No, because the problem of establishing relationships is the same among gay people as it is among straight people. Gay men may have a more casual attitude toward sex (being men) but in the search for more complex relationships, we, like straights, entertain delusions. — Bitter Crank

This is the first time you have actually provided a decent parallel vis-a-vis the narrative rather than attempting to explain the commercial relevance and indeed, what do you mean being men and exercising casual sex? Are you suggesting gender differences?

Are you suggesting gender differences? — TimeLine

I not suggesting gender differences, I'm declaring gender differences.

Declaring? So women are more deluded in their approach to casual sex?

what do you mean being men — TimeLine

In your extensive self-lauded experiences, professional and otherwise, you might have perhaps, possibly, noticed that men and women are different. When gay men have sex, their biologically inherited small male investment in reproduction, enables them to have casual sex without the expectation of further involvement. Gay Liberationists thought that was a good thing -- casual (and quite possibly splendid) sex enjoyed with no expectation of further involvement, unless desired. Women's liberation flirted with this idea too, but it didn't work well in straight situations. Women's biological inherited large female investment in reproduction inclines them toward bonding and on-going partnered cooperation.

These inherited tendencies are, of course, not absolute.

Straight men who desire an on-going relationship with a woman and perhaps with their children, adapt an approach like unto that of women: Sex is combined with an assessment of on-going sex supply, potential for amusement, child-bearing, and child rearing.

Gay men assess on-going sex supply and potential for amusement, in either order. Faster, cheaper, simpler, better.

So women are more deluded in their approach to casual sex? — TimeLine

Replace the question mark with a period and you have the facts.

Women are deluded about all sorts of things. For example, women are deluded about what men think they owe women. (Hint: Not-too-much to as-little-as-possible.)

In your extensive self-lauded experiences, professional and otherwise, you might have perhaps, possibly, noticed that men and women are different. — Bitter Crank

I have noticed a reciprocal dynamic, men and women explaining what they want, producing vulnerabilities. Did you ever stop and think that perhaps women's approach to casual sex is a product of what men want? Like how our protagonist soothed the ego of vulnerable, disgusting Robert when she pretended that she was nervous?

I am about to get picked up by a friend to go on a hike, but I have much more to say on this subject.

Do you think, Bitette, that you probably lack an understanding of what the story means given you've enjoyed penis for supper for these long years? — TimeLine

"Bitette", and earlier: "Butter Crack"! Who's the "cat person", now? Do you really think the human dynamics are so different in gay male relations? How would you even know if they were? At least @BC is in a position to recognize things in the story (if he indeed does so) from his own experience.

No. It was intended to provoke what is now an interesting discussion; and I am sure Bitterlips can defend himself.

So, you don't really believe that Bitter Crank "probably lacks an understanding of what the story means", then? You were just being provocative?

Have I suggested anywhere that BC is incapable of defending himself or even that he was being effectively attacked?

The specifics were the questions I asked that you didn't answer (such as regarding what symbolism you were referring to). Anyway, the editing that I do is mostly of academic English and is as irrelevant as BC's sexuality. You don't need to keep looking for personal reasons outside the text for why people disagree with you on the text. Matters like these often come down to taste, but sometimes there can be a bit of movement after an analysis and that's the only way to come to any agreement, so you just distract from the conversation by making it about me or BC. (And recently I've been spending most of my time doing photography not editing anyway. So, there's another off-topic sentence you made me do.)

The specifics were the questions I asked that you didn't answer (such as regarding what symbolism you were referring to). — Baden

You were asking me to reiterate what I already said to undermine what I said. I assumed you understood my meaning, but this is perhaps a good start

You don't need to keep looking for personal reasons outside the text for why people disagree with you on the text. — Baden

You are not disagreeing with me on the text. You are disagreeing about the form. Two very different things.

(And recently I've been spending most of my time doing photography not editing anyway. So, there's another off-topic sentence you made me do.) — Baden

Tell me how I can make you actually perform a decent response and I will be glad to oblige.

.

So, you don't really believe that Bitter Crank "probably lacks an understanding of what the story means", then? You were just being provocative? — Janus

Apologies, I may have misunderstood you as this is actually a good question. No. I don't and his comments on women clarified it for me. I will be responding to him now to explain my opinion on the subject.

Women are deluded about all sorts of things. For example, women are deluded about what men think they owe women. (Hint: Not-too-much to as-little-as-possible.) — Bitter Crank

This is really an unwarranted generalisation used rationally to distribute gender bias and clearly lacks any solid understanding of women. I am unsure of where your suggestions that we actually do think you owe us have come from, perhaps you would care to elucidate?

