I came across a couple of articles today that suggest our society, with it’s obsessive, excessive fixation on sex, is creating a relational wasteland. With sex being the goal and pinnacle of our existence, other types of physical relationships are falling by the wayside. In our drive to connect in a sexual relationship we may very well be disconnecting from the relationships that could be more beneficial.
First, from Leah Libresco for The American Conservative, “Our Starved for Touch Culture“:
The friendzone is treated as a wasteland not just because we treat sex as an idol, but because friendship and non-sexual affection is written off as irrelevant. Casual dating has been replaced by casual sex; platonic touch has been eclipsed by erotic signalling. Pickup artists teach their pupils (not inaccurately) that taking someone’s hand, touching a shoulder, or even moving into one-on-one conversations are indications of interest, and a signal to keep escalating, in the hopes of transitioning to a hookup.
If affection is merely foreplay, then a person who isn’t having luck approaching people romantically is also cut off from most normal human comforts. That kind of isolation is tremendously harmful.
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The isolation may be more pronounced for men, since physical contact between two women is less likely to be stigmatized or even remarked upon. In my own experience, however, usually the only time I make physical contact with another person is when I shake the priest’s hand on my way out of Mass. When I went on a cultural exchange trip to China, I was surprised and jealous when our group leader warned us that friends commonly hold hands in China, and we shouldn’t assume a host was flirting with us if they did so.
In America, that kind of physical affection would be unusual between pairs of friends, especially if both were male. But, if friends are off limits, where else are people to turn for physical reassurance?
Then there is this from The New York Times’ Ross Douthat, in “Prisoners of Sex“:
The culture’s attitude is Hefnerism, basically, if less baldly chauvinistic than the original Playboy philosophy. Sexual fulfillment is treated as the source and summit of a life well lived, the thing without which nobody (from a carefree college student to a Cialis-taking senior) can be truly happy, enviable or free.
Meanwhile, social alternatives to sexual partnerships are disfavored or in decline: Virginity is for weirdos and losers, celibate life is either a form of unhealthy repression or a smoke screen for deviancy, the kind of intense friendships celebrated by past civilizations are associated with closeted homosexuality, and the steady shrinking of extended families has reduced many people’s access to the familial forms of platonic intimacy.
Yet as sex looms ever larger as an aspirational good, we also live in a society where more people are single and likely to remain so than in any previous era. And since single people have, on average, a lot less sex than the partnered and wedded, a growing number of Americans are statistically guaranteed to feel that they’re not living up to the culture’s standard of fulfillment, happiness and worth.
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This means that the feminist prescription doesn’t supply what men slipping down into the darkness of misogyny most immediately need: not lectures on how they need to respect women as sexual beings, but reasons, despite their lack of sexual experience, to first respect themselves as men.
Such reasons, and the models of intimacy and community that vindicate them, might have done little to prevent the Santa Barbara killer’s deadly spree.
But they might drain some of the swamps that are forming, slowly, because our society has lost sight of a basic human truth: A culture that too tightly binds sex and self-respect is likely, in the long run, to end up with less and less of both.
If the only outlet of affection we are allowed, and the only criteria by which our self-worth is measured, is sex, we are dooming ourselves as a society. Could Pat Benetar have been prophetic, that love is a battlefield on which as engage with the enemy in order to prove ourselves to our gender? Is that really the world we want?
In many Native American cultures young warriors would hunt and kill a fearsome predator in order to prove their worth to the tribe. Is that where we’re headed, to a society where sex is no longer even an expression of affection, but a bizarre form of “counting coup” in order to prove our wo/manhood to our homo-gendered tribe?
Count me out.
