Susan Walsh assesses the writings of “sex-positive feminist” blogger Tracy Clark Flory.
It is well worth the read.
5 thoughts on “Stunning Admission”
W.O.W.
how terribly, terribly sad.
there are a few women i graduated from high school with, and they look just like they did back then … and they act just like they did back then … and they still attract that same male attention. one wonders … when do they wake up and realize if it hasn’t yet met that need inside you for 10 or 20 or 30 years, why do you think it’s going to start meeting that need now?
What man in his right mind would want to date this young woman, considering her history?
I’ve unfortunately run across my share of emotionally unhealthy women over the years, including two within the past year. Ms. Clark Flory makes them seem normal by comparison.
Choose a side? No thanks. I’m a 24-year-old member of the hookup generation — I’ve had roughly three times as many hookups as relationships — and, like innumerable 20-somethings before me, I’ve found that casual sex can be healthy and normal and lead to better adult relationships…Hookup culture is not the radical extreme it is so frequently mischaracterized as in the media.
[After attending a women’s college] I opened those other, um, metaphorical gates of mine. OK, screw the modesty: My legs, I opened my legs…I went through a dressing room phase of trying on different men to see how they fit.
As far as I can tell, these choices don’t form a pattern, other than a refusal to really choose. I was like a college freshman filling out the Career Center’s job placement questionnaire, making an enthusiastic check mark next to every box; except, in my case, I was checking off men.
…There’s nothing unusual about my experience…For all the anxiety about “hookup culture” the truth is that for many people older than 20, “hookup culture” will sound remarkably like, well, “college.”
…I learned something from all of the men I dated. Sexually, I learned plenty about what turns me on. More important, by spending time in uncommitted relationships, what I wanted in a committed relationship became clearer — and it wasn’t amorous antagonism but a partnership that didn’t trigger self-protectiveness…Perhaps young women are putting feminist ideals of equality into sex by refusing shame and claiming the traditionally male side of the stud/slut double standard.
Translation: “What I do is often associated with sluts, tramps, whores, and ‘loose’ women. But instead of accept that I am in the same league with them, I’ll put a nice spin on it. After all, I am still young, and–who knows?–I might just land a good guy.”
As she’s still defending casual sex, she says the following:
As I see it, young women have fully proved that we can have one-night stands, hear us roar – and maybe we’re beginning to also allow ourselves more nuanced feelings about our hookups…We can now acknowledge regret over a one-night stand, without being considered, or seeing ourselves as, forever ruined women; if there’s been a recent change in my generation’s relationship to casual sex, I suspect it’s that we’re relaxing our defensive posturing.
Translation: “I’ve utterly futzed up my chances of landing a really good guy. But if I can keep spinning this right, I might be able to land a second-tier guy!”
At 27, she’s now starting to come to terms with her choices:
When you talk to people who have been there and done that — and even those who are continuing to do that — the response is overwhelmingly negative. As my own former “friend with benefits” put it to me, “I’ve been in so many of these situations and, basically, they work until they don’t.”…In his self-deprecating style, he made no secret of his undatability. He was prone to post-coital declarations like, “You’ll be done with me soon. I’m a drunken emotional mess!” …Only that was kind of the point: So was I. I wanted company, warmth and no danger of attachment.
…Except that in reality there was. I actually liked him, quite a bit, as a human being…At some point I realized that, despite my insistence otherwise, I actually wanted those sorts of intimacies, only with an actual commitment.
Translation: “I may have spent the last decade wrecking my life.”
But, yes, as I’ve gotten older, casual sex has lost some of the luster of freedom. It isn’t that I’ve forsaken the delights of no-strings flings, but rather that I’ve tired of hookup culture’s dictatorial reign over modern courtship. It doesn’t feel so free when it doesn’t feel like an intentional choice….I’ve often had no one but myself to blame — especially when going after boys literally wearing warning signs in the form of tattoos reading things like, “I am what I am” or “forgive me.”
Sometimes, tearing off your clothes is just a pathetic attempt at taking control of the uncontrollable: love. It took me a while to realize that I wasn’t always getting what I wanted from hookups. As a friend recently told me, “It’s a terror to put your heart on the line and ask for what you want. You don’t have to be naked to feel naked.” My M.O. has often been getting naked to not feel naked.
Translation: “Well…I can’t quite get myself to say that the only difference between myself and a porn slut is that she has more money…but this hasn’t turned out as well as I hoped.”
But to me, the worst part was this:
Postcollege, I became a full-time reporter, blogger—and orgasm faker. I had strong feminist political inclinations, but I was also deeply afraid of male rejection; my intellectual ideals clashed with my personal insecurities…I chose performed enthusiasm over more authentic sexual experience…in the years that followed, I moved on to faking multiple orgasms.