When gay men have sex, their biologically inherited small male investment in reproduction, enables them to have casual sex without the expectation of further involvement. Gay Liberationists thought that was a good thing -- casual (and quite possibly splendid) sex enjoyed with no expectation of further involvement, unless desired. — Bitter Crank

My closest friend is a giant Samoan gay man and he refuses to have casual sex. I have met his family and can understand why; they all accept him for being gay, love him and treat him with respect and they are all heavily involved in their Polynesian culture. If most of what we are is conditioned behaviour, given that gay men have long experienced oppression, ridicule and a number of other risks, they have been alienated from this conditioning. There are no rules. You are again generalising as though it were biological, but it is social psychology.

Women experience conditioning that attempts to articulate a responsibility to be sexually attractive and this includes popularity, innocence, and purity. It is everywhere, in everything that we do. This very conditioning about women is additionally and delusionally understood by men. Women who undertake casual sex works in contrast to these socially entrenched notions of the feminine, which is why Robert asked our protagonist whether she has had sex previously. The harmful representations of what a female is supposed to be like and how they should behave forms that dichotomy between the inner, authentic individuality and this conditioning.

Straight men who desire an on-going relationship with a woman and perhaps with their children, adapt an approach like unto that of women: Sex is combined with an assessment of on-going sex supply, potential for amusement, child-bearing, and child rearing.

Gay men assess on-going sex supply and potential for amusement, in either order. Faster, cheaper, simpler, better. — Bitter Crank

Love stands outside of this because it is one person' genuine self loving someone for who they are and they want to be with them only because they want to be near them. If men and women choose to play house with one another, it does not validate authenticity in such behaviour. Your almost clinical approach is still devoid of more depth to identity formation vis-a-vis authenticity.

This is a debate over the merits of a short story. Not all that important. If you feel undermined because someone has a different opinion on it, that's a failure of perspective on your part. And responding by suggesing the reasons other posters disagree with you is due to some personal deficiency on their part effectively ends the conversation as a productive exchange of ideas.

This is off topic, but this is the way I think we are: Layered.

READ FROM THE BOTTOM UP

[5] Adults are biologically complete, have more

and less mastered the parts of culture most relevant to them, and gradually integrate unique self and specific culture as they age--a never-ending process.
[4] Infants are born into the foundational levels of animal existence and swiftly progress both in individual learning from their unique standpoint and in their appropriation of the culture surrounding them.
[3] Our species creates, transmits, elaborates, and learns culture. This layer builds on the previous two layers, and is as dynamic and complex as the biological layers.
[2] On top of the foundational layer of biology are the characteristics of the species: still biological but bearing features unique to that species.
[1] The foundation layer is biology; the untaught, persistent, insistent drives that keep individual animals and species in business.


Your "giant Samoan gay man" closest friend can choose or not choose to have casual sex, as he pleases. This is a choice individuals can make. I have gay and straight friends who also chose not to have casual sex. Quite possibly, they couldn't find the opportunity, were too risk averse, accepted a cultural rule that says 1 sex partner per lifetime, or some other such sick, perverted thing.

When gay men (who are created by and raised in a heterosexual milieu) step into the envelope of gay culture, a different set of values, behaviors, expectations, and so forth comes into effect. Because it is not mediated by broad, long-standing cultural norms gay cruising tends to serve the fulfillment of basic urges. (But it isn't entirely chaotic. Norms are established.)

To the degree that families do not prepare men and women to competently seek partners in the required, approved manner, straight people also find themselves in an envelope where official guidelines do not apply. A straight bar full of young men and women on the loose is a much more chaotic envelope of social interaction than a Baptist church social or a cocktail party for the Sydney or Adelaide Bar Association.

The characters in Cat Person were both operating within an envelope where vague rules are mixed in with vague romantic notions common in our culture. When things don't work out well, (as they often do not) individuals tend to interpret the poor outcomes in terms imported from the main culture.

So, two people fumbling in the dark (literally and figuratively) who fail to have a good time may seize upon interpretations from the culture at large which aren't suitable within the envelope. The author, in this case, applied exterior standards, the way many people do, and arrived at a yet more unsatisfactory resolution.

