Newt, Hetero-Masculine Privilege, and Non-Monogamy

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:19:52 -0600

Last week, Newt Gingrich’s second wife claimed that Newt had approached her with a request for an “open marriage”. A lot has been said about this, but I have to confess that the most amazing commentary about it all came from Keith Ablow, FOX News Psychaitrist. In a nutshell, he says that Newt’s philandering represents the appeal of an alpha male and therefore, his fitness for leadership. What?!

I’m not going to comment on how ridiculous his argument is; it speaks for itself. (And as a friend said, if the conservatives buy this, someone owes Clinton a huge apology.) What I do want to comment on is what it reveals about how the gender dynamics of cheating have changed.

Rich, white, heterosexual men have always stepped out on their wives. This is as much a part of the American Family as apple pie and domestic violence. Newt is so very typical in this respect. He, like most of his peers (rich, white, powerful heterosexual men), has been reaping the benefits of compulsory monogamy while enjoying the privileges of practicing non-monogamy.

Herein lies the difference between compulsory monogamy as a social institution and the practice of sexuality in everyday life.

We all know that the institution of monogamy has been more strictly enforced on women than on men. All of us are familiar with, if not in one way or another facilitating the wink wink about extramarital affairs for men (especially rich white ones). Men’s philandering is not a violation of the system; it’s part of the system in the form of the “extramarital affair” or “mistress”. (Notice how we don’t have a word for the men wives fuck on the sly?). Monogamy has always meant men keeping close cultural and interpersonal tabs on women so they have control and ownership of their wives while all of us not only accept, but also expect non-monogamy on the part of married men.

I’m not saying that every individual accepts philandering by the men in their lives. Clearly Newt’s second wife did not. What I mean is that, when married men cheat on their wives, there has been a collective policy to look the other way. And though we collectively might have thought it unfortunate and perhaps immoral, it was to be expected and thus, really nothing anyone can do about it. It’s just what men do. It’s part of the landscape. It’s the air we breathe. It’s part of the system of monogamy.

It was, I think, until now.

Thanks to the (re)emergence of non-monogamy, open relationships, and polyamory in public discourse, we now have a language that distinguishes ethical and unethical non-monogamy, and that language isn’t gendered! The difference between acceptable and unacceptable non-monogamy doesn’t hinge on the status of the person (his gender or class position); it depends on whether or not it was ethical—meaning whether or not the person was honest and didn’t violate the agreements made between consenting partners.

Newt, needless to say, engaged in unethical non-monogamy. He cheated for years before bringing an “open relationship” to the table, and everyone can see it. As others have noted, it was a desperate and failed attempt by someone who probably got caught to keep his mistress and his wife—that is, it was a desperate attempt to keep his white, upper class, hetero-masculine privilege to practice non-monogamy while insisting on monogamy for everyone else.

I think that Newt’s outrage over being asked about this during the republican debate was more about being “outed” than any concern about making the personal political (after all, what were Clinton’s impeachment hearings all about!). How dare you talk about my behavior! How dare you talk about married men cheating! Talking about it threatens the idea that monogamy is the alive and well in the American family. Talking about it might reveal that rich white hetero dudes seem to think they don’t have to follow the rules but should have the reins of leadership to define and enforce the rules.

And that’s where the FOX news psychiatrist, Ablow comes in. He is desperately and pathetically trying to come up with a new narrative that equates hetero-masculine privilege with leadership because the old unsaid understanding that powerful boys will be philandering boys no longer holds water. Ablow is trying to tell us that unethical non-monogamy makes Newt deserving of prestige and privilege. I mean, the twist of logic! Because these men have access to so many women, they deserve to be powerful? Isn’t it the other way around? These men have had access to so many women because of their power.

Nice try, but no one is buying it. The days of non-monogamy for powerful men and institutionalized monogamy for the rest of us are over. We have new language about “open relationships” that not only challenges the institutionalization of monogamy, but also the way in which powerful men have rigged the system to their advantage.

Now, if only someone could send a memo to Ablow and Gingrich to let them know.

