Blogs Apr 25, 2012 at 4:04 pm

Comments

103
"And she ends by saying it's not worth it."

She says that it's not worth it for the person who is doing the exploiting. Utterly absent is any concern for the person whose emotional distress is being manipulated. It's rather akin to saying "I don't think that mugging is worth the jail time" while still being clueless that targeting and waylaying people is an immoral act.

105
The difference between Stacyanne Chin and the Indigo Girls is that 15 minutes of listening to the Girls feels like 1 minute. But one minute of listening to Stacyanne Chin feels like 30 hours.
106
This: "*Note to straight chicks: If a lesbian uses/abuses your trust and friendship solely to get at your goodies, you have my permission to punch that bitch in the face."

#truth
107
@100

"Why would you want to fuck someone you had to lie to or otherwise manipulate into bed? Are you that desperate for dick/pussy?"

Haven't you ever shown your better side, to get dick/pussy ? Don't you wait for at least the second time until you've farted in bed (to echo a previous poster's example) ? Look around, everyone else does, everyone "lies"...

In my female experience, most men play the act that Chin writes about - and it's called seduction. To her merit she is frank enough to discuss it at large, to inform her potential partners. Most men act the same, and deny it. I like her honesty best.

I'm with seandr on this, I don't think it's worth the outcry.

Of course I'm not well learned in American seduction - but maybe it's not very different from European over-30 seduction ? Over here, men become friendly, very friendly, and if you're not very fast in understanding that they mean this kind of friendship where you're supposed to jump in their bed already, the friendship cools overnight. Most of them machos need a great lot of encouragement to go on seducing, poor things ; but if you're actually interested and chase them back too openly, they get all afraid and fear for their cocks. If one of them keeps the seduction on for three whole months, he's really into you...

108
Manipulation is to seduction what a rape is to a lustful smile.

One is a play, no big consequences, annoying at worst. Three months playing "best friend" in order to get me into your bed, hey, if we are compatible in bed, it was worth your work, and anyway a continued attention, even for the wrong reasons, is very flattering.

Real harmful manipulation is not doing this level of scheming to land a hookup, but to continue with the mask on it until you've landed a LTR, a marriage, and worse case, kids. Because getting into a willing partner's bed is one thing (in first world anyways), but keeping the mask on until after the partner's life is forever entangled to yours is quite a different level of lying. Like rape, it destroys the other's life for years, sometimes forever.

Of course, if the seduced partner only lets you in his/her bed because he/she thinks it will result in a wedding, then harmless seduction is in fact an horribly manipulative act. But only to this kind of partners : the puritans.

And yes, I would fully expect a puritan to fart on me in bed on the first night. And I would not interpret it as being a proof of his perfect morality - even though I'm quite aware that farting in bed is quite a natural thing for both sexes. I would interpret it as a gross disregard for my anticipation that, yes, he would fake being a non-farter for some time at least, in order to further woo me.

And to all the posters who are crying of immorality - do you find it immoral that American women shave so constanly that you're all weirded out when you finally get to see body hair on a female ? Isn't it thorough manipulation and deceit as well, and causing you undue emotional distress - shouldn't you condemn shaving already, according to your high level of morality ?
109
Awfully earnest spoken word presenter, isn't she?
111
@107, yeah, that's what i mean by a "soft sales pitch" - I show myself at my best. I don't outright lie or manipulate or play headgames. I do my hair nice, wear jeans and a shirt that celebrate my tits and ass, and let roll with the amusing comments. I'm not trying to get inside their heads so I can be what they want me to be - I show them me as I am when I'm at the top of my game (ideally). If they don't like that, then they can move along and find something that suits them better. And no, I don't wait for at least the second time to fart in bed - I'm not interested in men that delicate or spending that much energy clenching my sphincter. But that's just details. There's putting your best foot forward and then there's just misrepresenting yourself and your intentions. There's a definite line in between.