@Baden So I read the Oates at work, which was a bad idea, because I got a kind of minor Stendhal Syndrome thing from the end. Less pretentiously: got a little light-headed, sweaty, had to take a quick break. It was beautiful but....that's a deeply weird story, man. It felt a lot like almost remembering something I'd almost forgotten. I do agree with both @Moliere & @StreetlightX that its a different sort of thing than Cat Person, more 'magical' (in a demonic way), so I have trouble comparing the two. I mean I'd say, no question, that it's very clearly a better story, aesthetically. But then also - tho i guess this is a beaten horse now - the appeal of Cat Person, to me, is its social significance (how it makes use of contemporary conversation etc, how it is itself inserted in that conversation and what that means, what it means the new yorker published this etc etc.)

The oates story kinda reminds me, thematically, of Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, but in a very different setting and register.

I.
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.


II.
What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who might find him posted there,
And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh
Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,


III.
If at his counsel I should turn aside
Into that ominous tract which, all agree,
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly
I did turn as he pointed: neither pride
Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,
So much as gladness that some end might be.

y/n?

(One big difference would be that Childe Roland acquiesces, then, only at the end, has the earth-shattering experience. The order's reversed in the Oates.)

And responding by suggesing the reasons other posters disagree with you is due to some personal deficiency on their part effectively ends the conversation as a productive exchange of ideas. — Baden

Indeed, but it is the other way around. I disagreed with your argument and spoke of a deficiency in your opinions and you responded in kind defensively by undermining my argument, but hey, this is not the first time you have done this. Oops, did I say you. My bad.

The characters in Cat Person were both operating within an envelope where vague rules are mixed in with vague romantic notions common in our culture. When things don't work out well, (as they often do not) individuals tend to interpret the poor outcomes in terms imported from the main culture. — Bitter Crank

That was my take. I said earlier: The problem is people usually want significant others. This is where humans are utterly hopeless with poorly designed social systems to solve the problem of finding, signaling interest, and maintaining a relationship with significant other to have sex and other experiences with. With no set rules, the system gets bogged down with meta-analysis and confusion. Then you people simply falling back into tropes as the prisoner's dilemma sets in. Anyways, as we both agree this creates much unhappiness. Writers use this unhappiness and confusion to write mediocre short stories and soap operas. They seem to be the only ones benefiting.

When gay men (who are created by and raised in a heterosexual milieu) step into the envelope of gay culture, a different set of values, behaviors, expectations, and so forth comes into effect. Because it is not mediated by broad, long-standing cultural norms gay cruising tends to serve the fulfillment of basic urges. (But it isn't entirely chaotic. Norms are established.) — Bitter Crank

Norms are starting to be created because the gay community are slowly becoming socially accepted, but nevertheless the intended idea here is the suggestion that these norms can penetrate the psyche in such a way that the conditioning prompts behavioural responses that stand outside of our own motivations. The dynamic between the two characters epitomises these reactions and the acquisition of these learned manners leads to these superficial motivations.

Bandura explained these stages of cognitive development (coming of age) where these layers of cognition - consciousness, unconscious, imagination - plays with our responses based on these socially learned expectations, and so our motivations are filtered and controlled by probable reactions and rewards that we will receive from others. It prompts me to remember how a grown man in his late twenties felt like he needed to lie and responded defensively because he learnt that if he did something wrong, punishment soon would follow and despite his age, his motivations remained child-like. Heidegger concludes at this point that conditioning is causally rooted to such fear, like when our protagonist continued to have sex despite realising she actually did not want to.

This is what Schops and Kant and many others discussed as transcending or rising above these socially conditioned behaviours to find that personal voice and our protagonist was oscillating between the interactions of the two with the stimuli being the sexual experience or dynamic..Authenticity is perhaps to a degree a type of cognitive training or applied approach where we prompt ourselves with reminders during those moments of acute awareness that we matter. There is that 'I' in there and how this forms for me is still somewhat obscure. This is the part of the story that I found interesting.

The characters in Cat Person were both operating within an envelope where vague rules are mixed in with vague romantic notions common in our culture. When things don't work out well, (as they often do not) individuals tend to interpret the poor outcomes in terms imported from the main culture. — Bitter Crank

This is exactly what I meant when I said that she imagined him to be something he was not, despite clear examples of their sexual incompatibility and yet she felt obliged - as though society conditions women to respond submissively - and in some ways aroused herself in order to proceed with what was inevitably going to be a bad experience and she knew it. We are prompted to fear punishment or ridicule that makes us submit and I highly recommend watching an episode of Black Mirror Nosedive that explains these social pressures, which I found to be a better comparative then most of the stories placed in here.

Being fed ideas of white picket fence, happy home where people create the lifestyle they are fed to believe will bring them happiness (reinforced by the positive social outcomes that come from performing this adequately) and in my opinion, it is not a gender issue. Men and Women are pressured in the same way that ultimately shapes these superficial behaviours and leaves people alienated from themselves.

