been attracted to heterosexual men (and some heterosexual women have been attracted to homosexual men, etc.), but it is not the norm at all. And yes, there is some porn aimed at gay men that shows 'straight' men engaging in gay male sexual acts, and there is porn aimed at straight men showing women engaged in same-sex sexual acts (just look for "girl-on-girl"), and there is porn aimed at straight women showing men engaged in same-sex acts (just look for "slash-fic"). The vast majority of porn consumed by gay men is gay male porn though. It is completely wrong to presume that heterosexuals are constantly at threat of advanced from gay men.

rdtsc 15y ago

> The good point hidden in the article is that American culture has no real idea of "friendship" in a sense that people from other cultures either now or historically would recognize as such. American's just don't have friends. We have weak acquaintencnes. Why? Nobody seems to know. But it's something that probably deserves more attention. I think that is a very interesting point. I have mentioned that as well in the past a couple of times. There was a difference in how friendships worked in my old country (in Eastern Europe) and how they work here. Here "friendships" are just acquaintances as you said. People gather lots of acquaintances but no or few good friends. I'll propose a couple of reasons: * People are more mobile. They move more so they don't have time to really make friends. This starts in childhood when kids move with the parents from school district to school district from neighborhood to neighborhood. There is a non-negligible network effect here and that is even if you don't move and live on one street and go to one school, chances are your friend's family will. * Education system. At some point kids stop being in one class and are allowed to pick individual classes and schedules. So they stop seeing or spending time with the same classmates. There is extracurricular activities of course but it is not the same as starting with 1st grade and potentially being with the same group of people until the 12th grade. * More individualism. Being a friend means sharing more and means relying on other more. In other words it means asking for help and offering help. This means "being in other people's business" which is a no-no in U.S. But the other side of being too individualistic means never really opening up to a friend. And at the end of the day one can only get so close talking about the weather, after some time it gets boring. So there is the wall that people don't let others through. * Affluence. I think in countries where it is harder to survive on your own. People will stick together better for support. They have to have a support group to survive. In richer countries people can get by easier living alone and being more independent. * It is not as much countries as times. In other words in the past, people used to have fewer but closer friends anywhere in the world. And, say, in the last 30 years people started to become more isolated. Could be technology, or globalization (people have to move because of jobs). * It is not the world it is you. You just got older, more paranoid, and more withdrawn. The perception is that there just aren't that many friendly people around. But maybe other people just don't want to be friends with "you" in particular. They are still people with very good close friends but because you don't have them now, it seems like nobody does.

cafard 15y ago

"Apart from a few relatively rare mis-fires, we are only sexually attracted to people who are attracted to us." I don't know. It seems to me that desire expects to met with desire. There were and perhaps still are quite a few men out there who thought that lesbians simply needed some attention from a good studly guy (themselves) to straighten them out.

sethg 15y ago

Regarding the hidden point: I think there’s an expectation in contemporary American culture that emotional intimacy is women’s work, i.e., they provide support and counsel and do other semi-therapeutic for their boyfriends, their husbands, and their female friends. Straight men are uncomfortable turning to other men for that kind of intimacy. In cultures with a greater social separation between men and women, men can have intense and emotionally intimate friendships with other men, because there isn’t the same kind of expectation regarding women, and because a man will understand what another man is going through in a way that women, living in a “separate sphere”, would not.

ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
> Straight men are uncomfortable turning to other men for that kind of intimacy. I personally don't really want that kind of intimacy from other men. The kind of association I want with other men is more of a "playing on the same team" sort of thing, like you'd get from playing sports together, maybe working on a side project together, or even just forming a group that always meets at the same bar on a certain night. The focus isn't on sitting around talking, it's half having a group identity and half working together towards a common goal.
- rayiner 15y ago
  You've pretty much reiterated his point.
  - ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
    I know? I'm not sure what you mean, I agree with the great-grandparent post and was trying to elaborate on it.

Alex3917 15y ago

"American's just don't have friends. We have weak acquaintencnes. Why? Nobody seems to know." I thought it was because we replaced our communities with networks, is that not correct?

nollidge 15y ago

> American's just don't have friends. Wait, what now? I mean, I'll be the first to admit that most of my ~250 Facebook "friends" are acquaintances of varying degrees, but there's a good 10-20 people who I'd consider great friends, who I feel a great emotional affinity for. Are you saying this is rare in American culture? It certainly doesn't seem so to me, but of course all I have is my experience.

blahedo 15y ago

> "The terrible point is, basically, "men and women just can't help being sexually attracted to each other", and it permeates the entire article." What? The author of the article specifically addresses this and does not conclude that the sexual attraction is unavoidable: "But it doesn’t always get in the way." "I don’t see that platonic friendships are actually rare at all or worthy of a lot of winks and nudges." Etc. > "it's a remarkably heteronormative idea" Yes, the author agrees: "Close friendships between members of the same sex, after all, are also suspect." He specifically deconstructs the exact issues you seem to be worried about. I'll assume you did actually read the article, because you said you did, but you are radically misportraying the author's claims in order to make your own points as if arguing against his (when actually, he's already made many of them himself).

Duff 15y ago

Hanging out with people on a team isn't a friendship. For one, teams are ephemeral. More importantly, people generally don't behave like dogs, humping everything in sight... Some folks find themselves "in lust" at first sight. Others take longer to develop the bond that they share. I think that in any long-term business or personal relationship between two people, you're going to have a point where at least one of the two has some level of attractiveness to each other. Whether that manifests into a sexual relationship depends on the people and their circumstances.