fubar@101
"in my decades of solo business travel, I was never asked to take my meal at the bar"

It's nearly never happened to me, though think I was asked a time or two if I wanted to sit at the bar because there was no wait there.

@98 BiDanFan: I have been having difficulty over these past couple of years with even making dinner reservations at that one particular fancy waterfront restaurant. Apparently it's strictly couples and groups only. My additionally disquieting impression was that if I had agreed to be seated in the bar (which looked dark and uninviting at the entrance and away from the water), I could easily be forgotten by waitstaff if not hit on.
On the plus side, my friends with the sports bar and neighboring breakfast/ lunch-only/ closed by 2:30 pm cafe make good money and keep getting good tips from me.

Another weird episode I had, back at the wonderful resort that my beloved VW and were staying and will always go back to was in the laundry room on the premises that had an ice machine. I went to run a last night wash and dry cycle to find a man filling a big rectangular ice cooler (for anything from beer and pop to a hefty 32 lb. King salmon). What started with small talk became a polite conversation upon our finding that we were both veterans. He noticed my car and remarked curiously why I was single as "good looking as you and with a car like that" (he had been admiring my VW in the parking lot).
Luckily before I could struggle with an answer his wife showed up wondering what had been taking her spouse so long to get ice. I briefly explained that he and I got to talking about military assignments where we had each been stationed, apologizing that I can be a bit of a chatterbug--sorry to hold them up, nice to meet them, have a nice stay, and that was fortunately that.

Not to over-analyze or over-dramatize, but I have something additional that I feel is somewhat relative to the comment thread. I read in another advice column (The Advice Goddess, Amy Alkon, The Cascadia Weekly) a letter from a woman venting frustrations who was hit on by an obviously married man in a bar. Amy's response, upon citing numerous psychologists, was that people are always looking at other people. Many men who date and marry women, according to research have a socially ingrained tendency to be on the lookout for a "just-in-case" substitute should his current squeeze dump him. UGH!
And the guy with a wife and ice cooler back in the parking lot of my favorite go-to resort was left wondering why I'm so happily single and asexual.

@100 fubar: WA-HOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Congratulations on scoring this week's Big Hunsky Award honors! Savor your envied numeric riches and bask in your good fortune. :)

griz@103
"Many men...according to research have a..."just-in-case" substitute"

And here I was thinking that it was more common for women than men to cultivate a set of backups.

@griz 93:

I have worked in many restaurants. Restaurant staff often ask solo diners if they want to sit at the bar because it is a more efficient use of seats. Also, many solo diners feel self conscious, and sitting at the bar makes them feel more at ease. This is probably not true for people who order elaborate meals like you.

Women frequently think that solo women are disrespected by restaurant staff. I have a hard time believing that to be true. Restaurant staff frequently talk shit in the back about customers. A woman being alone is never an issue. Honestly, solo men are sometimes described as "pathetic."m

@104 curious2 and @105 Guts: Do note that in my comment @103, when citing advice columnist Amy Alkon in The Cascadia Weekly, her response to the LW specified that many men (not ALL of them) who date and marry women are forever on the lookout for backups.
@105 Guts: Thank you for sharing your experience in the restaurant industry and offering further insight regarding patrons. In this particular waterfront restaurant, however, if I were forced to choose between a well-lit dining room (with incoming natural sunlight through large windows overlooking the marina in addition to commercial light fixtures) as opposed to a dimly lit bar further darkened by walls and no windows, I'll take the dining room of that establishment any day and three times on Sunday. I'm not out looking to get picked up. It felt like the proprietors of the fancy eatery had an issue with my dining solo the last time I was there, and well-dressed. It most likely was a seating issue, although the restaurant was not full to capacity (nobody waiting for a table) at the time.

I have no trouble believing that restaurant staff are misogynistic towards women.

I don't remember them picking sides at my restaurant though. Because the wait staff had so often been treated poorly by so many patrons, staff pretty much hated all customers.

I am a man and I frequently eat alone in restaurants. Sometimes I want to sit at the bar, and sometimes I want a table. Very often, the waitstaff will offer me the bar, I will ask for a table, and they will continue to insist that I eat at the bar. This is weird, rude, and rare. I really have to imagine that women who want tables receive less pushback from staff.

Again, I have never heard a restaurant coworker talk shit about women eating alone. I have definitely heard men eating alone described as "pathetic losers."

I have a side job in a bar now. I haven't heard anything like that at my current place. There is one young man who comes to the bar alone very very frequently. He tries to talk to the staff all the time, and can sometimes be annoying, but not offensive. To be honest, I do think it is kind of sad. I am surprised he doesn't "rotate" his bars so his lonliness is not so obvious. Many alcoholics rotate their liquor stores so that it it is not abundantly obvious to the clerks that they have a drinking problem.