Sure men play the game Chin is describing - doesn't make it something to aspire to. I guess her honesty is about as refreshing to me as the "player" books and videos that were a trend among the frat-boy types not too long ago. I'm just not impressed. I am kind of curious about anyone who thinks women don't do this kind of thing though? Both genders are capable of the same manipulative bullshit.

Worth the outcry? Well, I guess it's probably not, but people are going to respond to a public post that makes it seem like this is a healthy way to go about things. It's not. And you don't really seem to think so either, based on your contempt for the men you're describing.
112
@110, nah, not warped. Realistic, I'd say. Anyone engaging in a long con just for a fuck is kinda pathetic.
113
As a longtime Autostraddle reader and occasional contributor, happy to see you linking to it, Dan!

I just feel like this is the last thing that us (the gays) need: somebody going on and on about their love of creeping on straight people of the same gender, aka the favorite fear of straight people when close friends of the same sex come out to them. And it looks to all the antis out there like "converting vulnerable innocents to alternative lifestyles."
114
@112: "a long con"
Probably the best description we're going to get all day.
115
Is this sleazy? Sure.

But I'm laughing at the people offering up crap like "You tell us never to question a homosexuals orientation, or try to turn them, but this is okay?"

Please, a gay person/ gay teen gets told what they are is absolutely wrong and needs to be fixed and lives with that kind of pressure constantly. Having the occasional gay person try to land you is hardly systemic oppression. Check your privilege you fucking whiners.
116
@111

I have contempt for men who chase and are afraid of women who chase right back at them, not for those who accept it and enjoy it.

I think I'm not reading in Chin's account anything as bad and as manipulative as you do. For me seduction is like flirting, some harmless amusement that makes life lighter to bear. And being an adult, I would have the "it may well be a seduction situation" idea in the back of my mind if anybody would actively try to become fast friends with me (3 months is fast in my culture). With that in mind, I would play along, and be curious as to where it would lead. "Player" books would not be offensive to me, I can play as well, and probably better than a frat boy.

But I would be indeed be pissed if anyone farted in my bed on the first meeting (I would accept a profuse apology though). I guess I'm old school.
117
@108, "Puritans"? Really? Because I don't have time for bullshitting? I dunno, I guess I've always gone with "earthy."

I don't want to be wooed. Not in the traditional sense. The guys I've been with, I've gotten pretty much the same thing from the beginning to the end of the relationship. I like that. I watched my mother's desperate sadness as she realized that the man she had married was just a construct my father created for her. Every once in a while, he'd turn on the charm, but it was just an act meant to keep her where he wanted her. Fuck that.

Relationships and lovers lose their shine as they lose their newness. But I prefer there are no illusions from the start. If that makes me a puritan, than, hell, I'm fine with that. I'd rather have someone who's up-front about who they are than a dog doing tricks in hopes for a reward.
118
I think that anything to do with sexual preference and/or generalizing out regarding same is missing the point with the article, despite the author's own emphasis. Basically, we're dealing with somebody whose preferred mode of mark for sexually satisfying her own psychological needs (and oh lord is she working through the issues of straight girls who banged her in university but didn't have the backbone to admit it afterwards [which is double-odd because she's triple-beautiful]) happens to exist in a gay/straight frame. In this case of "straight girls as mark for this particular lesbian" the important idea is "mark", not "straight" or "lesbian". And, even then, if the campsite rule ain't broken and if there's no harm/no foul, then even the "mark" concept becomes fairly unimportant.

I have no idea whether Staceyann Chin will ever read Savage Love, but if she does I just want to say to her stop wasting your own bloody time. You're insanely beautiful and dynamic, so go out and get sexed-up for your own benefit, and stop being the waterboy for your psyche's grudges.
119
@107: "Of course I'm not well learned in American seduction - but maybe it's not very different from European over-30 seduction ?"