Sandusky, Penn State Football, and The Black, Male Body

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:10:35 -0600

When I first heard about the Penn State scandal, I was baffled. I wasn’t surprised that Jerry Sandusky, a heterosexual man in a position of power and access to young children abused that power by sexually assaulting the young people in his charge. We’ve seen this before and many times. What really had me scratching my head was that so many adults at Penn State knew about the sexual assaults, and yet no one did anything about it.

At first, when I was trying to come up with an explanation in my own mind, I went to Michael Messner’s work on gender and sport. In his book, Taking the Field, Messner discusses how particular aspects of sports culture can partially explain why elite athletes in the Big Three sports--football, baseball, and basketball (and in some regions, hockey)--are more likely than other men to engage in violence including sexual assault and get away with it.

Two parts of sports culture that Messner talks about came to mind when I thought about the silence around Sandusky’s abhorrent and criminal behavior.
First, Messner talks about how members of a community and/or school often give a pass to elite athletes for behaviors for which others would be punished so the worshipped team isn’t compromised. Everything from “Oh, he’s such a great athlete and a nice boy; he could never do such a thing”, to “He’s a target of a smear campaign” become part of the community effort to keep the elite (and thus valued) athlete on the team and playing. There is no doubt that everyone at Penn State who knew and did nothing were motivated to keep the team in tact and ensure success, as well as maintain the reputation of the football program and the university more generally.

Another and connected aspect of sports culture that Messner talks about is what he calls a “code of silence” between teammates. The code says, “What happens between teammates stays between teammates.” This code makes it very difficult for others to come forward and report violent behavior. Though Messner is talking about athletes and not coaches, I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe that part of the explanation for others’ silence was that Sandusky (a coach and former athlete) was given a pass and others decided to stay silent to protect “the team” and the institution. In fact, this is what most people are talking about to explain what happened.

But the more details I read, the more I believe that the “pass” and “code of silence” took on a whole other dimension because Sandusky was sexually assaulting African American boys. Others have talked about the assaults and the cover-up as racist and another example of white, upper class men in positions of power exercising race and class privilege and protecting each other. I agree with this take on it, but I want to unpack this a little further within the context of sport.

I’m not entirely sure, but I wonder, if Sandusky was raping young white girls, and especially if he was raping young white boys, the sport code of silence and desire to protect the team might not have superseded a desire and duty to protect “innocent” and “vulnerable” children. Of course, the Catholic Church is an example of insiders setting up institutionalized protections for abusers of young, white boys and sometimes, white girls. If Sport is anything like the Catholic Church in terms of institutionalized protections for abuse and the desire to protect the institution at all costs, I’m very concerned about Sandusky and his protectors being just the tip of the iceberg. However, assuming for the moment that hiding the sexual assault of children of all races is not systemic to sport, perhaps the cover up might have had something to do with Sandusky’s victims being African American boys.

When you think in your mind’s eye of someone in need of protection from sexual assault, whom do you think of? Who do you picture when you think of someone in need of any kind of protection? My guess is that you probably didn’t think of African American boys and men, especially if you’re white.

Centuries of racism and white supremacy, decades of media representations, and everyday myths of “thugs”, “gang bangers” and The Black Rapist have constructed the black male body as synonymous with violent predator, not vulnerable victim. This collective construction leaves African American boys and men completely outside white America’s definition of those in need of and deserving of protection.

Because the black male body is synonymous with “assailant” and “predator” rather than “innocent” and “vulnerable”, perhaps it was all to easy for all of the adults around Sandusky to put the team and the university first.

If this is the case (and I think it just might be), then this is a pretty clear example of how masculinity can be a liability to some boys and men. Early in the second wave of the women’s movement, a lot of white, educated feminists talked about how men as a group benefit from and are systematically advantaged by their gender and that women are disadvantaged or oppressed because of their gender. Being male, it was assumed, is always an advantage; being female is always a disadvantage.

