To continue a theme, what I’m suggesting is that this book, this Getting Real thing, unlike most non-fiction perhaps, might actually be read by those who will turn out to be its adversaries, which might be a rare occurrence in our echo chamber 21st century.
The reasons are that my co-author and I are unknown quantities, and secondly, that our book presents ideas that may be objectionable to the vanguard of our profession. No, this won’t pertain to mine and Joe Farley’s supposedly heretical “psychodynamic” take on sex addiction. It won’t even result from our ambiguous adherence to the idea that sex addiction even exists. It might result from our saying little if anything about the LGBTQ community, though at least we use politically correct words like “heteronormative” and “cisgender” to indicate our thinking about such things. And isn’t that enough? says middle America, corporate America, or white America—all quietly hoping that forming committees, re-writing mission statements, re-photo-shopping brochures, and generally paying diligent lip-service is all, ya know…enough.
Anyway, back to why our book, or my chapters at least, might be objectionable to however many therapists and would-be patients read our book. It’s about gender, and by gender I do not mean the zeitgeist gender fluidity/what-does-gender mean discussion. I mean another twist—in subtle, as in here-and-there passages that seek to inject an alternative consciousness about exploitation. Passages about the exploitation of men, I mean, as part of an anti-sex addiction theory.
Here’s the thesis: if men had a consciousness about being used in the ways they are traditionally used, and may still be used if fresh, nationwide infrastructure plans are realized, it might help them not act out sexually, which in turn would probably benefit women if men felt less entitled (consciously or unconsciously) to seek out transient pleasures. I know. Sounds fanciful so far, or unfairly generalized, maybe. I’m also aware that it’s not how things are meant to happen from the point of view of conventional ethics. For example, feminists likely want men to stop acting out sexually—to stop being consumers of porn and prostitutes, for example—because it’s the right thing to do; because it’s compatible with the “do unto others as…” (ya know, that old chestnut) notion that still holds sway as an ethical lever, a fundamental golden rule.
Well, this may not be what motivates people? People vote for a candidate, choose their politics (including their gender politics), make decisions and generally live life because of what’s in it for them (a patient of mine recently put an acronym to this: WIFM—what’s in it for me?). Supporting wage equity, sex freedom, domestic labor equity, non-violence against women, may all be in the interests of men. Yet many women report feeling jaded by what they describe as the apathy of average men, who don’t appear to join women in their causes, at least not in earnest. So, what motivates them? Or, what might motivate them? Well, one of the truisms I observe is that men are exploited in ours and most societies for their violent or physically rigorous capacities. Perennially, we ask men to don various hard-hats, to act as police, firemen, or military men; to walk on roofs or high ledges, crawl into tight spaces underneath properties; to perform the jobs that incur the vast majority of workplace injuries. To be fair, women are entering fire services, the police, and the military in greater numbers over the last generation, but they comprise only 2% of combat deaths during a largely non-wartime era. Despite the efforts being made by the media, in TV and film, to cast women in action or military roles, men still comprise the vast majority of combat roles, and therefore combat injuries. Yet even this buries the lede of our issue, as fire services, police work, and military service aren’t even the most dangerous jobs in America, according to data. Wanna hear an example of what causes more injures? Fishing. That’s right: fishing. I think roofing is on the top-five most-dangerous job-list, too. Regardless, the point is that men comprise over 90% of workplace injuries—a statistic that has remained stable over the last 30 years. Why? Well, it’s not because men are clumsier.
Also, while some are horrified by man’s brutal physicality, evidence suggests that most are entertained by it. Football players, boxers, athletes of various kinds, mostly male, are our modern gladiators, and beyond their physical prime, they don’t live very long lives. Meanwhile, as I write this blog, the not-exactly-woke Fast and Furious franchise keeps motoring on, with sequel ten or whatever of this hypermasculine icon topping the box office earlier this summer—like, by a mile. My developmental editors (of Getting Real) may not have cared for some of my flippancies on this tangential yet intersecting subject (one passage originally began, “In Roman—sorry American society…”), but they allowed commentary that observed the relative obsolescence of man’s militant ego. We are, after all, nearly fifty years clear of America’s last military draft. The end of conscription, plus the recently judicious use of military services has certainly spared my generation and the two or three since from the kind of decimations that have occurred over history. Still, contemporary politics and world events do not erode what is traditionally valued in the much-maligned masculine ego. Therefore, tall, mesomorphic, tattoo-ridden, six-pack abbed, or plain, discipline-seeking young men remain preferable to many women (perhaps not feminists, though I’m not even sure on that) who covet such men, and who further seem to think that losing weight is harder than gaining height.
Think about it.
If upon thinking you believe my last quip is anti-feminist or misogynistic then you might as well stop reading. And you might as well not read Getting Real About Sex Addiction: a psychodynamic approach to treatment (there, it’s full title), for you will likely think it an annoying distraction from the more important foci of progressive agendas. But for what it’s worth, our book is not anti-feminist. Indeed, if anything, it appropriates feminist/class theory, applying concepts of objectification, for example, to men’s traditional roles as cultural gladiators and performers of physically dangerous jobs. It’s not feminists who are insensible to this. Nor is it average traditionalist women, who tacitly respect men who have always risked life and limb to build infrastructure (or otherwise overwork), and only ask that they (women) be respected in return. Actually, it’s a different faction that is that target of my disparaging insight: menu feminists, as I term them; women who are drawn to mesomorphs because they are handy when heavy objects need lifting, or when there’s danger in the neighborhood, but not so much when dishes need cleaning or a family meal needs to be cooked. These myopic women might read the facts from the previous paragraph and be unmoved, as if they’d just learned data about the number of worms eaten by birds each year. Or, they moan about the self-centeredness of their male partners, observing their inattention to domestic or “intimate” matters, disregarding men who are socialized and (according to oxytocin researchers) perhaps biologically disposed to outdoor environmental cues, whose caring attitudes are therefore indirectly expressed—via the benefits of an occupational life, for example. Not that I’m such a fan of the patriarchal chestnut, “who puts a roof over your head and food on the table?”, but neither am I enamored of matriarchal chauvinists who believe that a feminine way should prevail in a village-like, domestically-centered society, with men perhaps better suited to an outdoor world that such women take for granted.
The second half of my thesis poses the following questions: will men in general continue to think and act as they seem to, pursuing obsolete masculine ideals because they seem to excite many women still, while simultaneously feeling entitled to a level of sexual freedom that is corollary to a life of physical or economic risk, which in turn influences hypersexual behavior plus reactionary entities like sex addiction treatment and theory? Or, will some men become “woke” to an exploitation narrative that does not saturate the pulpits of media or academic institutions: that the promise of sexual and financial freedom (power) entices all too many to cliff edges, war zones, roof tops, bankruptcy or lottery thresholds, or slippery fishing boats. In the future, will men stop emulating their primitive antecedent, the sperm, who charges ahead through the fluid, ever driven to bond with the coveted egg? At a later stage of development, will this lone survivor of that pre-natal quest re-enact the primal drama, ever preparing his body for physical risk, or playing out the death of a salesman, risking a shortened life, just to win the hearts of women, or to get laid? Will men like these ever choose different roles, less risky jobs, whether women will like them for these choices or not.
Graeme Daniels Psychewriter 