I used to be like that guy, and I would rotate my bars. I wasn't annoying, or at least not as annoying as he is. He needs to find better uses for his time. Instead of going to the bar tonight, it would be great if he stopped himself and stayed home and read a book, drew some pictures, listened to new music, attended a meetup event, or downloaded Babbel and learned a language. I won't straight up tell him that, but if he talks to me tonight I will mention things I am working on, and maybe he will get the idea.

@105 Guts: Since among our commenters you seem to have steel-belted intestines, I'll elaborate further. In regarding recent restaurant / bar service, I had an abysmal experience at a local restaurant this last spring and will never go back there again. Despite my being in accordance with masking, social distancing, and being vaccinated, the food and service were inexcusably terrible.
The restaurant was not busy when I arrived but apparently "Under New Management", which for me is often a red flag. The original proprietor was not there; I assume he retired and sold the business. The hostess seemed to have issue with where to seat me (first outside at a sidewalk table, then...no...I was too close to other diners...let's see...downstairs?.....um...). A desirable covered seating area has been added to the courtyard outside the downstairs dining room. This was not offered to me despite vacant outside tables (had they been reserved?), and I ended up being seated at a small table near the kitchen entrance.
Meanwhile, a couple with a Weimaraner who showed up after I did were invariably seated at a desirable outdoor table, waited on hand and foot. They got their food and drinks while I was left starving, waiting a half hour for a cheeseburger on a gluten free bun, and simply told they were "busy". I was still waiting when the couple with the dog got their bill, paid, and left. My inexperienced new server, only one minute after I was finally brought my entree and salad, and only one refill of water and iced tea, suddenly rushed back to my table without explanation and whisked my plate away, running back to the kitchen just before I took my first french fry. I did NOT get a new plate with a fresh cheeseburger on a gluten free bun; it was the same exact plate, now tepid, with the uneaten french fry still sitting in ketchup. I'm glad I didn't order soup; she likely would have spilled it all over me with no apology.
Additionally, there is something terrible in the beef this restaurant uses for its steaks and burgers that is unhealthy for me. Once again and for the last time ever, I paid severely for that "gluten free burger" with excruciating abdominal pains the following day.
The worst part was that, in addition to the new chef and proprietor doing everything on the fly, there was one server who had been waitressing and tending bar for years who knew me from past meals there. She didn't even say hi as she used to, even with the soon-to-follow incoming rush of diners after I had been seated. It was as if she was pretending not to know me!
This once highly reputable eating and drinking establishment that has been in business for decades, boasting jazz nights on weekends and holidays now only exclusively serves the wealthy new dog people from Seattle filling the mushroom cloud of surrounding high rise condos that have cropped up in the neighborhood over the last five years.
There really does, for me, seem to be an increasingly and openly rude "where's your date, spouse, children, or party of twelve?" approach I keep getting lately in various places when out dining alone, nowadays, and I don't like it.
If I have one positive takeaway from this inexcusably reprehensible dining experience, it is that--and especially since the onset of the COVID pandemic---I have become a better cook Gee--no waiting at home.

@Grizelda 109:

Sure, I believe that happened to you. I don't understand why restaurant staff would intentionally be hostile toward a solo female diner. But if Savage Love has taught me anything, it is that people do a lot of things which I cannot understand.

I guess it makes sense for a restaurant to not want solo people on the front patio, because petty people might think it dampens the vibe. But I have to imagine that solo men are more of a buzz kill than solo women.

You wonder if people are wondering and judging, "Where is your date?" Maybe. I suppose people are more likely to just understand that men are more likely to be alone.

I'm a middle-aged woman. I eat alone in restaurants from time to time.

Some people who work in restaurants are jerks; more of them are nice. I have never been steered towards the bar, except when there is a wait for a table and openings at the bar; even then, I'm asked if I'd rather wait for a table or be seated immediately at the bar. If I say, "I'd prefer to wait for a table, thanks," no hostess or maitre d' has ever balked. I've been seated at all points in the restaurant: sometimes sitting in the window, sometimes at the back, and at places in between: it seems to be a function of how full the restaurant is and which tables are available--or at least that's how it has seemed to me.

I have never thought about whether men or women who are solo diners are treated differently, but I can't for the life of me posit a reason why one gender would receive worse treatment.

Auntie grizelda, if I were you, I wouldn't go back to/patronize an establishment that treated me as less than the most valued of customers; surely there are other fine restaurants you can give your business to. As you tip generously at a restaurant that values you and your business, think of the places that treated you as an inferior customer and let that sweeten whatever dessert you order.