Still pondering over the main point of this post, but one point I’d like to raise is that the modern concept of the ‘friendzone’ isn’t just a non-acceptance of friendship in favor of sex, it’s a yearning for a closer relationship in general. Back in the day before people started making up pseudo-clever words for everything and thinking that Urban Dictionary was a valid source of information, it was called ‘unrequited love’ and a heck of a lot of stories, plays, songs, and eventually movies were (and still are) written about it. One person wants more from the relationship than the other does, and even if it doesn’t go toxic and exploitative it’s not that easy to turn your feelings back down to friendship level.
My understanding was that the “friendzone” was a place where we interacted with one another on a platonic basis–and that we’re starting to abandon it because we’re under pressure to be seeking sex. If someone won’t provide that we don’t place them in the friendzone but write them off altogether. I may be reading it wrong, though. The writer uses the term freely, but is somewhat vague about what it means. That’s not to say unrequited love doesn’t belong in there. But I think it also means that we’ve turned into a culture of “either ‘all-hands-on-deck’ or hands off”, so to speak.
Okay, we’re definitely having a conflict of definitions then. In my understanding of the term, the “friendzone” is a state of affairs for a guy (or more rarely a girl) who is ‘best friends’ with someone that they’re desperately and usually quietly in love with, but the other person is always dating someone else because they either don’t see that this person is in love with them or they DO see it but either don’t want to hurt them or just don’t care. The unrequited lover is often locked into a cycle of constantly being supportive of the other person while getting their heart broken over and over. They don’t want to lose the friendship or their hope of someday getting the love they want, but in the other person’s viewpoint they are always going to be in the ‘friend zone’, not in the ‘love zone’. Hope that’s clearer on where I’m coming from.
It wouldn’t be the first or last time I’ve read something totally different into something. Since neither definition invalidates the main point of the article I’ll go ahead and concede the issue.
Ron has my understanding of “friendzone” largely nailed.
I see no reason to concede anything. Ron’s definition matches what I have heard, but he and I are hardly the be all end all deciders. Your take could be entirely what was meant by the authors you cited.
And really, I’m not looking to argue the main point of your post, though I don’t completely agree with it. I just didn’t agree with the citation about the implications of ‘friendzoning’.
Uh, seriously guys, I don’t care. We have a different definition for a term. We explained ourselves. No one has to agree with me, and vice versa. I wrote that post yesterday. I’ve moved on. It’s okay. 🙂
What? How dare you not be indignant and argumentative? How unAmerican!
Dang it, Thom! Fight with us!!!
… besides, I didn’t really think that we were fighting. I was actually hoping for you to elaborate on your perspective so that i could broaden my mind, and not just my waist.
I didn’t think we were fighting, either. I thought you were all feeling like I had gotten defensive, taken my ball, and gone home. As for elaborating on my perspective, I did. Everyone else still seemed to agree that their definition was right. And that’s okay. I don’t feel the need to go into a detailed analysis as to why my definition is the only right interpretation and why you guys are wrong. And since that definition is kind of the starting point of the rest of the article, if you’re not with me at least that far, there’s no point in trying to drag you further. Especially when it’s just not that big a deal. Really. It’s just a couple of articles that seemed related and made interesting points. Take what you will…or don’t. I really don’t care. I’m more excited about tomorrow’s post anyhow.
You’re no fun anymore. 😉
Hey, if you guys don’t agree that tomorrow’s post is the most awesome thing you’ve ever seen THEN you’ll have a fight on your hands! 😉
Challenge accepted, I’ll have the turnips and the sandpaper standing by.
Never bring a turnip to a kohlrabi fight.
And that’s why I never engage in kohlrabi fights. I’d make this a fresh fruit battle, but releasing the tiger on my brother seems a bit extreme.
I didn’t say that I didn’t follow you on your trip. I too kit with you. Just cuz Ron’s definition matched mine better, didn’t mean that I couldn’t work with yours. And, I’ll preemptively snub the next post. Put up your rutabagas.
Wow! A wild adult conversation appeared! Its been a while since one of those have been spotted on the internet.
That’s us, the wild adults. Slinking around our native habitats.