Oh yes, I hadn't actually stopped to consider that. It does make sense, though, and that societal/patriarchal investment would definitely also constrain people who are thinking about doing something else.
it's incorrect because they are lying about that. Most of all to themselves, but also to everybody else as collateral damage
I guess it's that "lying to themselves" thing that is hitting me and making me chew on this. Like, a lot of people view sex as a really important way of connecting to their partners and emotionally binding to them, and if you suddenly take that out of the equation completely because of physical pain, it winds up being really painful and traumatizing. But if you're already starving emotionally even with the sex, it seems to me that forming a relationship without it that otherwise meets your needs becomes substantially more attractive. I don't know whether that attractiveness is enough to offset the strong societal censure of women who take that path, though.
I don't know. I see a lot of women, particularly older women, saying "If my relationship ended tomorrow, I would not seek out a new one, because I can meet my social needs elsewhere." Or women who aren't in these relationships wishing they could figure out how to get those emotional and intimacy needs met--I see a lot of complaining and wistfulness about this, and I keep going "YOU DON'T HAVE TO ORGANIZE IT THAT WAY" and "YOU DON'T HAVE TO TANGLE ALL THESE THINGS TOGETHER." If there wasn't active complaining about the tangling, I wouldn't be so bemused, you know?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2019-01-11 02:31 am (UTC)Oh yes, I hadn't actually stopped to consider that. It does make sense, though, and that societal/patriarchal investment would definitely also constrain people who are thinking about doing something else.
it's incorrect because they are lying about that. Most of all to themselves, but also to everybody else as collateral damage
I guess it's that "lying to themselves" thing that is hitting me and making me chew on this. Like, a lot of people view sex as a really important way of connecting to their partners and emotionally binding to them, and if you suddenly take that out of the equation completely because of physical pain, it winds up being really painful and traumatizing. But if you're already starving emotionally even with the sex, it seems to me that forming a relationship without it that otherwise meets your needs becomes substantially more attractive. I don't know whether that attractiveness is enough to offset the strong societal censure of women who take that path, though.
I don't know. I see a lot of women, particularly older women, saying "If my relationship ended tomorrow, I would not seek out a new one, because I can meet my social needs elsewhere." Or women who aren't in these relationships wishing they could figure out how to get those emotional and intimacy needs met--I see a lot of complaining and wistfulness about this, and I keep going "YOU DON'T HAVE TO ORGANIZE IT THAT WAY" and "YOU DON'T HAVE TO TANGLE ALL THESE THINGS TOGETHER." If there wasn't active complaining about the tangling, I wouldn't be so bemused, you know?