When we take a good look at white constructions of the black, male body and African American masculinity, I don’t think it’s that simple. It is masculinity—being aggressive, capable of using violence, lacking empathy, etc.--that is central to the social construction of African American boys and men as violent predators. It is African American boys’ and men’s masculinity that is constructed as a problem and used to legitimate all sorts of racist social policy and institutionalized forms of social control. And I believe that it was, in part, this social construction that allowed several white men in power to turn away—invoke the sport code of silence to protect the team— and ignore the sexual assault of African American boys because they couldn’t see those boys as in need of and deserving of their protection.

Many are talking about how the race, position of power, and gender of Sandusky and those who covered it up had something (if not everything) to do with how this all went down. But no one can tell me that the race, lack of resources, and gender of those boys didn’t create a perfect social storm that left them vulnerable and unprotected and kept Penn State Football in its place as a respectable if not lauded religion in the eyes of the masses.

Strap-On Wielding Gender Studies Professors

Tue, 8 Nov 2011 23:14:00 -0600

One of my partners has recently started to “come out” to some of his close friends about our relationship. It’s a long story about why now, but chalk it up to a recent divorce, a general preference for privacy, and a large dose of “What the fuck are we doing?” The concept of polyamory is new to him and he had to really try it on before sashaying down the street saying ‘look at the new me!’

That, in and of itself, warrants a separate blog--if not a whole chapter in the book I’m writing about polyamory—but that’s not my focus here. My focus for this blog is what one of his friends said…

When he told one close friend that I was a Gender Studies Professor, the friend said, “Careful. She’ll be coming after you with a strap-on!”

Is your mouth hanging open? Are your eyes blinking? Cause, honey, when he told me this, my mouth dropped open in astonishment.

Why, you ask?

Let me see if I can lay it out for you…

Way back in the day, when I was a baby feminist, I took Women’s Studies classes. We read and talked about all the ways in which men as a group are the oppressors and how women as a group are the oppressed. Men have all the power and they use it to subjugate women, especially when it comes to sex. At the time, it resonated and lit a fire in me, and that fire made me want to devour feminist theory. This was when feminists were stereotyped as humorless, man-hating lesbians with a bitter chip on their shoulders. I never took a class from a humorless, man-hating lesbian with a chip on her shoulder (they all had fantastic senses of humor), but that’s the way people imagined my professors when I told them I was pursuing a minor in Women’s Studies.

Almost three decades since I took my first Women’s Studies class, I am a Gender Studies Professor to be feared, not because I’m a man-hating lesbian, but because I will “come after” a man with a strap-on. [Just to make clear what might be unclear to the uninitiated, he meant I’d want to put on a harness and dildo and anally penetrate my lover]

What shocked me was that, precisely what I was teaching in my classes had trickled into an average Joe’s perception of “Gender Studies Professor”.

I, and my students know that feminist theory has changed. Just today, I taught my “Gender and Feminist Theory” class and the topic was queering gender and sexuality. We talked about Catherine Waldby’s idea that eroticizing a penetrable hetero-masculine body has feminist potential. Part of the discussion was whether or not heterosexual women introducing a strap-on to their boyfriends was a feminist intervention in the gender dynamics of sexuality. I’ve been teaching and writing about this for a while now, but I had no idea that these ideas had become “mainstream”. I had no idea that the feminist to be feared by the average Joe had transformed from the “man-hating lesbian” into the “strap-on wielding dominatrix”.

I don’t know about you, but to me this signifies a dramatic shift in how people are thinking about gender, sexuality, and feminists. The “man-hating lesbian” is someone who separates herself from men to find her power. The “strap-on wielding dominatrix” is someone who negotiates power relations with men and finds herself on “top”, as it were. It’s no longer men dominating women; it’s about women deploying their sexual subjectivity to re-arrange the gender dynamics of fucking.

