Again and again

[rinue]

Ciro worked on a film a few weeks ago, and one of the dancers in the film subsequently asked a mutual friend (my friend foremost, but also Ciro's friend and the dancer's friend) whether Ciro might have any unsatisfactions in his marriage she could exploit because she'd like to hook up with him. This dancer was told by our friend this was not acceptable and the friend went on to warn Ciro (who then warned me) that these schemings were going on.

The situation is resolved, but what bothers me about it is that it's not unique. This is at least the fourth time this has happened (although I'm counting times we were engaged and not married) - the fourth time I know about. One of them I was present for. This is what happens: we are out with a friend or friends and meet another friend of theirs. (This is the first time I have not also met the pursuer.) Brief pleasantries are exchanged. Immediately afterward or the following day, the new acquaintance makes clear to our friend that he or she wants to get with Ciro. When told no, they pout about it and act like someone's unjustly punished them. (This includes the time I was present when they talked about how much they wanted to fuck him, and who cares about his wife, who they didn't realize was standing right there. When told "that's her there," they were not embarrassed or apologetic; on the contrary, they were extremely resentful I'd unfairly gotten in their way.) These are not people Ciro has flirted with or complained to; they're virtual strangers.

I understand that desire for someone isn't affected by whether they're married, and is sometimes heightened by it. And I obviously understand desiring Ciro; that is a position on which I hold strong and substantiated views. What I don't understand is whatever societal shift has made this style of approach not transgressive, not illicit or dangerous (whether legally or to your social standing). It is one thing to say (discreetly and with an awareness of possible consequences) to a married person, "hey, if you're interested. . .", with a hope they'll be open to the idea but an assumption that you'll have to fade away quickly if not. It's another thing to say to a friend "I am going to try to get your other friend's husband to commit adultery; since he hasn't shown an interest, can you help me out?" I am troubled by the shift from "I want this person, so maybe I could ask if they want me too, even though" (which is brazen but not quite villainous) to "my immediate sexual gratification is more important than your friendship with either of these people or the integrity of their lives, and I would like to be publicly cheered on for my moxy as I pursue this target."

Again, I understand the rush of "I was able to take what I wanted no matter what," but society condemns that impulse in realms that go beyond the sexual, and for good reason; it's essential to civilization that people mitigate short-term impulses that are destructive in the long term. (Stable family groups are more necessary to species survival than one-night stands; we've all pretty much agreed to that, whining to the contrary*, as it allows us to do things like put spouses through college, raise children, combine finances, use fewer household resources because we don't need duplicates, etc.. It is not an exaggeration to say that marriage in some form is the essential basis of civilizations - one of the reasons the lack of support for gay marriage rankles. This is not to disparage single people so much as to say that a society of all single people is unstable.)

What the hell happened to American society? And how can you possibly get across to someone how inappropriate this stuff is if they don't know already? It's like having to teach "punching random passerby is wrong and not funny" - it's something one-year-olds know instinctively and I'm not sure how I would make common ground with someone who lacked that instinct. It's frightening. Perhaps it's another emergent property of the "relative truth" meme, the damage that just keeps giving.**

* mostly from evolutionary psychologists of dubious scholarship (a condition endemic to the profession)
** It's always fun to blame things on TV as well, people not distinguishing between reality and fiction -- in which case thank God they're not running Macbeth all the time, or Oedipus.

Comments

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Sheesh. You need more friends who have friends who weren't reared in dog pounds or wherever these people are coming from. That's not acceptable behavior anywhere.

If the behavior has no obvious ill consequences (X hits on A in front of A's spouse B, yet all their mutual friends continue to hang out with X, invite them to parties, and pass them professional contacts and leads for work, etc.), then there's no reason for them to discontinue the behavior. One of the marks of the hardened jerk is that they really don't believe anyone means no or could limit what the jerk can get from them. So all those no-consequence bad behaviors can continue because once in a while the jerk will get lucky and get a desired outcome.

[rinue.livejournal.com]

I agree. There is no reason for people not to continue to be jerks, because there's no cost and there's sometimes a benefit.

I saw this illustrated recently at a concert a friend of mine was giving; some five year old kept running up on stage and snatching his microphone (which was on the ground because he was playing a long instrument (not a digeridoo, but something I don't know the name for) to sing; alternately, the kid would start loosening bolts on heavy and expensive speakers. And the kid's parents were like "how adorable" and the people who ran the venue got him to stop stealing the mic by giving him another mic and asking him to perform over my friend's music. And afterward asked the audience to applaud for him. Big surprise - he goes after my friend's equipment again. It is like we are working extra hard to raise assholes. And of course if my friend had yelled at the kid or stopped performing, he would have been the jerk who ruined everybody's fun and relaxed mood.

I quite honestly don't know how to deal with it; it feels as though there's no safe space anymore, and that even people who have been vetted are not trustworthy, because there's more impetus to act selfishly than socially. I have observed before that I think shame is important, and cultural shaming is important if correctly directed. The problem is that the only people who seem to be policing behavior seem to hold vastly different morals than I do and are also anti-feminist and anti-homosexual and anti-government but pro-authoritarian. I would like to be part of the rational center, but I can't find it. I'm genuinely at loose ends.

