Two nights ago I went to see Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. It's a typical tweeny fantasy movie about demon-hunters filled with attractive young actors in leather jackets and a rather unremarkable plotline, and yet I walked away feeling like it was part of an important cultural movement that I've started to see come to light in recent years.
You'll have to bear with me on this one. I'll get to that part in a bit.
Well then, say no more!
In the meantime, have you noticed that female fantasy archetypes that appeal to the sexual desires of men are everywhere? Of course you have. There isn't a female superhero in sight who's not in a second-skin catsuit with ample cleavage abounding; nor a beer commercial without a smoldering; seemingly sexually available cocktail waitress; nor a sports game without a bevy of buxom blondes to cheer on the action. And don't forget the creation of the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl, who's popped up in a number of social critique essays this summer. Most notably, Laurie Penny wrote about the MPDG in the New Statesman, stating that for a long time she chose to embody her persona because it was the obvious one that culture presented for her type: "Manic Pixies, like other female archetypes, crop up in real life partly because fiction creates real life, particularly for those of us who grow up immersed in it. Women behave in ways that they find sanctioned in stories written by men who know better, and men and women seek out friends and partners who remind them of a girl they met in a book one day when they were young and longing."
As a seductress, I willingly play in the realm of fantasy all the time because I enjoy it, and so I don't feel the same exasperation as Penny does for the persistence of the hollow shells of tropes within our culture. Rather, I try them on like dresses, see which ones fit, decide which feel the most like me (meaning they best convey my values, interests and the stories I find compelling), and then I fill in the blanks with my own interiority as a human being where the archetypes may have a lack. This is a deeply authentic way to live, in my opinion. By drawing from culture to create a distinctive archetype for yourself (a "personal brand," as I explain in my book), you are creating an arresting visual shorthand for your passions and for the things that inspire you. You are letting the world know, in a cheeky, artistic fashion, what you love and what you stand for. Why do I always wear a red glass heart around my neck? Think about it.
What instead upsets me is that there has been thus far within our culture a lack of male fantasy archetypes that cater to the sexual desires of women.
In fact our culture often shamefully still has a pretty hard time imagining that women are even all that into sex. With Daniel Bergner's recent book What Do Women Want that literally came out just months ago, we learned that women are equally as turned on by visual pornography as men, that monogamy is no more suited to them than it is to the menfolk, and that female primates, unburdened by the human more of slut-shaming that came to us as a gift of the agricultural revolution, are just as likely if not more than their male counterparts to initiate sex. And I'm like... ummm, we're just figuring that out now? Wait you guys, women actually enjoy sex for reasons other than procreation? STAHP. Even Bergner himself, in a recent TED talk, says, "Why has this taken so long?"
I also blame The Rules, and not just because of my recent beef with them. By perpetuating a culture that advises women to play hard-to-get and play down their sexual desire for fear of coming off as slutty, desperate, and unwantable, The Rules and other books like it have shrouded women's sexual desire in shame and fear and caused many women to be fearful of expressing their desire authentically.
This was even more obvious to me earlier today when I happened upon an article in Psychology Today that posited that many men who find it important to be respectful to women find it very difficult to know when it's appropriate to express their desire in that raw, animalistic way that we always hear that women fantasize about. They want to make women happy and satisfy them sexually, but they're not sure when their advances are going to be welcomed, even by their own partners, and given the choice between frightening or annoying women with their aggression and possibly boring women with their inaction or politeness, they tend to err on the side of caution by choosing the latter -- and that to wait or ask for permission seems to defeat the purpose and ruin the fantasy. ("I simply won't take no for an answer, I must have you right here and now! ...Oh wait you actually mean no for realsies? Oh. So sorry. Please don't press charges.")