And? That sort of machismo/marianismo is still douchey.
120
@119:
What have you got against Maid Marion?
121
@116, it's not evil or even THAT "wrong" - I just think there's something narcissistic and selfish about it. It's very, very calculated, and ultimately pathetic - read that whole passage about her whole methodology for getting straight chick pussy. There's definitely a repressed kind of hostility in such planning, as there is any time you deliberately reduce someone to just a prize to be won. But the thing about this kind of patheticness (not a word, I know) is that it drags other people down with you. Nobody's gonna be destroyed by it, but she (and other people who manage their love lives like this) is just spreading her own special brand of dysfunction. Yech.
122
Yep, it's a douche thing for her to do, but it isn't the wrongness of it that bothers me. It's only mildly wrong. It is the pathetic, self-depreciating nature of it. It's just sad in my opinion.
123
@108 Why are you pretending all kind of deception are on equal moral footing? I don't care if you are stupid and/or immoral, nobody is enough of a moron to buy your argument, including yourself. You are capable of drawing a distinction between manipulating somebody into sex and manipulating somebody into marriage, so I don't know why your powers of reasons fly out the window when you are comparing the deception of pretending to be in love to the deception of shaving your legs.

Who would actually be deceived by shaved legs, anyway? Do you think Americans are unaware that legs naturally grow hair?

In America it is not acceptable to pretend to be friends to get sex. It is not even considered an effective strategy for men. Men often talk about being friend-zoned, meaning they can't have sex with someone who has been a platonic friend for too long. For women this strategy is more likely to result in sex, but it is still considered slutty and deceptive for women to have "male friends" that are not really friends.

The only way Chin could possibly get her straight "friends" to have sex with her is to separate them from their boyfriends, which is exactly what she does. Most people do not act like this, not even most men. Most men who act like this change their behavior when they are not in their 20s any more. Chin is what, 40 at least? I don't know about France or wherever you live, but here there are serious social consequences to being considered a player and womanizer. Women will avoid you, men will resent you.

Funny how defenders of Chin admire her for being honest in a newspaper article, yet you place absolutely no value on being honest in everyday life. What is your opinion of people who are upfront about their intentions? Is that not admirable also? Is it a good thing to look for casual sex in places where you are likely to find it, like swingers clubs, bars, and craigslist? Why is it not a bad thing to seek out casual sex from the most difficult source possible, such as straight women in committed relationships?
124
For those of you who think Chin is being ironic or exaggerating, look up her article where she makes a big deal out of being a single mother. She goes on and on about how people think it is weird that she wants to raise a child without another parent to help, and she also tries to tie in her race and sexual orientation as if they are somehow related to motherhood. She never mentions why she wants a child in the first place, as if it's not relevant. It seems like her whole career is about exploiting her minority status for attention. She is genuinely emotionally crippled.
125
@116: "if anybody would actively try to become fast friends with me (3 months is fast in my culture). With that in mind, I would play along, and be curious as to where it would lead. "Player" books would not be offensive to me, I can play as well, and probably better than a frat boy."

So from her standpoint, you wouldn't be a "conquest" and therefore a waste of her effort.

If you find the PUA scene anything but distasteful and pathetic, that also explains a good deal about your attitudes.
126
As a straight dude, I'd be hella offended if a gay dude who had the hots for me exploited troubles in my love life in order to get with me. Or from a lesbian perspective, how would she feel (afterwards) if a male "friend" used her relationship problems of the hour to convince her that she needed a man?
This is bullshit.
127
Mr Fortunate: We seem to think quite alike here. A motto of mine (among many others) is that straight chasers deserve what they get and get what they deserve. A bit Carrollian, but there it is.