[oddment.livejournal.com]

I started out queer and very happy there are public libraries etc. while simultaneously caring a great deal about ethics (even when it demanded acting selflessly) and that sense of safe space at least in my little selective groups; there is no practical support for behaving that way, even in circles where people have these discussions and agree that morals and trust are important. To be ethical and to believe that there's some value in acting socially has tremendous costs, and it only functions if everyone else is equally invested in protecting you and what you value in turn; I think that it is selected against.

[rinue.livejournal.com]

I think that's a very good point. I wonder if there are ways one could socially engineer things to shift the balance. Not even necessarily practical things for our society - I'm just wondering how one would make acting socially have more value and/or fewer costs. (Obviously, or perhaps not obviously, I am a huge advocate of progressive taxation and am a socialist, but these do not eliminate antisocial behavior and rewards thereof.) In a sense, it seems like exile or enforceable threat of exile might be part of it, but is still insufficient. It's pretty clear that learning about civics and thinking about what constitutes good behavior is important and does change behavior, and also that pro-social behavior is easier in more homogenous populations - but only so long as they are not self-selecting, as self-selecting homogenous populations tend to push themselves to become more extreme.

[oddment.livejournal.com]

Hell, I'd settle for consistency and just...maybe more acceptability for actually saying things like "You don't do things like that; why would you even expect casual acceptance of that kind of behaviour?" or "The last time a child messed with my speakers and didn't stop when I asked nicely, the dreaded stage badgers got him" than for "oh it is adorable" or "you probably have understandable reasons. We are still on for dinner of course." I don't think exile would even be necessary if people regularly expected horrible behaviour to meet with more consequences than objecting to that behaviour; every social agreement I've ever found myself harmed by would have had no chance of harming me if there had been a social expectation that hurting me was equally bad to my hurting someone else.

The most costly mindset is knowing that they are expected to behave socially and ethically, and not being quite able to shake it, but knowing also that there is no reward or support or even a safety-net for it--the only thing that can be reformed, at that point, is one's tendency to be ethical (or suckered by nice ideas about the social good, or love, or promises, or really any of the things that make for a functioning society). I am very, very cynical about the role of civics education or really any broad social engineering--these things are already in place, at least in my culture, and have less bearing on social functioning than whether or not individuals step up to their own ideals when the momentary cost is theirs. This frustrates me almost to tears, so I think it may not be a topic I can discuss very effectively.

[rinue.livejournal.com]

I mainly agree with you, although what I meant about civics education - you can prime people to behave as better people. By constantly reminding people of what it means to be good, and to think about kindness, you don't erase selfishness, but you rebalance the costs - you normalize being good, effectively. This is one of the reasons a lot of civilizations throughout history have met weekly at a church or its analogue, although obviously that can also get perverted into just another power structure that normalizes abuse. Right now, we don't have anything serving that function, and our media is all "realistic" by showing almost entirely selfish and antisocial characters, and often defining heroism as victimhood, where the good person says "hey don't do that" and immediately gets beat up. We also give our villains more depth than the good guys. So we have culturally skewed all of our incentives by presenting selfishness as realistic and assumed - and if everyone does it, why bother to care about it? Of course sports heroes use steroids and cheat on their wives and/or beat their girlfriends and/or rape young girls.

So I think some measure of cultural engineering is necessary; right now we're actively reinforcing the wrong things and not the right things and pretending like it doesn't have consequences. It's very self-fulfilling.

[treehavn.livejournal.com]

Smooth. I never quite got the idea of making someone desire you, as in 'I'm going to make that man/woman/donkey mine'. It just seems like an awful lot of work. Like polygamy, in which I guarantee I would not be the one enjoying a mutually beneficial relationship of partners, but the one trying to scrub baked-on lasagna off the dish while the others are off having fun.

Back to the actual point: attraction is surely mutual, and not a devious game where you try and trick/persuade someone into accidentally falling with their penis into your vagina (or whathaveyou)? Or is this one of those moments when I realise that I am deeply conservative-with-a-small-c? And those people sound like dicks.

[rinue.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way about polygamy, although I suppose it would be okay if it was specifically a group marriage with you because if you would make lasagna I would be more than willing to wash the dishes afterward, because good god I love lasagna. Something I have realized about myself is that the best way to get me to be friends with you is to provide me with food regularly. It seems to be one of the few ways in which I am shallow.

As to the people who sound like dicks, however much I might seem sympathetic when I try to imagine their decision process, I would like to stone them to death. And I step back several levels in how much I trust the judgement of my friends who think they're okay.

I have never followed the pursuer/pursued thing either, although I've known people who were into both chasing and being chased. Even when both parties are complicit, it strikes me as infantile.

[valancy.livejournal.com]

I've said it already, but for the record: shameful.