Fakery

The new issue of Bitch magazine came in yesterday and I've read it cover to cover already. It's like crack to nerds like me who love cultural criticism. Sometimes I swear I would rather read criticisms of a movie sometimes than watch it. But let's just keep that a little secret....between me and the entire internet.

As usual, the magazine made me feel irrelevant, which lasts right until I finish it and then think damn, if I want more bitching I will have to write it myself. This issue was about fakery of all sorts, a fascinating subject that I think about a lot myself; it's the side benefit of thinking about language and symbolism all the time. Because the first use of language is to communicate and the second is to deceive. That's true of any system of symbols--witness the swagger and bravado of the Shrub last night that's only purpose is to conceal the weak toady who panders to the rich that he really is.

It is also something on my mind after reading how this debate on "real" manhood veered off into how much we can even prove about what makes men and women different and what we even mean by difference. Besides the obvious, of course. It's not good enough to point out the obvious--that we have different hormones and sexual organs, mostly because those differences don't do much to justify the rampant sexism in our society. These discussions tend to devolve quickly because for obvious reasons no one has any clue what personality traits are inherent to men or women, though some weak stabs are made at trying to prove that testosterone makes men more aggressive and hornier.

But again, even this supposedly simple thesis is difficult to prove--what does it mean to be more aggressive and hornier? Sure, men commit more acts of outward violence against each other and against women. But is that evidence that they are born that way or is that only evidence that our culture encourages men to channel their aggression in one way and women in another? In the latter case, it's fairly easy to point to a myriad of ways that our society gets women and girls to channel their aggression in seemingly non-aggressive ways. And it's the same with horniness--need I start listing the ways that female sexual desire is diverted or squelched, from prom night to female genital mutilation?

In order for there to be properly dramatic sex differences, a good amount of fakery must be employed. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with drama--as I've said before, I am not opposed to girling it up a bit for fun or sex or whatever. Problems start arising when we mix up the fakery with reality or insist that people keep up appearances even if under problematic circumstances.

I see this issue arising in the way that the "real men" discussion at Alas turned--towards evolutionary psychology. One of the sacred cows of the male-dominated "science" of evolutionary psychology is that men are naturally promiscious and women are naturally monogamous, or at least not very promiscious. A theory so incredibly self-serving as this deserves a second helping of skepticism, but naturally those of us who are skeptical are condemned as flat-earthers who don't understand science.

Well, at the risk of sounding like a moron, I have to venture that I am suspicious of any psychology that purports to explain instinctual behavior outside of cultural training. Hell, I'm suspicious of pretty much any study's ability to conclusively get at the truth of what people even do or think, especially in a loaded area like sex. Why? Because the only way to find out what people do or think without following them every minute of every day is to ask them. And once people are in charge of telling you what they do and think, then fakery becomes a factor.

People lie, misrepresent, dodge, exagerrate, etc. when it comes to constructing an image of themselves to present to others, and one of the guiding factors in how they will construct that image is gender expectations. Just as women will exagerrate how nice they are to fit in with the cultural belief that "women are nice", we can expect that they will downplay their interest in sex to fit the image that "women don't like sex that much". Unless you can find a way to get people who have never, ever been exposed to these cultural messages in a laboratory or you can find a way to produce genuine honesty, odds are you measuring more what people think they should say about themselves than what they really think.