I was drawn to the article partly because I have known men like that, who in their quest to treat women respectfully (oh the feminist allies!) feel shame and trepidation surrounding their sexuality, and particularly their very masculine fantasies and desires, in a way that seems shrouded in a cloud of guilt left over from that "all penetration is rape"-era misandrist branch of feminism. If men have a hard time believing in the reality of women's sexual desire, then of course they're going to feel guilt about the things they fantasize about doing with them. And that's what struck me most within the article: the (male) author's statement that as far as his and his guy friends' experiences go, they and the rest of their fellow men don't even know what it's like to be sexually desired by a woman. "But men do not have the same need to be desired," he writes; "most of us, I would venture, have never had the experience of being desired, much less 'overwhelmingly' so. Men may feel loved and appreciated but not desired—they may feel needed but not wanted. And even when a woman does express desire for a man, he is often conditioned to question it or deny it, simply because he’s not accustomed to it." Ughh, what passive pillow princesses have these guys been dating??
This is also echoed sadly in the PUA community. So many guys turn to pickup because they unfortunately believe that they somehow have to trick or trap women into sleeping with them, that women's default state is to refuse sex, and that they must learn the magic words to open their hearts and legs. Seduction then becomes a concept not of courageously offering the possibility of mutual pleasure but of pulling the wool over someone's eyes, and that's sad. That women actually enjoy sex of their own accord is sometimes a treacherously mysterious concept to them, and much of that disbelief again stems from the shame that so many women feel in expressing any desire for sex. Girl on the Net recently published a delightful and hilarious essay complaining about how guys -- in particular the nerdy science guys she likes to hang around -- operate under the assumption that "girls don't want to hook up," even when there appears to be abundant evidence to the contrary. Even Darwin bought into it when he wrote that "the female... with the rarest exception, is less eager than the male... [She] requires to be courted; she is coy, and may often be seen endeavoring for a long time to escape the male." We've been romanticizing resistance for centuries.
I've been thinking a lot about the idea of shame and sex and how they feed off each other in that ouroboros kind of way. I wrote a song with my band earlier this year that was about one of my fuckbuddies and how turned on I got by the shame I felt in being so purposefully sexually available to him -- like, it was hot to me that he could text me at 2pm on a Sunday and I'd let him come over and do horribly painful things to me and leave an hour later. As a woman, wasn't I supposed to find this a terrible and pathetic arrangement? Wasn't this just me being desperate, hoping one day that my availability and willingness to please would open his eyes to what an amazing girlfriend I'd be? No! This man would have made a horrible boyfriend! But he did make for a stellar fuckbuddy, and putting myself in the role of his courtesan turned me on, because it was my fantasy. And so, turned on by the taboo of such a flagrantly sexual relationship, I penned my lyrics: Can you see it, how dark depravity becomes divine / Do you feel it, your baseness and his godliness entwined / Well don't you mind / Just say 'this body and this bed, this life is mine' / 'Cause you know that you're gonna go back in, time after time...
So yeah, if I want someone sexually, I will happily objectify him, fantasize about him, masturbate while thinking about him, and shamelessly rip his clothes off him when I get the chance to do so. I don't personally understand this female reticence around sex that these men seem to be citing, but okay, I've witnessed it in other women within enough group sex situations to know that it exists.
Like, do I have to herald this movement myself? Do I have to shamelessly confess my own sexual fantasies just to prove that women have them? Because I am pretty shameless in that regard, but then again, there are some things that deserve to be saved for my partners and not for the random guys who follow me on Twitter. Just take my word for it, for now.
So this is why I got excited leaving the theater after Mortal Instruments: I've started to see a trend within mainstream culture of a very specific fantasy male archetype who is designed purely, so it seems, for women's sexual appetites. Maybe we'll call him the Gothic Pixie Dream Boy.
