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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32154 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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Would you say the same thing for women and romantic fiction? Could we motivate women to breed more by banning or at least discouraging the consumption of romantic novels, films, and TV programmes?

I suppose that you could argue that romantic fiction is at least giving you a guide of how to have an intimate relationship, but I'm not convinced that's true. I suspect that reading Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina, ceteris paribus, gives you a bad idea of how to have a good relationship, and the same is presumably true of a lot of trashier romantic fiction (which I haven't read). In fact, there were attempts to censor Madame Bovary exactly on these grounds: not just that it portrayed adultery and moral dissolution (in more senses than one) but that it failed to offer an alternative. Anna Karenina does offer an alternative, albeit one that I at least don't find attractive.

Would you say the same thing for women and romantic fiction?

Hm...unsure. Not really my vice. Maybe.

Though one potentially relevant difference here is that women tend to be the more selective sex and men are expected to pursue. The demotivated man harms his goals immeasurably by not pursuing, but that situation is not necessarily symmetrical for both sexes.

I suppose you could be constantly approached and just have such a distorted view of romance that you don't ever succeed. Basically this premise

that situation is not necessarily symmetrical for both sexes.

Not necessarily, but women still have standards, and these are affected by their expectations just as much as men's.

Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina are very odd choices to condemn as "romantic novels." They're both very explicitly about dysfunctional relationships, bad choices, and the misery this causes. They're certainly not aspirational - I doubt any woman reads them and wants to be Emma Bovary or Anna Karenina.

My point is that not all romantic novels could be defended as examples of how to romantically relate to others. I'm not claiming that they are representative of all romantic fiction.

For example, Pride and Prejudice does feature some misbehaviour, but it also features some useful positive lessons about relationships.

(Note: I am not conflating the literary merit of books with their didactic merit. I would rank all three book as approximately equally brilliant from a literary perspective.)

Yup, when people talk about this, I always want to be fair to both sexes.

Yes, for a man, going out to a bar, hitting on a bunch of women, and possibly after spending way too much money, going home to somebody you're moderately attracted too, only for her to either not talk to you again and/or become super clingy seems worse than playing AAAA video games for a few hours, then watching HQ porn w/ amateurs that look better than any woman you could ever have to get off.

OTOH, for a woman, getting hit on by weirdos, unattractive guys, and aggressive assholes, all to lead to a situation where you maybe go to bed to a guy who lasts for a little time in bed and/or tries to push you to do things you're uncomfortable with/dangerous, and then you have to worry about a stalker or worse seems worse than watching a Hallmark Holiday Movie marathon, then reading Amazon Kindle erotic fiction you get via Kindle Unlimited to get off via your vibrator.

The interesting thing is that both pornographic and romantic fiction fantasies seem to have large quantities of what I shall vaguely describe as "unhealthy" connections: adultery/cheating, coercion, jealousy etc.

My suspicion would be that it is desire for excitement + lack of hope. Not all exciting situations are unhealthy, but the exciting situations that are possible when people have a lack of hope in pleasant eroticism are unhealthy. It's probably unfair to compare Madame Bovary with the Song of Songs, but they represent two very different images of the possibilities of sexual experience. And I grant that what is regarded as "unhealthy" is culturally specific, e.g. Odysseus's infidelity in The Odyssey does not seem to have been regarded by its creators as a problem (morally, as opposed to prudentially - he's still missing out on the deepest satisfaction, which would be with Penelope) whereas Penelope's fidelity is clearly supposed to be admirable and her reunification with Odysseus is an example of healthy erotic fulfillment for her.

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