In the end, it’s the same story—be afraid of women who subscribe to feminism. And I’m not saying that homophobia and especially lesbian phobia isn’t still alive and well in the hetero-masculine imagination. What I’m saying is that the stereotype of the feminist has changed. The story that says, “be afraid of the feminist” has taken on a new guise. Rather than being the “man-hating lesbian” the new Big Bad V. Wolfe of feminism is the sexual assailant wielding her phallus to dominate you! In other words, power is no longer in the hands of men—even in the minds of straight men. Instead, power is something that is negotiated between and among women and men. The man-hating lesbian is outside of hetero-sexuality and can, in the collective imagination (imaginary) of hetero-masculinity, be dismissed. The strap-on wielding dominatrix is right there in bed with you, and she is going to fuck [with] you. Not only is this a different way to think about feminists and women’s sexual subjectivity; it is a different way to think about hetero-masculine sexuality. It is vulnerable. It is potentially penetrable. There is the possibility in the hetero-masculine imaginary that boys can be fucked and that the Gender Studies Professor is going to fuck you (up).

I’m not going to go so far as to say this is “progress” (though I think it is), but it is change. I think it signifies the success of third wave feminist efforts to insert women’s sexual subjectivity in the way we think about sex, and it signifies the appeal, and dare I say, mainstreaming of queer sexuality as a feminist strategy.

To my students, those of us who subscribe to feminism and build feminist theory, and to my partners, let me say, we’ve come a long way, babies.

Wiener Privilege

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:28:38 -0500

Anthony Wiener, like most powerful men these days who are caught with their pants down, says he will seek psychological treatment. Some have tossed around the terms “sexual addiction”, “exhibitionist” or “sexual predator” to describe why he engaged in electronic sexual relationships with women he had never met. All of these terms suggest, as has been the case every time another rich, white guy in power gets caught engaging in infidelities, the individual has some psychological problem in need of remedy. Whenever I hear this, I think about the old rape myth that says men who sexually assault women are aberrational psychopaths. Really, how could a “normal” man do such a thing? Well, the second wave of the women’s movement and decades of empirical research show us that, the problem is not the disturbed psyche of a few individual men; men who sexually assault women, it turns out, are just about the most normal guys on the cell block (when they get caught).

Feminist theory and social scientific research show that the problem is not psychological disturbance; it’s a culture that sets up gender relations so men feel that sexuality is a source of masculine power and so men feel they are entitled to women’s attention and women’s bodies. The myth that rapists are psychologically damaged makes it seem like those individual men are in need of remedy and prevents us from focusing a critical eye on normal operating procedure and how it produces patterns of behavior. Rape is a predictable outcome of certain forms of male dominant gender relations. I want to suggest that Anthony Wiener and all the other fine white fellows who we take so much pleasure in dragging out into the public square to punish them for their worrisome (and brazen!) sexual predilections reveal a pattern of behavior that is entirely predictable given two very central features of contemporary American culture: Hetero-masculine sexual privilege and compulsory monogamy.

The problem is not their psyche; it’s their social position as upper class, powerful, white, heterosexual men. I’ve written about hetero-masculine privilege before, so I won’t go into too much detail here. Suffice it to say that mainstream culture tells heterosexual men that the world is their oyster: Your desire, it says to straight men, is what is most important and deserving of satisfaction. Just to make the point clearer, there are very few heterosexual or queer women or queer men who walk around the world assuming they can visually or otherwise consume the object of their desire with impunity. And those who do, they’ve set up counter-cultural spaces or have made a conscious decision to buck the system because the “system” is set up to serve heterosexual men.

Now, all men who desire women and heterosexual sex with women are told this message, but not all men think they deserve whatever it is that their little, um, heart desires, even when it comes to sex. After all, ours is a culture that insists on monogamy especially in the context of marriage. Here we have to pay attention to other kinds of privilege, like race and class. Anthony Wiener, Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Vitter, Elliot Spitzer,and so on are white, power-wielding, upper class men and this particular social location or habitus, if you will, comes with a feeling of, “The rules don’t apply to me.” If anyone thinks that Anthony Wiener is the exception for men in his social location, I have some nice swampland I’d like to talk with you about.