We've seen him in recent years in Twilight and in Fifty Shades of Grey (although I neither read nor watched either of those; truthfully I was drawn to Mortal Instruments not because of the tweeny fantasy but because of the leather jackets and ass-kicking). His likely pioneer, for my generation anyway, was Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer; before that, possibly Lord Byron -- or, as one of my readers pointed out, Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. He's the brooding, sexy, supernatural figure who appears out of nowhere as a guardian angel-demon to the unsuspecting heroine, and who loves her immediately despite the fact that she has yet to actualize any of her potential and is a pretty average teenager or graduate student thus far. (To Buffy's credit, at least she had earned herself a pretty impressive vampire-slaying reputation by the time Angel appeared in her life, although his fascination, love, and nurturing for her are still pretty fantastical at that point since they hadn't even had much of a real conversation let alone any development of emotional intimacy.) But hey, this is fantasy, and should be judged as such -- the moody Zach Braffs of the world didn't do much to earn the love and salvation of their MPDGs, and nor need their Kristen Stewart counterparts. What's important here is the creation of an archetype within commercially successful mainstream media that specifically caters to the desires of women.
But seriously, when do I get one of these?
And it's indelibly entwined with our newfound research on women's sexuality. People were shocked at the notion of such a scandalous book as Fifty Shades of Grey finding popularity with housewives all across middle America. That Bergner's book What Do Women Want is following so closely on its heels is, I think, no coincidence but emblematic of our culture trying desperately to wrap its mind around women's sexual fantasies, and not a moment too fucking soon if I do say so myself.
The Gothic Pixie Dream Boy is of course by no means the only male fantasy archetype that appeals to women. But I think it's noteworthy that on a commercial level (since that's one of the main metrics we use to judge popularity these days) he's been so successful, and also that he's oftentimes so far removed from the standards that our IRL boys strive for when they attempt to be sexually appealing. Most men who aim for sex appeal think that it's synonymous with buffing up -- but who's getting more play, Christian Grey or The Situation?
I think this is why I have had such a thing for rockstars in the recent past: because they knew how to deliberately appeal to fantasy. They dyed their hair, wore makeup, tore their clothes just right, and spent endless hours learning guitar or bass or drums, and even if they ended up just looking like another copy of Nikki Sixx or Marilyn Manson, at least they put out an energy that was passionate and at times almost otherworldly. When they were up there onstage and I was cheering them on or waiting for them in their dressing room, they were helping me play a role in my own fantasy, whether they were conscious of it or not.
So here's what I think we need to address, one gender at a time:
Women, start communicating your sexual desire to the men you want. No, you don't owe it to any guy to cater to him, but when there's a guy that you do want and he's doing things right, give him some positive reinforcement for fuck's sake. By giving in to the awful slut-shaming sectors of society that tell us to act demure and coy, we are apparently depriving many of the men we want from feeling the pleasure of what it's like to be an object of sexual desire, and we're depriving ourselves of the pleasure we might experience at their hands if they were only confident enough in our desire for them. If we start becoming more outspoken about the way we sexualize men, maybe men will start catering to our fantasies a little more often... since they'll like, maybe figure out what those fantasies actually are and maybe believe in the fact that they exist.
And men, it's time to repay the favor to all those women who have borne the mantle of fantasy for your pleasure. Put aside your shame, your self-consciousness, and your fear of looking stupid, and start to take a very open-minded and non-judgmental look at the fantasy material that women are consuming these days, the same way that so many women have spent the past several decades augmenting their breasts and getting blonde hair extensions quite possibly because of your fascinations with Pamela Anderson and her ilk. We've shouldered the burden of fantasy for a long time, and it's time you share some of the weight.
And if you're so worried that you won't know how to appeal to the fantasies of the woman you desire, do what I advised years ago and fucking pay attention. Another cool article in Time recently stated that as far as indicators of relationship success go, "knowledge of partner" fell in second only to communication, and that that knowledge meant knowing everything from your partner's hopes and dreams to her favorite pizza toppings. Seriously I will marry the next boy who asks me out while wearing a leather jacket and riding a motorbike not because my fantasy is that important to me but because it would demonstrate that he was paying attention to what I said I liked, so much so that he stalked my blog for the information. On a related note, I've decided I will dump any boy who doesn't read my book by the three-month mark, because if I'm dating someone and that person doesn't feel like it's important to read a book I wrote about what I think about dating then that really says something. (Consider yourselves warned.)