So, two people fumbling in the dark (literally and figuratively) who fail to have a good time may seize upon interpretations from the culture at large which aren't suitable within the envelope. The author, in this case, applied exterior standards, the way many people do, and arrived at a yet more unsatisfactory resolution. — Bitter Crank

I am interested in how you concluded this because I cannot see how the author did apply exterior standards, unless I am misreading you. Can you explain further?

I also recommend the short story “Some Other, Better Otto” by Deborah Eisenberg.

I'm interested in your take on this as well:

The problem is people usually want significant others. This is where humans are utterly hopeless with poorly designed social systems to solve the problem of finding, signaling interest, and maintaining a relationship with significant other to have sex and other experiences with. With no set rules, the system gets bogged down with meta-analysis and confusion. Then you people simply falling back into tropes as the prisoner's dilemma sets in. Anyways, as we both agree this creates much unhappiness. Writers use this unhappiness and confusion to write mediocre short stories and soap operas. They seem to be the only ones benefiting.

I’m not familiar with what you’ve said on the given - it may have been in a thread i missed. I feel like i might have a sense what youre talking about, but if you’re down, I’d be curious to hear you unpack it.

In my thread about work, I emphasized that the individual with his individual personality (created through a combination of experiential and biological interactions) , must confront the givens of the physical and social world. Here is what I said:

My point was about acquiescing freedom of thought to the demands of the given. Here we are with a personality (granted it is created from group interaction, but exists as a phenomenon nonetheless), and this personality has preferences, beliefs, values, and ideas that must aquiesce to the given. — schopenhauer1

And this:

I see the fact that individual needs/wants/goals, though being wrapped up in the social world, are also thwarted by the givens of the social world. There is always a negotiation. I say that to make people negotiate is a reality once born. To have new people that need to constantly negotiate through the world of the give, is questionable. What is it about seeing new people navigate the social/physical world that is valuable to you that this needs to be procreated to a next generation? — schopenhauer1

In the case of this thread, the main theme here centers around the dating world. The individual personality has to confront the givens of the the dating world. This confrontation of the individual with the given, just like in the working world, can lead to all sorts of unhappiness and frustrations. In this case, the norms are actually a poorly designed to solve the problem of finding, signaling interest, and maintaining a relationship with significant other to have sex and other experiences with. With no set rules, the system gets bogged down with meta-analysis and confusion.

With something so pervasive in the human psyche as looking for a significant other, you would think we would have better signaling systems but we don't. Instead we have tropes, expectations, and other poorly defined guidelines that lead to unhappiness.

In a way, the givens of the dating world have problems that are inverse to the givens of work. In the modern world, the working world usually has very rigid, defined, and strict guidelines that must be dealt with and creates unhappiness. The dating world lacks of almost any guidelines, but also crates unhappiness as a result.

ah, thank you, that makes a lot of sense.

Everything you say about the 'given' that characterizes the dating world sounds right.

I want to say that I think there is hope for the two characters, but that that hope is contingent on... a lot of things. So, like: Margot clearly gets the rules, and gets how they work. I think you were right to say that she is a character who is probably capable of attracting more socially savvy suitors. I think Robert is probably capable of a relationship too, but is too enamored of cute movie stand girls (yes they flirt and all that, but didn't you know, deep down, Robert, that this, like, 10-year younger girl, probably wasn't going to be a long-term thing?)

Both of them are chasing their own personal somethings, and both of their chases are probably overall unhealthy or unsatisfying, but they aligned just enough for one bad i've-always-wanted-to-fuck-a-girl-with-nice-tits/he's-so-attracted-to-my-perfect-skin date.

I feel like they just both need a date where they feel comfortable to express their mutual anxiety, and that would probably mean a different partner (for both of them.) A different type of guideline-ness.

But then also , if open-endedness is too much, then - and I don't mean this flippantly - there's also a robust guideline-centric community when it comes to casual sex - the sadomasochism community. S&M gets a lot of caricatur-y bad press (and I'll admit that I have trouble seeing it as a final resting point, relationship-wise) but it seems like a potentially healthy way to unambiguously structure the otherwise-confusing power dynamics of sex and romance.

:cool:

I've only read Creation, I'll admit. I'll give Julian a look.

