Well, I guess I should have seen this coming:
My own suggestion of an answer to this conundrum is a combination of two things: the resilient human ability (which knows no gender) to abuse power; and the role that testosterone plays in making sex an area in which men abuse that power far more frequently than women. I’m sure that if you’ve endured a lifetime of male depredations (as many women have) it’s utterly understandable why you might see this as entirely about misogyny — and in many cases, you’d be at least partly right. But it’s also, it seems to me, about what testosterone does to men’s minds and bodies, whether there are women around or not.
I’ve been fascinated by this question for quite a while now — my interest was sparked by my own medical use of testosterone as part of my HIV regimen, and I explored the issue at length here. To experience a sudden surge in testosterone — and to see oneself almost structurally altered by it — is to wake up to forces that are so much part of the background we can forget they’re there at all. Men have ten times as much testosterone as women, and testosterone is deeply connected with aggression, power, ambition, drive, pride, stubbornness, strength, and violence. In every species, testosterone makes one gender the more risk-taking, the more physically powerful, and the more assertive, and this includes the small number of species in which testosterone is predominant among females. It is also worth reflecting (for a few seconds, at least) on the simple physical fact that human reproduction requires the male to penetrate a female repeatedly in order to orgasm. This cannot happen in reverse. In the act itself, if it is to achieve its most obvious purpose, sex and power are inherently fused.
And so it is no big surprise that gay male sexuality, for example, has more in common with straight male sexuality than most of us want to acknowledge — because we’re afflicted and blessed with the same psyche-forming hormone. Many gay men, especially younger ones, want to get laid any time all the time, and will drop anything at any moment to get it. Gay men also objectify other men in exactly the same way straight men objectify women (“locker room talk” is by no means an exclusively straight phenomenon, except with gays, it’s other men whose body parts get scrutinized). If you want to know what handsy can really mean, check out the middle of the dance floor. And yes, the gay male sex drive leads us into blind alleys, and horrible blunders (as well as some of the greatest loves humans can ever know). We can often see sex as an act rather than as a relationship. We can be blind to the feelings of others. There’s a ruthlessness to the hierarchy of beauty and youth in many parts of gay culture that would be instantly recognizable to any woman. On the apps, where most gay sexual socializing now takes place, we broadcast desire with all the subtlety of a Breitbart op-ed.
The absence of women, moreover, removes most obstacles to getting laid any time you really want to. So gay men are particularly vulnerable to drowning, or at least getting swept up, in the undertow of testosterone. Gay men, like straight men, risk jobs, relationships, marriages, you name it … for a quick and ready lay. And when we’re really horny, most of our brains disappear out the window in an obsessive pursuit of the nut, seconds after which we come to, shake our heads, and wonder “How on Earth did I end up here?” This has never been better expressed than in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 129, and I don’t usually get a chance to air the Bard, so check out this small slice of genius:
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
“All this the world well knows.” Except today’s debate about men and women seems to have missed it.
I’m not praising or lamenting this. I’m just recognizing it. It excuses nothing with respect to abuse, assault, harassment, and so on. There’s a bright line here and I see little moral difference between Spacey’s foulness and Weinstein’s. But testosterone helps explain why male power primarily gravitates toward sex, why sexual abuse occurs much more often among men, and why separating sex and power from male sexuality is to miss something important. It is always about both. If we are to have a conversation about men and women, work and play, power and love, then ignoring nature — pretending that this is all about social power dynamics or even hatred — is a very misleading thing.
We have to stop seeing sexual harassment and sexual assault as some sort of flattery of women gone awry. In truth, sexual assault has nothing to do with sex, or sexuality, or flirting, or courtship, or love. Rather, sexual assault is a kind of hate. The men who gratify themselves by abusing women aren’t getting off on those women, but on power. These men don’t sexually assault women because they like women but because they despise them as subordinate creatures.Here’s a question. If sexual harassment, abuse, and assault are entirely about misogyny, sexism, and hate, how do you explain the cases of Kevin Spacey and Bryan Singer and James Levine? Their patterns seem very similar to many of the other heterosexual cases — and worse than many. And yet there are no women involved whatsoever. What gives?
My own suggestion of an answer to this conundrum is a combination of two things: the resilient human ability (which knows no gender) to abuse power; and the role that testosterone plays in making sex an area in which men abuse that power far more frequently than women. I’m sure that if you’ve endured a lifetime of male depredations (as many women have) it’s utterly understandable why you might see this as entirely about misogyny — and in many cases, you’d be at least partly right. But it’s also, it seems to me, about what testosterone does to men’s minds and bodies, whether there are women around or not.
I’ve been fascinated by this question for quite a while now — my interest was sparked by my own medical use of testosterone as part of my HIV regimen, and I explored the issue at length here. To experience a sudden surge in testosterone — and to see oneself almost structurally altered by it — is to wake up to forces that are so much part of the background we can forget they’re there at all. Men have ten times as much testosterone as women, and testosterone is deeply connected with aggression, power, ambition, drive, pride, stubbornness, strength, and violence. In every species, testosterone makes one gender the more risk-taking, the more physically powerful, and the more assertive, and this includes the small number of species in which testosterone is predominant among females. It is also worth reflecting (for a few seconds, at least) on the simple physical fact that human reproduction requires the male to penetrate a female repeatedly in order to orgasm. This cannot happen in reverse. In the act itself, if it is to achieve its most obvious purpose, sex and power are inherently fused.And so it is no big surprise that gay male sexuality, for example, has more in common with straight male sexuality than most of us want to acknowledge — because we’re afflicted and blessed with the same psyche-forming hormone. Many gay men, especially younger ones, want to get laid any time all the time, and will drop anything at any moment to get it. Gay men also objectify other men in exactly the same way straight men objectify women (“locker room talk” is by no means an exclusively straight phenomenon, except with gays, it’s other men whose body parts get scrutinized). If you want to know what handsy can really mean, check out the middle of the dance floor. And yes, the gay male sex drive leads us into blind alleys, and horrible blunders (as well as some of the greatest loves humans can ever know). We can often see sex as an act rather than as a relationship. We can be blind to the feelings of others. There’s a ruthlessness to the hierarchy of beauty and youth in many parts of gay culture that would be instantly recognizable to any woman. On the apps, where most gay sexual socializing now takes place, we broadcast desire with all the subtlety of a Breitbart op-ed.
The absence of women, moreover, removes most obstacles to getting laid any time you really want to. So gay men are particularly vulnerable to drowning, or at least getting swept up, in the undertow of testosterone. Gay men, like straight men, risk jobs, relationships, marriages, you name it … for a quick and ready lay. And when we’re really horny, most of our brains disappear out the window in an obsessive pursuit of the nut, seconds after which we come to, shake our heads, and wonder “How on Earth did I end up here?” This has never been better expressed than in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 129, and I don’t usually get a chance to air the Bard, so check out this small slice of genius:
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
“All this the world well knows.” Except today’s debate about men and women seems to have missed it.
I’m not praising or lamenting this. I’m just recognizing it. It excuses nothing with respect to abuse, assault, harassment, and so on. There’s a bright line here and I see little moral difference between Spacey’s foulness and Weinstein’s. But testosterone helps explain why male power primarily gravitates toward sex, why sexual abuse occurs much more often among men, and why separating sex and power from male sexuality is to miss something important. It is always about both. If we are to have a conversation about men and women, work and play, power and love, then ignoring nature — pretending that this is all about social power dynamics or even hatred — is a very misleading thing.
by Andrew Sullivan, NY Magazine | Read more:
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