To play within the world of fantasy is to make a gesture of generosity to our partners and to ourselves, because to make someone's dreams come true is the stuff of romance at its best. More of us should be better at it, and more of us should be better at receiving it.
It's worth reading Fifty Shades of Grey, because it's not at all what you'd expect based on the hype. There is very little S&M in it. It's not about Christian sexually liberating this innocent, inexperienced girl. It's about Anastasia converting Christian back to the world of vanilla sex and normal relationships.
It's a great example of a fantasy prevalent among many women. There's a male character who is extremely good looking, charismatic, powerful, probably quite rich, and he falls for the girl who -- aside from being a little bit good looking -- is otherwise unremarkable. It's not a new fantasy either, just look at Lizzie Bennet.
The message is that all it takes to get the top 0.001% of men is just being your quirky, sarcastic little self, so don't worry about working at anything. The exact same message as The Secret. It's fantasies being sold to people who want to have their laziness and lack of drive validated.
Posted by: BL1Y | 08/27/2013 at 08:01 AM
Until we get past: the stud vs slut,
women gossiping about other women being sluts as a way of asserting their pecking order,
men getting the hump with a 'goer' (from other men or women) spurning them.
Men expecting a spontaneous sex kitten
Women lying to themseleves about their own sexuality.
We still have a long way to go!
Posted by: Nick | 09/02/2013 at 01:24 PM
Wow, your blog feels as though I've written it. I completely agree with you on everything. I almost started to think I was the only one who had those kind of opinions and attitude. That's why I never really understood women and I don't like to hang out with them because I don't get their way of thinking.
I believe in getting what you want, I love sex as much as men, maybe even more, and I'm not ashamed of it, and it certainly doesn't make me a slut.
You've really given me the inspiration to improve my game. Can't wait to buy (and read) the book.
Posted by: Andrea | 09/12/2013 at 06:36 PM
We are clearly playing for the same team.
This is precisely how my Erotic Rockstar archetype came into being.
Thank you for putting words to it so well...
Posted by: Destin Gerek | 09/19/2013 at 01:14 AM
"They want to make women happy and satisfy them sexually, but they're not sure when their advances are going to be welcomed, even by their own partners, and given the choice between frightening or annoying women with their aggression and possibly boring women with their inaction or politeness, they tend to err on the side of caution by choosing the latter -- and that to wait or ask for permission seems to defeat the purpose and ruin the fantasy."
It's really refreshing to hear a woman address this, speaking as someone who is (unfortunately) terrified of my advances being unwanted, to the point of paralysis. I thought I was alone in this, but hearing you address it as a wider problem makes me feel better. :)
There is a self-esteem issue here as well, though, in that a man who doesn't think he's attractive or interesting will have additional reasons to not flirt with a woman, but the cultural misconception that women don't want sex certainly widens the gulf. There seems to be a lot of shy guys who choose to be boring out of safety, and total asses who don't care to the point of being aggressive and insensitive. The healthy in-between of flirtatious but not aggressive appears rare.
Thanks for writing this post. It's nice to hear a balanced and rational view of these things that is neither selfish nor self-abusing.
Posted by: Mark | 09/21/2013 at 03:11 PM
"I think it's noteworthy that on a commercial level (since that's one of the main metrics we use to judge popularity these days) he's been so successful, and also that he's oftentimes so far removed from the standards that our IRL boys strive for when they attempt to be sexually appealing. Most men who aim for sex appeal think that it's synonymous with buffing up -- but who's getting more play, Christian Grey or The Situation?"
Given your mention of Edward Cullen as an example of such a character, I think it would be important for you to consider that the other main male character in the Twilight series is Jacob who is more in line with what you say about men thinking.