He was a very clever, perceptive man who wrote very well, and did his research (at least for his historical fiction) but could be fiercely malicious in argument and criticism. That evokes a certain admiration in a lawyer (this one, at least). In fact, judging from his writings he knew lawyers quite well. — Cic

I'm no lawyer but I admire that stuff too. I objected (overruled! I object nonetheless!) to sneaking in one of his bon mots, context-free, as a pat dismissal. Savage Joyce Carol all day, I'd say, but savage her yourself! Imagine you were having a scotch in a lawyer-frequented bar, between [whatever lawyers do], regaling your fellow laywers with tales of how Heidegger pooped on the original copy of Sound of Music to Wagner, and Joyce Carol walks up, and says [joyce-talk] and then you say...

OR, alternatively, reread the story Baden posted like this: The girl, connie, represents the german people, and the bad guy, arnold friend, represents Heidegger - now you got something.

if open-endedness is too much, then - and I don't mean this flippantly - there's also a robust guideline-centric community when it comes to casual sex - the sadomasochism community. S&M gets a lot of caricatur-y bad press (and I'll admit that I have trouble seeing it as a final resting point, relationship-wise) but it seems like a potentially healthy way to unambiguously structure the otherwise-confusing power dynamics of sex and romance. — csalisbury

This sounds reasonable in theory. Any reasonably intelligent, slightly psychopathic person could learn how to inflict the requisite blows (and they are real blows) and humiliations as the "master" in the S&M scene. Maybe one could accept being tied up and beaten, whipped, etc. as a "slave" but one would have to be extra-extraordinarily tolerant of abuse.

S&M are a pair of "paraphilias" that happen to be complementary. One either is born with or learns very very early whatever it is that leads to sexual satisfaction being connected to something non-genital (like people who have a sexual fixation on shoes). For the most part, paraphilias are not a social problem because participants are self-selecting. (This does not apply to paedophilia.) S&M isn't a problem, but unless one is endowed with that paraphilia, 99.99% of the population are not going to enjoy being whipped--literally, and most people will not like doing the whipping either.

S&M is a specialty, except that one is more born with it than gets a degree in it.

Otherwise, it's a great idea. There are lots of rules and regs, there are organizations one can join, various web sites that sell S&M supplies (whips, chains, slings, hoods, paddles, tit clamps, ball stretchers, etc.), and arrange hookups. Just be sure you are totally turned on by this scene before you show up for a beating meeting.

@TimeLine How would you feel about this story if the genders were reversed?

Like:

Robert was a confident college-anchored guy, hot, working a part-time job somewhere, bored, flirting with customers to keep him busy. Girl comes up to the counter, a little overweight, but seems cool, and he jokes a bit. She leaves, nothing happens. But then a bit later she comes back, 'give me your number concession-stand guy!'.

They go on a date, (she shows up in some kind of clothing he can tell she's maybe a bit poorer than him, a stain on her jeans too. Clear she isn't a student, clear she's maybe a little desperate). The date is uncomfortable , she seems anxious, making probing jokes about class stuff to see how he responds. He feels uncomfortable, but occasionally he feels some kind of connection, drinks a bit to try to quiet his misgivings - then suggests they go back, to her place. During the drive, he worries, occasionally. She seems cool, had funny texts, but what if she's some kind of Fatal Attraction type? Is she gonna get obsessed? What if it doesn't work? Will she show up at his work? Holy shit, he doesn't know anything about her...

They sleep together. (He fantasizes about how she's a bit dumpy and is bowled over by a young well-muscled guy fucking her, how she can't think about anything else except how much she loves his body. Hot young college stud fucks....[etc]) After, she puts on some music, something hip she'd think he'd like, and he's like *rolls eyes* ("for some reason she played the smiths") ok I gotta gtfo. She says wait, why? He says 'they'll wonder where I am at the dorms.'

Drives back. Feels Guilty. She keeps texting him [smiley face with hearts for eyes etc.] He's like 'what the fuck, I don't want to deal with this. I feel guilty.. but. I got nothing to say" Finally his roomate texts back 'he's not interested, ok." She, hurt, texts back something reasonable.

One painful lonely night she goes to a bar he might be at - maybe she'll see him, maybe there was something there. She gets a few drinks and ends up slumped by herself (maybe about to call Uber).

Then!

he shows up with some friends. They sit at a booth on the opposite side. She can see them all talking and looking over. Maybe at one point he points, and they all laugh. Eventually they get up, laughing, all hammily 'concealing' him from her view and leave.

She texts him....


miss you
[etc]
(and finally)
do you do this with all the girls?
Why did you laugh when I asked whether you'd ever brought a girl over to your place?
What did I do wrong?
do you just fuck anyone?
Do you care at all, or do you just fuck anyone?
huh?
fuckboy
piece of shit


Is she a sociopath? Or is there some important difference between this ^ and the original story?

Well done