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A Precarious Balance
Last night was a coolish night to be having dinner outside, but inside the restaurant a saxophone player was busy deafening a handful of people at tables stuffed into a shoebox space, so we headed outdoors. It was a birthday dinner for a dear friend whom I thought hadn’t arrived yet, but reading the lips of the Maitre D, I found her outside on the patio.
Outside was better, but loud music was coming from the restaurant next to ours with many young people holding their drinks waiting to get in. As the busser was filling our water glasses, lighting the heater, and assuring us that our waiter was on his way, I noticed three young females dressed in extremely skimpy clothes move their hips around to the music, laughing, and hanging on each other with much animation. If you only read their implicit language, this was seduction.
In less than a minute, two young men seem to materialize out of nowhere and started to move up and down to the rhythm established by the females. I thought, 'I wonder if I am watching the roll out of a ‘hook-up’ ritual.' Hook-ups have been described as sexual interactions between two partners without the expectation of a romantic commitment (Fielder & Carey, 2010).
No surprise, hookups are associated with alcohol and marijuana use (Fielder, Walsh, Carey, & Carey, 2013), but I was delighted to learn that hookups are not as popular as sex within a relationship (Fielder, Carey, & Carey, 2013). Contrary to what you might expect in young people, a large population study of 9,504 (4,291 men) surveyed from 2000 to 2018, found that sexual inactivity increased for men ages 18 to 24 and for both genders between the ages of 25 to 34 (Ueda, Mercer, Ghaznavi, & Herbenick, 2020).
Something is changing!
On the micro level of individual young adult experiences however, the story is way more poignant. Like a young fraternity male being shamed and taunted by male peers for not having “done it.” Or young females feeling like sexual compliance is the only way to be accepted…and popular. One young freshman college female who politely said "no" to a male freshman who asked her to dance witnessed an incredible series of events that included the male circling the room with eyes on her, hooking his finger in her belt loop, begging, “Just one dance,” trying to convince her girlfriend to "talk to her,", and sending his friend over to ask, “‘Why won’t you just give him one dance?” Seriously this is harassment, but what stood out was how one "No" triggered desperation in this young male who broke down crying in the corner of the room.
The logical question would be “Why?”
This older pattern “portray[ing] men as the opportunistic sexual agents…pursuing, pushing, and pressuring for ever-higher levels of sexual intimacy” with “women highly motivated to [push for and] secure romantic commitment” (O’Sullivan, Psychology Today, January 28, 2022) seems to be breaking down as many men don’t want the responsibility of always being the initiator and sometimes men also want to say, “No” (Emmers-Sommer, 2016). O’Sullivan (2022) points out however that a review of 70 popular television programs still reflects this older sexual theme. O'Sullivan also states that this “always be willing to have sex” dynamic is not limited to heterosexual couples but is also present in many gay and bisexual relationships.
From what I see and experience from working with young men and women is they have a deep desire for a healthy relationship with someone who loves and appreciates them, has similar values and interests, is loyal and not ambivalent about this, and wants to make a future together. In other words, someone they can love and trust, explore, and grow in both the inner an outer worlds; someone who can help them feel known. This requires a lot of integration. It requires processing traumas, speaking the truth, and changing behavior. It requires consciousness of our true Self, and the desire to live a genuine life. It requires incredible courage.
We're aging anyway, so why not go for it!
Since the above male/female patterns are heavily involved in what has been thought as evolution’s only pattern for survival, I can’t help but think that Robert Wright’s thinking that evolution is moving toward non-zero-sum interactions [that is, everyone wins by working together] is exactly right. “I’m not talking about something that [is] literally inevitable…I am talking about something whose chances of transpiring were very high—something that was “in the cards” in the sense that the [evolutionary] deck was stacked heavily in its favor” (Wright, 2000, p. 7).
I personally don't worry that we'll lose the root differences in males and females if we integrate our psychology with our biology because evolutionary processes respond to our selections. In other words, what attracts us on any kind of grand scale will be preserved.
If this is the case, male and female development and dynamics will also change. Cultural norms will be evaluated without throwing out their beauties. The male role has had the weight of armor for centures; perhaps men are tired of fighting and wouldn't mind having a home. The female role has raised children for all of time and will continue to bear children, but this has been an incomplete and very small box for many too. And women may want to finally feel safe enough to show the world their wisdom and unfurl the wings they were born with. All of us wouldn't mind being cared for, attuned to, and live our lives without fear. Feeling joy wouldn't hurt!
There seems to me to be a momentous movement toward freeing the capital Self to walk naturally on the earth, and this movement is occuring in both genders.
So for the young female freshman who simply said, "No, I don't want to dance," you were true to yourself, and this is so incredibly necessary for you and others to see. And to the young man who took one look at this beauty and said, "Mine," the game has changed. Male entitlement no longer works for you or anyone else. Women see through it, are stronger now, and it's a turn off. There isn't a person on the planet who hasn't been shamed and/or carries the shame from ancestors so free youself from this outdated model, grow, learn, and develop.
The future selection criteria are likely to be a physically and emotionally fit male who is comfortable with his female side, who raises, cares for, and plays with his own children and mate, who doesn’t collapse in the face of shame, who can stand up to (not with) male aggression, who can genuinely celebrate the accomplishments of his mate, who can speak his truth and see and feel he is genuinely listened to and loved. The future selection criteria for a female are likely to be a physically and emotionally fit woman who is smart, competent, playful, firm, and gentle with children, friends, and mates, who can speak her truth and show her wisdom and see and feel she is genuinely listened to and loved, who can pursue her adult interests with support, and who can stand up to shame and micro aggressions of others by calmly saying, “No I don’t want to dance.”
Now there is seriously nothing sexier than this!
We, and all of our Children need this.
Photo is used with permission from my staffer Maria Ortega who saw this art piece through a window in Venice.
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