Posted by: commenter238 | 10/12/2013 at 12:35 AM
As a guy my self that lives in his own fantasy I never thought to actually consider what her fantasy might be yet alone try to appeal to it. As imo role play is the best part of any relationship, I guess you could say I have been inspired now to consider her fantasy over my own.
Guess I should put this all to the test then. :)
Posted by: Tim | 11/23/2013 at 12:53 AM
The other night I was out with my man and we were making fun of all the douchebags in button ups trying to impress women. He then told me when he was younger he used to put on makeup to go out and the older women would flock to him, paying no mind to the other guys in suits. It turned me on just thinking about it ;)
Posted by: Marley | 04/02/2014 at 10:59 AM
That boy in the leather jacket was one of the only things I found interesting about that movie. But I did enjoy reading the Twilight series and the movies were cheesy but I enjoyed those too! But I'll read or watch most anything about vampires.
I would suggest reading Twilight (the first book, the rest you could probably skip if you're not into it) because it is such a romance story. And Fifty because it was so widely popular. I think they could inform your writing on subjects like this. Plus they are super easy reads.
Posted by: Jennifer Link | 04/03/2014 at 10:11 AM
Unfortunately, there is a lot of popular media out there that drowns what you are saying. Yes it does need to be heralded by women. Just as women fear they need to be perfect, so do men. How many movies do you see that depict a long term couple's happy sex life? Or depict it between people who aren't perfectly gorgeous or rich?
Furthermore, there are very loud voices out there actively denying what you say, from the radical feminists that overwhelmingly dominate feminist discourse online to conservatives to evangelical Christians, to PUAs shouting the message that women do NOT enjoy sex for its own sake. And a little less loudly, that women do not want companionship or the esteem of others for their own sake. Magical thinking and ideology dominate the conversation.
Posted by: Rob | 08/24/2014 at 12:13 AM
I enjoyed your post and found it refreshing. I too saw the movie you referenced (Mortal Instruments: City of Bones) and saw the demon-hunter-angel-protector character as a blatant and not-too-deep fantasy caricature of what (I presume) is a typical teenage girl's fantasy boyfriend. Your description of this fantasy caricature of the Gothic Pixie Dream Boy (GPDB) is apt and I think fits well. But what I think gets lost in all this fantasy caricature of men (and of course, women) is that these caricature are just that, fantasy. Is the broody, aloof GPDB as realistic a fantasy for girls/women as the corresponding fantasy caricatures for women that men have? I suspect not. But where most -- and use the term loosely -- mature men realize that the fantasy of the always available sex kitten or MPDG is just a fantasy in men's minds and that reality dictates that most women are not like the fantasy, I sometimes wonder if women ever mature beyond the girl hood fantasy of the aloof, brooding GPDB (or some bad-boy equivalent). But more often than not the aloof, brooding GPDB does not equate to the kind, sensistive, caring and emomtionally available man that women say they want. It feels to me that girls buy into the whole GPDB fantasy and then as women still crave it AND want the kind, caring, supportive and emotionally availble man (i.e, the 'nice guy'). But it doesn't work that way. Or at least not most of the time. So the message this movie, and similar movies, gives to boys is that the distant brooding guy with the cool leather jacket is what girls want, and not the dopey doormat nice guy. Indeed, even in the movie itself this message is re-enforced. At the end of the movie, who gets the girl? The nice-guy friend that has been there to support her and be her friend, or the aloof, brooding dude with the cool leather jacket? Yeah, I think we know the answer to that question. So, just as in real life, the cool dude gets the girl and the nice-guy gets nothin'.
Posted by: mgm531 | 10/13/2014 at 12:27 PM
Nope, there's where you're wrong. The GPDB is absolutely a caretaker. He inspires her, supports her growth, helps her onto his motorcycle. The nice guy best friend thinks he deserves her love just by standing next to her and pretending to listen to her. The whole point of what I wrote about the GPDB is that he is a fantasy BECAUSE he takes care of her before there's even any intimacy or investment on her part.