@fubar: You've been on fire with all your comments regarding consent in the last several columns and comment sections. I agree that you see women as people, and furthermore as individuals, not as a monolithic entity--which in my acquaintance circle is par for the course, but which has been revealed to be a highly unusual characteristic. I don't doubt that you'd be a recipient of joyfully-offered-and-given blowjobs.

On a related note, I am sure there are horrible, unscrupulous, manipulative doms out there, but every man I've ever met or corresponded with who identifies as a top or dom or sadist (or some combination of these) has been one of the strongest feminists I've met, as well as some of the most ethical people I have run across. No doubt, this is a coincidence, but it seems telling to e, nevertheless.

@110 Guts: It's sad but true---the once friendly vibe from the local restaurant in a historically registered district in my town that once had jazz bands on weekends and holidays is long gone, along with the quality of the food and service.
At least I know where not to go.

@111 nocutename: The strange thing is that I get ads on Facebook for the fancy waterfront restaurant regularly (I got another one the other day online). I have been asked if I would like to sit in the bar, but just feel uncomfortable doing so. And there have been times when I felt rushed through my meal, as if (as Guts aptly pointed out) waitstaff were really anticipating big groups willing to spend a lot of money and run an enormous group tab instead of just me seated at a table for four.
Bi had a point, too. I hadn't thought of making a dinner reservation and should have---it was Saturday and quite possibly the restaurant's busiest day of the week.
Ironically, I feel completely at home at the friendly sports bar and tiny cafe up the street.
I go where the ambiance is. At least I know where to still get a kickass cheeseburger on a gluten free bun----at the sports bar when vacationing (their GF avocado cheeseburgers are the BEST!!), and at a regional burger chain near the mall north of town. And the people at these locations are wonderful.

I am saddened that my beloved VW and I couldn't venture out to our favorite go-to vacation spot this year, due to lack of traveling funds. It has been rough, despite being fully COVID-vaccinated, not to be able to take a vacation. We hope to next year--just in time for my 40th High School Reunion.

Fubar @101, how is there truth in the idea that lesbians are "easier" FOR MEN to get into bed than, you know, women who are actually attracted to men? Lesbians might be "easier" if you're a woman, I mean, logically speaking, but it's ridiculous for a man to think he's got a better chance of bedding a lesbian than a straight or bi woman.
You are absolutely right, though, that for the kind of entitled man we are talking about here, literally nothing will put him off. "I have a penis" perhaps, though I've never tried that one personally. I once had a guy hit on me on the bus, told him (truthfully) I had a boyfriend, and he (a short, pudgy bald man) claimed he was a better man than my boyfriend. I think I had enough wit to coldly reply, "I don't think so. I mean, you take the bus." ;)
And I'm sure the women in burqa-standard countries and cultures have this problem too.

"And for what it's worth, in my decades of solo business travel, I was never asked to take my meal at the bar." Huh. The world is more sexist than I thought. >:-(

Griz @103, yeah, I would put that restaurant on the fuck-you list if they didn't want my custom!

Griz @113, name and shame! Let the SL locals, and any future tourists, know which restaurant we should avoid due to their appalling treatment. (I too have a list of restaurants I will never go to again -- if any of you are visiting London, let me know and I will help you steer clear!)

Alison @80, missed this comment. Interesting take on [orientation]flexible. I understood it to just mean a Kinsey 0.5 or 5.5, someone with a strong preference for one gender, but who was occasionally attracted to people of the other gender. I imagine quite often this would take the form of fancying someone trans or non-binary. The concept of only fancying a certain gender if one is already turned on is interesting. Surely many of us expand our definition of who or what we are attracted to, or what acts we are interested in, when turned on -- and some of us regret that expansion afterwards.

I do think I'm more on CMD's page regarding "forced bi" -- the men wouldn't seek out women to indulge this kink if they didn't have it when not turned on. I see it as they want to be with men, but also find this desire in themselves to be humiliating, so they want to indulge it by being "forced" by a woman to do what they can't admit they want to do. I do take the point about straight guys who aren't attracted to each other interacting in threesomes -- the film Y Tu Mama Tambien has a good example of this -- and certainly straight women have been bi enough in a group context to let me go down on them. I see this more as being caught up in the moment than a different orientation; these straight women, indeed, would have (and have had) no interest in me on my own. Perhaps just being adventurous enough to have a threesome in the first place means one is more likely to be down for interacting with all parties involved, regardless of their gender, because hey more bodies more fun. This is certainly food for thought, thank you.