Around this time, I wrote an essay titled “In Defense of Casual Sex,” about how hookups had helped me explore my sexuality—and they had. But it was exploration through the eyes of men: I was focused on how my partners saw me. I didn’t mention that I’d faked it during nearly all of my dalliances. It seemed embarrassing to admit, and personally inconsequential. I just figured that I was one of those women for whom orgasms are extremely difficult, but even without them sex was a physical rush. Which is not to mention what a blast it was to date or become otherwise involved with a rainbow array of men—from a Muay Thai kickboxer to a big-deal lawyer.
So let me get this straight:
(a) She expended a considerable amount of time marketing casual sex.
(b) At the same time, the sex was a real downer for her: she rarely–if ever–achieved orgasm when she had sex.
(c) The fact that she was able to “date” a variety of men–a Muay Thai boxer and a “big deal lawyer”–somehow mitigated the lousy sex she was having.
You know…I’d feel sorry for her, except she isn’t owning to her self-deception, or her deception of others.
Fact is, in her dive into promiscuity, she was unable to truly give herself to her partners. Her future husband–assuming she marries–is going to have a very hard time unpacking that baggage.
Fact is, by having all those relationships, she never gave herself a chance to experience the intimacy the leads to really good sex. That isn’t something you pick up in one night, or one week, or even one year. This is why the demographic group that enjoys sex the most is married, conservative Protestant women…
So go ahead, feministas…keep mocking those “repressed” conservative Christians.
heartiste had a post with an exchange between Amanda and Tracy, which showed that she really knows what she’s doing underneath all of these “pretty” lies. The article seems to imply that she’s changed, when in reality, she’s realizing that her SMV has declined so much that she can no longer act this way. Still, we’ll see more of this before it’s over; these provide an excellent reminder of why being unattached is the way to go.
By the way, I like the new look. What are you using on your back-end? SQL or NoSQL?
W.O.W.
how terribly, terribly sad.
there are a few women i graduated from high school with, and they look just like they did back then … and they act just like they did back then … and they still attract that same male attention. one wonders … when do they wake up and realize if it hasn’t yet met that need inside you for 10 or 20 or 30 years, why do you think it’s going to start meeting that need now?
*shaking head in utter disbelief*
What man in his right mind would want to date this young woman, considering her history?
I’ve unfortunately run across my share of emotionally unhealthy women over the years, including two within the past year. Ms. Clark Flory makes them seem normal by comparison.
First, Flory provides this tidbit:
Translation: “What I do is often associated with sluts, tramps, whores, and ‘loose’ women. But instead of accept that I am in the same league with them, I’ll put a nice spin on it. After all, I am still young, and–who knows?–I might just land a good guy.”
As she’s still defending casual sex, she says the following:
Translation: “I’ve utterly futzed up my chances of landing a really good guy. But if I can keep spinning this right, I might be able to land a second-tier guy!”
At 27, she’s now starting to come to terms with her choices:
Translation: “I may have spent the last decade wrecking my life.”
Translation: “Well…I can’t quite get myself to say that the only difference between myself and a porn slut is that she has more money…but this hasn’t turned out as well as I hoped.”
But to me, the worst part was this:
So let me get this straight:
(a) She expended a considerable amount of time marketing casual sex.
(b) At the same time, the sex was a real downer for her: she rarely–if ever–achieved orgasm when she had sex.
(c) The fact that she was able to “date” a variety of men–a Muay Thai boxer and a “big deal lawyer”–somehow mitigated the lousy sex she was having.
You know…I’d feel sorry for her, except she isn’t owning to her self-deception, or her deception of others.
Fact is, in her dive into promiscuity, she was unable to truly give herself to her partners. Her future husband–assuming she marries–is going to have a very hard time unpacking that baggage.
Fact is, by having all those relationships, she never gave herself a chance to experience the intimacy the leads to really good sex. That isn’t something you pick up in one night, or one week, or even one year. This is why the demographic group that enjoys sex the most is married, conservative Protestant women…
So go ahead, feministas…keep mocking those “repressed” conservative Christians.
heartiste had a post with an exchange between Amanda and Tracy, which showed that she really knows what she’s doing underneath all of these “pretty” lies. The article seems to imply that she’s changed, when in reality, she’s realizing that her SMV has declined so much that she can no longer act this way. Still, we’ll see more of this before it’s over; these provide an excellent reminder of why being unattached is the way to go.
By the way, I like the new look. What are you using on your back-end? SQL or NoSQL?
The back-end is mySQL. The host provides that, and it works well. I’m using WordPress, and this is just a theme I downloaded.
Yep…I’d have to agree with Roissy here.