So, what’s the problem here? Social structure. Gender. Race and class privilege. Compulsory Monogamy. What is our conversation about in the public square? Pervert, sex addict, predator. String ‘em up! Force them out of positions of power (as if the guy who isn’t engaging in this behavior isn’t the aberration—Ah, Mr. Obama)

I think it’s time we stop wringing our hands over privileged men doing what they and we have all set up the world to allow them to do—and this is true not just for sex, but for the environment, corporate greed, etc. The privileged classes have always done what they want and what serves their interests. Things change only, and I mean only when those who are getting fucked (literally and figuratively) start questioning social arrangements and insist on change—real change in social relations, not change through the psychological adjustment of the individuals who take advantage of the system and happen to get caught.

What these “scandals” tell me is that 1) We need to have a very serious conversation in the public sphere about heterosexual men’s sexual privilege and sense of entitlement and how race and class privilege magnify this sense of entitlement. How many feminist academics that spend their lives thinking about sexuality were interviewed in the mainstream media about these scandals? (Mr. Colbert, I’m free next week!) Instead, psychologists and political pundits talk about treatment and resignation. Keep your eyes on the pervert, folks! Don’t pay any attention to the social structure behind the curtain. 2) Let’s talk about compulsory monogamy. I agree with Dan Savage. I wish that just once, one of these guys or, even better, their wives would come on CNN and say, “We are not monogamous. He has done nothing wrong in my eyes. I had lunch with his lover yesterday, and we had quite a chuckle about his inability to be on time (wink wink). Dear reporter, have you questioned your own assumptions about and fears around sexuality, ethics, and integrity? Because honey, he has, and doesn’t that make him even more qualified to lead?”

Instead, every time a scandal like this breaks, another “psychologically disturbed pervert” gets dragged into the square for public humiliation. I can’t help but take it both personally and politically. It gives us perverts a bad name while masking the privilege of these guys who are not so much perverts, as just your typical rich, white, power-wielding heterosexual men.

Where is the Local Poly Bar?

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:17:42 -0600

I, and my primie (primary partner) had a date with a couple (that’s two people in a committed relationship with each other) we recently started seeing. The plan was for all of us to meet at a French Quarter bar called Good Friends. Good Friends is known as a gay bar, and one of the reasons we wanted to meet there was because we felt it might be a little more comfortable expressing how excited we were to be together again. You know, where no one would get beaten for a little same-gender play while sharing a drink together in public.

Parking is nearly impossible in the French Quarter, and by the time I had found a spot and walked the couple of blocks to the bar, my go-cup was empty and my bladder was full. So when I entered the bar, I greeted my dates with hugs and comfortable kisses and quickly excused myself to go to the restroom.

There was a woman waiting by the door to the “women’s” restroom (I knew it was the women’s room because it was the door with the human form wearing skirt), so I smiled and stepped up behind her. It was a good five minutes and still, we stood there waiting. When I asked her if she knocked, she said that the door was locked so she assumed someone was in there. I jiggled the handle. Sure enough, it was locked. When I knocked and heard nothing, I leaned down a bit to see if I could see movement in the crack under the door and saw the light was off. Apparently, someone had accidentally locked the door upon exiting, or so I assumed.

I casually walked up to the mostly empty bar to ask if someone had a key. One bartender, a guy in his early to mid-twenties, was washing glasses in the sink. He glanced up and kept on washing. Waiting with as much patience as I could, I danced the got-to-pee jig a kindergartener would if waiting for the potty, and tried to catch his eye again. He looked again and then away. Another bartender delivered a cocktail to the man seated to my left, and when I realized he was going to turn his back to me too, I said, “Excuse me, do you have a key to the restroom?” He turned and glared at me like I had just insulted his mother or fashion sense. I smiled and said, “Someone locked the door to the women’s restroom. Do you have a key?” He said, “Yeah, I locked it and I have the key. Usually you have to buy a drink first.”

