When it Comes to Dating, You Might Want to Get Out of the Cold

by Gamal Hennessy

A recent Match.com survey suggests "warm" or "hot" approaches (initial connections made through mutual friends, interests or online dating) beat "cold" approaches (initial connections made with strangers) by a factor of ten to one.

Singles in America and the Future of Love

“Fisher and her research partner found that 31% of singles met their last first date online, while 25% met through a friend, and 6% met in a bar or club.”

— Krista Tippett: On Being

The moral of the story is if you want a relationship in the 21st Century, you probably need to come in out of the cold.

Have fun.

Gamal

The Hypocritical Motivation Behind Female on Female Slut Shaming

By Gamal Hennessy

The concept of slut shaming is often associated with an inequality between male and female sexual expression. Men are praised for high levels of sexual activity while women are maligned. The majority of this social warfare was thought to be a product of male bias, but a new study suggests slut shaming is a powerful social tool for women to use against other women.

Researchers observed and interviewed college-aged women in a campus setting. They found slut shaming to be a form of abuse women from affluent families used to disparage women from less fortunate social circumstances. Shame was about income, not sex although sexual expression was the target of the attack.

“Viewing women only as victims of men’s sexual dominance fails to hold women accountable for the roles they play in reproducing social inequalities. By engaging in ‘slut-shaming’ women at the top create more space for their own sexual experimentation, at the cost of women at the bottom of social hierarchies.”

— Elizabeth Armstrong, Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan

This isn’t a new phenomenon. The upper classes in societies throughout history have engaged in broad types of sexual expression and denied the same activity to lower social groups. Erotica and manuals of sexual techniques have been hidden away in private libraries. Only the rich could afford the services of concubines, courtesans or prostitutes. In modern eras, both the church and the state impose a sexually restrictive morality on the general population as they indulge in any and every sexual option imaginable.   

This systemic sexual repression is a form of class warfare designed to restrict upward mobility. Erotic capital, like financial, social and intellectual capital are transferable, giving a person with one type of capital the ability to trade it in for other types of social currency. (See Erotic Capital by Catherine Hakim) The difference between erotic capital and other forms is its distribution. Beauty, sex appeal and physical ability can’t be hoarded by certain classes and passed down through generations. In theory, anyone from any class can achieve a high degree of erotic capital. If society allowed free transfer of this currency, social mobility would suddenly be within reach of a wider section of society. Suppression of erotic capital through techniques like slut shaming reduces the utility of erotic capital for those who need it most.

Sexual intelligence and independence in sexual expression could be effective counter measures for this type of social warfare, but few women of any class have the training to develop those traits. (See Love in the Time of Smartphones) Until we treat sexual expression as a fundamental dynamic of society, tactics like slut shaming will continue to have a detrimental effect on everyone.

Have fun.

Gamal

Your Dating App Isn’t the Problem in Your Love Life. You Are. (Love in the Time of Smartphones)

It is easy to lament the state of modern romance (See This Is How We Date Now). We can look at dating apps and claim romance is dead. We can point to the abundance of our digital connections as the reason behind our collective personal disconnection. We can point to the illusion of social media and blame it for the one sided portrayal of the relationships we manage to have. But these protests are short sighted because they ignore a basic reality of sexual expression.

It’s true many of us in the twenty first century can find a potential partner in the same way we can order pizza. Couples on dates do spend a disturbing amount of time staring at their phones instead of each other. Most online relationship narratives only show the happy moments. Life and love were so much better before social networks, smartphones and apps, right?

Society has created multiple methods to bring people together throughout history. Arranged marriages, matchmakers, church groups, social mixers and random encounters in bars and clubs pre-dated Tinder and Match. Did they produce better results?

People who did get together spent a lot of time apart. They might be separated physically because of work and travel, or they might be mentally separated staring at the TV all night. Were those romantic droughts preferable to smartphone staring?

The interpersonal problems we had were covered up in public with banal conversation and elaborate lies. Emotional release was satisfied by professional courtesans and concubines for the rich or amateur infidelity for the poor. Some people just suffered in silence, drowning their sorrow in liquor or lashing out at the people around them. Why is that life better than the one we have now.

Technology has changed the details of our romantic encounters, but it has not changed the fundamental process. It has made it easier for us to connect and disconnect, but has not altered the art of seduction. We now have the ability to find people to love, but most of us still don’t know how. Technology isn’t the problem. It’s the people who use it.

We have no collective skill in romance or love because most of us never get a seductive education. At a certain age, we’re pushed to be attractive, date, marry, procreate and repeat the process with the next generation with most people stumbling through every stage like a drunken monkey. It’s as if we were each given a gun and bullets and then told to protect ourselves without any instruction on the physical, mental, emotional and social impact of owning a deadly weapon. We are burdened with the expectation and responsibility to love with nothing more than the ignorant mantra of “it will work out if it’s meant to.”

It’s not as if the lessons of love don’t exist. Ovid’s Art of Love, the Kama Sutra, the Technique of the Love Affair and the Art of Seduction are only a small sample of the books devoted to romance. There are historical icons from Casanova and Ninon de l’Enclos and modern examples like Prince and Monica Bellucci today. But the education is hidden or rejected. The experts are either shunned or marginalized as unique or different from the rest of us. But romantic fulfillment isn’t a product of apathy, apps or astrology. It comes from intelligent effort, focused attention and constant communication.

I left the open dating world before apps went main stream, so I only have an observer’s perspective on the current state of affairs. I’ve been in love for five years now with a woman I idolize and adore. We share affection, communication and understanding I appreciate but never take for granted. I still try to attract and impress her because I’ve made the personal decision to continue and enhance our romantic relationship. In spite of the dire predictions, romance isn’t dead. It can’t be killed by society or technology. Romance is simply rare and it only lives and thrives with inspiration and effort.

Have fun.

Gamal