Thursday, March 3, 2011

Manly Thor's Day Special

SAHG Rules
There was a piece that had the feminist bar stools spinning last week about being a stay-at-home girlfriend. This is the first of two posts I will do on it. Short version, a woman lost her job and her boyfriend is paying the bills. She, her name is Quiana Stokes, has started living according to what she herself describes as "stereotypically Stepfordish rules to keep our relationships afloat and ourselves sane". And she has discovered that other women are doing the same thing.

I might add she isn't doing anything that a lot of college girls with and without boyfriends do. Because of where I live and work, I'm surrounded by them and if you eavesdrop on their conversations, you'll notice that they talk about doing exactly what Quiana Stokes does. Far from being some kind of throwback to an ugly pre-feminist past, Quiana Stokes represents the future.

But what about men? Because what is really impressive about women like Stokes is that they apply rules to themselves and they do this for the sake of their relationship. And, whether feminists like acknowledging this or not, the vast majority of women will do exactly what Stokes has done at some time in their lives. That is they will sit down and say, "If I really want a man in my life what do I have to do to make myself the kind of woman that a man is likely to want to have in his life?"

You don't see men do their part so much these days. There are books, magazines and blog posts galore about how to get her, how to giver her good sex once you get her and how to tell if she is cheating and so forth. There isn't much about sitting down and evaluating your habits and, yes, your body and dress, and asking yourself, is this what some woman is likely going to want in a man?

One of Stokes' defenders insists that this woman isn't doing anything she doesn't want to do but that isn't quite true. Everything she does is done for the sake of the relationship and that is all about making herself a better person for him. Here's her list with some attempts to convert them into their male equivalents by me.

Don’t sleep in: She gets up with him in the morning rather than sleep in. This a good rule and easily generalized. Are we really in this together? Because if we are I should be getting up for the things that I don't necessarily have to be involved in. And I should do it so easily and naturally that she isn't aware of any special effort I made for her but rather I should ensure she takes it as something she has a right to expect. All Stokes' rules are about recognizing a man's legitimate entitlements and there are lots of those going the other way too.

Keep the place clean:  Nothing to explain here. But we should be honest here that women generally need less pushing here than we men do. And don't just keep it clean according to what feels good enough for us. If we really want to have a woman in our lives we should be aiming for the sort of cleanliness that appeals to women. The really important thing about the kinds of rules we should be setting for ourselves is that they should require living up to the standards of others.

Cook or order dinner every night: Again, self explanatory. In my experience men need less prodding here than women do. Women seem more inclined to care care about what is proper for every day (i.e. keeping the place clean) whereas men seem more inclined to care about what is proper when creating a sense of occasion. But, let's be brutally honest, the women in our lives do more than we can about keeping the place clean so maybe we could work harder at creating sense of occasion and maybe resent it a little less that she doesn't seem as enthusiastic as we are.

Keep yourself up: Let's be honest, no matter how far from perfect a woman may be, women generally are better at this than men are. And, again, keeping yourself up means keeping yourself up in the ways that matter to her.

Pamper him:  To be brutally honest, I think men are better at remembering to pamper women than women are at remembering to pamper men. I'd replace this with pay close attention to her needs so you can guess what they are. And I use the word "guess" advisedly. At the risk of getting tarred and feathered and run out of town, women send mixed and often bluntly contradictory messages about what they want and being a good man means learning women's behaviours.

As long as I'm being incorrect, I also use the word "behaviours" knowingly. What a woman says she wants is never the whole story and sometimes it is often the worst guide to what she really wants and needs.

Sexy Time: This may seem self evident but it isn't. One of the biggest dangers in a relationship or marriage is for her to let sex to become something she does for you. In a sense she does this out of laziness. It's much more effort for her to enjoy herself than it is for her to simply go along with your more persistent and consistent desires. And pretty soon she'll start to resent what is happening.

I've noted before that there is a multi-billion dollar industry designed to helping women indulge themselves sensually. That industry wouldn't exist if women didn't need all that help. She needs to learn how to enjoy herself. That's where you come in.

Not unrelated, there is also a billion dollar porn and semi-porn business (think of The Huffiungton Post if you want to know what semi-porn is). Anyway, it may seem like the easiest thing in the world for a man to learn how to enjoy a woman sexually.  But if that were really true we wouldn't need all that help.

Leave the house: Socialize with other people. Here I would disagree with Stokes a bit. She talks about getting out with other women and it is good for women to get out with other women and, she would presumably say, for men to get out with other men. But I'd argue that both do a lot better if they socialize with mixed groups and even with other members of the opposite sex. Other people keep us sane and not just in the sense that they keep us from going stir crazy. They also keep us thinking about and evaluating the rules that we apply to our relationships.

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