This pissed me off. While I waited by the women’s restroom, there was a steady stream of men going in and out of the men’s room. Only the women, apparently, had to buy a drink to use the john. Keeping my cool, I said, “I’m with my friends on the other side of the bar. My drink is already ordered.” It felt humiliating to have to justify my use of the restroom. It’s no where near the same thing, but I thought about transgender people like J. Halberstam and their writings about the humiliation that comes with having to hold it or harassed when dealing with elimination.

At this point, he leaned below the bar and pulled out a toilet seat. A real-life, battered and obviously used toilet seat with a chain and one small key dangling. When he handed it to me, I said, “I just need to change my tampon, for Chrissakes!” Okay, that was a little jab to punctuate gender difference and embarrass the little shit, but it was also very true. As I turned away, he said, in what can only be described as a truly--and I hate this word--bitchy tone, “Good luck with that mess!”

After that humiliating slap across the face, I turned and held up my middle finger to him as I walked through the full length of the bar holding a dirty toilet seat.

Before I write anything more, let me state two related and important caveats. First, I am the Director of Gender and Sexuality Studies at at a university. My work, in terms of research and on campus, revolves around fighting heterosexism. That bartender treated me like a second-class citizen without knowing anything about who I am or my relationship to other patrons in the bar or the very existence of the bar as a gay bar. Not so important, but perhaps a bit ironic.

The second, related and decidedly more important caveat I need to make before stating my main point is that, because of the work that I do, I fully understand the desire of gay and lesbian people to create public space where there is relief and safety from straight people. In my research on gay, lesbian, and straight bars, I learned that bar staff are sometimes told to make it unpleasant for straight girls in gay bars and straight boys in lesbian bars by taking a good long time to serve them. I don’t have a problem with this. I do, however, have a huge problem with a bar locking the women’s restroom so all women, regardless of sexuality or relationship to the men in the bar are humiliated through their use of bathroom facilities. It’s bad enough to have to stand in a line that goes out the door at the Superdome or a concert and watch the men snicker and comment to each other about how nice it is to be a man. But in a gay bar? Really? Straight-up humiliation for being a woman? Come on! And that boy behind the bar, saying loud enough so all could hear something about the “mess” of menstruation was over the top. Straight-up sexism—differential and hostile treatment in public accommodations on the basis of gender group membership.

Having said that, the main point I want to make here is that I, and my lovers don’t have a public place to go where we can feel welcome and safe. Poly relationships are simply not on the radar, so when the four of us walk in and sit at a bar, any bar—lesbian, gay, straight--everybody sees two straight couples. And I’m not saying roll out the red carpet for us at the lesbian and gay bars. We’re not lesbians or gay men. But cut us some slack. We’re not straight either, and like lots of others seated at the bar, we were seeking some semblance of safety for our polyqueer relationship in this monogamous, dyadic, but also heterosexist world.

I, for one, am not going to patronize Good Friends ever again. But I will probably find myself in another gay bar in the not-too-distant future. Where else can we go to have a drink in public and not get called “faggots” or “dykes”? And if you’re thinking to yourself, “Stay home and have a drink,” isn’t that exactly what straight people say to all queers? Do what you want, but do it in the privacy of your own home. We don’t want to see it!

The solution, of course, is a local poly or non-mon (as in non-monogamous) bar where the culture of the bar is understood as one that is welcoming and safe for people in or seeking polyamorous or otherwise non-monogamous relationships, for people who want to meet other poly or non-monogamous people, where people can hook up with like-minded/orientated others, and where tri-curious or poly-curious individuals or couples could take a walk on the wild side without fear of violence or hostility. The sort of place where I could go alone and no one would assume I’m single, where I and my primie could go to meet other people, and where I could meet my lovers for a drink and we can all greet each other with sweet, warm kisses. It would also be a place where sexism, heterosexism, and racism are not accepted and where those among us who feel the need to be sexist, racist, heterosexist OR bang the hetero-monogamy drum would walk on by and leave us alone. The bathrooms, by the way, would not be gender-specific and have very large stalls! Of all places in the world, it seems New Orleans would be the perfect place to have the first poly or non-mon bar.

So, who is in? Do I have any investors?