Posted by: Arden Leigh | 10/13/2014 at 06:51 PM
Nope, theres where youre wrong. The GPDB is absolutely a caretaker. He inspires her, supports her growth, helps her onto his motorcycle. The nice guy best friend thinks he deserves her love just by standing next to her and pretending to listen to her. The whole point of what I wrote about the GPDB is that he is a fantasy BECAUSE he takes care of her before theres even any intimacy or investment on her part.
Sent from my iPhone
Posted by: Arden Leigh | 10/14/2014 at 04:16 PM
I didn't see it that way, but that's okay. We are entitled to our own opinion.
Posted by: mgm531 | 10/16/2014 at 08:09 AM
More to the point is the Gothic Pixie Dream Boy character in the movie is very personification of a fantasy that is about as realistic as the oft derided Manic Pixie Dream Girl character is. Which is to say, not. Sure, it may be enjoyable for girls or women to enjoy the fantasy of the GPDB in movies, just as it is for boys or men to enjoy the movie version of MPDG. But let's not forget that they are fantasy archetypes. They are not real. In real life no 'white knight' saviour dressed up as a GPDB is going to show up and save the day and act as a guardian angel-protector for hapless, awkward teenage girls any more than a cute MPDG is going to drag the nerdy social misfit out from his shell and show him the ways of the world. Those things just happen in movies -- it's not real life. So yes, let's all enjoy the movie versions of the GPDB and the corresponding MPDG characters but let's not forget them for what they are -- fantasies.
Posted by: mgm531 | 10/16/2014 at 08:26 AM
Mgm - did you even read the post? You are repeating exactly what I said and phrasing it as an argument against me. Maybe you should take a second read.
Posted by: Arden Leigh | 10/16/2014 at 06:38 PM
Yes, I did read the post (and just re-read it again). And in the post you at first lament that there so few female fantasy archetypes as compared to male fantasy archetypes and then praise the few that are starting to appear, namely the self named GPDB. Then, honestly, the post gets a bit muddled, but I think you admit that it's difficult for men to fullfil the female fantasy archetype. You then posit the solution to the problem for women is to be more assertive in expressing themselves and their wants and desires (which I whole heartedly agree with) and for men to start paying attention to women's fantasies more. Again, nothing wrong with that. But the post doesn't address what I feel is the REAL issue is that both men and women latch on to these fantasy archetypes that are feed to them by popular culture and assume them to be respresentations of real life. Men latch on the the male fantasy arhetypes of the sex kitten or the MPDG of countless movies and women latch on to the GPDB of movies like 'Mortal Instruments' or the brooding bad boy characters like Christian Grey from '50 shades'. I'm not condeming men or women for fantasizing about each of their respecetive fantasy archetypes, but somewhere along the line there is a disconnect for a LOT of men and women that transforms in their mind the fantasy archetype into what they expect of their mates in real life. And that's a bit of a problem with fantasy archetypes that I think needs to be addressed, and I don't believe was addressed in your post.
Posted by: mgm531 | 10/17/2014 at 07:14 AM
My point is that both men and women owe it to their partners to playfully indulge their fantasies a bit, while still staying true to themselves as complex humans. My point furthermore is that women are doing this a lot already and men need to step it up.
Posted by: Arden Leigh | 10/24/2014 at 03:37 PM
great article - my first thought was that the term Byronic Hero possibly covered it - all those dudes are just footnotes to Manfred. though, Gothic Pixie Dream Boy is a pretty beautiful turn of phrase too. i hadn't actually made the connection with Edward Cullen until this point though. call me lame, but i love a good Byronic Hero/GPDB, but that could just be my not so inner teen goth coming through. Voss from Patrick White's novel of the same name is another great example. dark and brooding and desirable and deeply flawed.
Posted by: elizabeth | 02/20/2015 at 01:14 AM