Come to think of it, I recall someone I knew reading some self-help books twenty years ago that had chapters on how actively to undermine one's object's affections for his/her (soon-to-be-less) significant other. No wonder she became a stalker.
128
So, this woman is a Nice Guy (TM). You know the type, the one you friendzoned a long time ago, who keeps skulking around your steps like a dog, waiting for you to break up with whoever you're seeing so he can pick you up on the rebound (maybe).

http://xkcd.com/513/

That sums it up pretty well.
129
@95 - with you on the straight people, and i'm not gay, just queer :-) but it is sooo unattractive.
130
@128 exactly! Except on this case it would end with getting her and then saying it wasn't worth it!
131
"In America it is not acceptable to pretend to be friends to get sex."

That has got to be the funniest thing I've read today. Let me tell ya, there are a lot of different Americas where it is not only acceptable, but taken as a matter of course.
132
@131: Eh, it's definitely a comparison of nuance. Taken that abstractly, sure. I've pretended to care what someone chats about when it involved taking them to bed.

Now, trying to pretend to be a close confidante for months in order to seduce them and break up couples (of any gender pairing), all the while whispering lies in their ear? That I'd see as creepy and/or stalkery.
133
@132 I can see your point but...in the end I think all relationships revolve around a degree of manipulation. I guess I just don't understand the fuss over this woman's article. There's nothing very revelatory, except the angle of it being about lesbians. But, who hasn't known people that have done something similar? (involving any gender pairing) Maybe it's a big deal when you first see it happening in your teens or 20s, but by the time you hit 30 it's pretty old hat. I don't find it unusual behavior at all; people will do anything to get laid. In fact, they do things that are a lot more extreme. So I wouldn't call it creepy or stalkery either.
134
@133: "There's nothing very revelatory, except the angle of it being about lesbians. But, who hasn't known people that have done something similar?"

When I find out about stuff like this, I stop hanging out with the people who do so.
135
"I don't find it unusual behavior at all; people will do anything to get laid. In fact, they do things that are a lot more extreme. So I wouldn't call it creepy or stalkery either"

It's a shitty thing to do to someone, unhealthy, insecure, and exploitative. If that doesn't bother you with any degree of nuance, you're lumping yourself in with the creeps.
136
How much does Chin cry when she tries her seduction routine on a bisexual woman in an open relationship?

Sorry, that was mean. I'm sure she wouldn't lose interest, right??
137
@134 Right? It usually doesn't work in your 30s because you wise up and treat such people like the pieces of shit they are, not because it becomes normalized.
138
@123

I'm saying that all kinds of deception are not on an equal footing. I'm saying that this one (friend instead of fuck) is not a major one, for me, as for many others. Am I that bad in English for you to misunderstand me ?

@undead ayn rand

Sorry to disappoint you, I'm only human. I don't know what this "PUA scene" is all about, but if a serial seductor (or as you put it, a creep) chats me up sure I'll play along ; I'm doing enough of perfect behaving in my child-raising-motherly life to allow myself to talk back to seductors whenever I come by one, outside of duty. That kind of pleasure is mostly in the chase, not in the bed !

@Moloko101

Thanks for your input. It was getting lonely out there ;-)
139
@121 JrzWrld

I do agree with you that it would be douchey if the prey were not aware of the possibility of there being a chase on, but come on, who is that innocent, except virgins ? False advertisement is ripe in dating. So-called "nice guys" abound. The act of sex itself is falsely depicted to women : 70% of us don't ever orgasm from PIV alone (Shere Hite data). If a woman already in a relationship is not aware, by then, that what she sees is not always what it seems, either she has hopelessly numbed herself out or she's a movie character !

On another level, this story of Chin advocating for voluntarily raising a child alone does creep me up (I don't think a parent who eagerly wants to be "the only parent/authority" is good for a child's wellbeing), something her dating shenaginans didn't. So you may have better bullshit detectors than I do on Chin herself, but I stand by my point of dating being actually a lot more immoral than what you seem to like, and by not being bothered by it.
140
@139: "false advertisement is ripe in dating. So-called "nice guys" abound. The act of sex itself is falsely depicted to women : 70% of us don't ever orgasm from PIV alone (Shere Hite data)."

So you advocate the actions of douchebags because other people are douchebags, classy.

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