Guts @105: "Women frequently think that solo women are disrespected by restaurant staff. I have a hard time believing that to be true."
"I find it hard to believe what women tell me about their own experience. I think I as a man have a better idea of women's reality."
And that's why I put you on mute, and back on mute you go. Bye!

@114 BiDanFan: re my comments @103 and @113: Mainly, it is the local restaurant in the historically registered neighborhood on the south end of town where I live that I would give the "fuck you" to and never dine in again. My upstairs neighbor friend can corroborate my low rating. She was never happy with the food and service there, either, and it has since gotten so much worse I wouldn't be surprised if they closed down.
The fancy waterfront restaurant had excellent food and beverages in my favorite go-to vacation spot. Reserving a table there on a busy night is difficult, though, and if the only seating availability for me is in the bar I'd rather go someplace else.
The big plus about the sports bar, small cafe and a little deli up the street---they're gluten-free friendly as well. Even the town's grocery store has started selling GF products.

Griz has been scoring and editing tonight on my latest short piece based on Stephen King's 2013 summer read novel, Joyland. What a productive late evening! I needed this.

I just want to note that it's not only that restaurants want to efficiently seat customers. It's also that wait staff depend on tips and are generally assigned a specific set of tables, so the more seats of those tables are occupied the better tips each would tend to make. In this the host will likely favor some wait staff over others.

I'm aware that some people think that solo diners are pathetic

"solo men are sometimes described as "pathetic."" (guts@105)

but I really don't care what those people think. I think that in thinking that, they're displaying their own issues like insecurity.

auntie grizzly @106: "It most likely was a seating issue, although the restaurant was not full to capacity (nobody waiting for a table) at the time."

I'll come back to this in a moment.

nocutename @112: There are definitely horrible, unscrupulous, manipulative Doms (and subs) out there. and the community tries to identify and flag them (check out the Be Safe Ontario group on Fetlife). But for the most part, I think you're right. If you're going to beat on another person, you'd better have (ahem) consent, and respect, and gratitude.

BiDanFan @114: I put "easy" in quotes because I was quoting an earlier comment. I personally reject the word 100%. If someone self-identifies as a slut, good for them. There's nothing wrong with anyone enjoying whatever sex they want with whomever (with the usual disclaimer about consent and honesty).

"I mean, you take the bus." I just spat out my coffee :)

BiDanFan @116: "back on mute you go." I took a stab @101 at asking the menfolk to step back from explaining things to which they cannot relate and were not witness. At the risk of mansplaining mansplaining, I'll just note that auntie grizelda discounted her own reality in her response @106. And /that/ is how women's voices are silenced.

Confidential to man-identifying people in the commentariat: Guys. Really? Is that what we want?

fubar@119
"auntie grizelda discounted her own reality in her response @106"

Thank you for calling attention to that, fubar. I haven't been reading every word, so I missed:

griz@106
"It most likely was a seating issue"

Like I just said I haven't been reading every word, but I read some and I think it was NOT a seating issue.

griz@93
"It's as if they're nervously thinking, "OH, SHIT!!! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH THE EXTRA WOMAN???""

As I've said I'm sure that there are all kind of malevolent reasons griz got mistreated.

Plus, with that quote griz was probably being intentionally funny. But since I'm lousy at reading that, and since I have the sense that like all of us griz tends to get a little insecure and anxious, I've been wondering if griz could feel just a tiny bit less harmed by what the people mistreating her might be thinking.

I mean, they're probably not nervous and alarmed while mistreating her, they've been doing that so long to so many women they could probably do it in their sleep.

In other words, it's been paining me to think of griz trying to enjoy a special meal, while she imagines that the staff she needs to make her experience enjoyable are

"nervously thinking, "OH, SHIT!!! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH THE EXTRA WOMAN???""

when actually, mistreating her might be utterly routine to them.

In other other words, the mistreatment is more than bad enough, I hate to think of griz also being tormented by thinking that they are

"nervously thinking, "OH, SHIT!!! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH THE EXTRA WOMAN???""

In this I've probably been failing to chill and realize that griz is just writing with some amusing hyperbole.

BDF @98 "a gracious script for 'no thanks' that doesn't refer honestly to my current romantic situation." That works when I'm hit on by a stranger, but it doesn't help if I actually went out on a coffee date with a guy. He already knows I'm married and non-monogamous. So, then my options are "my schedule just got very full" or "I'm not feeling any chemistry."

fubar @101 "What... you're not allowed to have friends?"
Props to your girlfriend, she's not wrong. I guess at that point I'd say "I have plenty of friends, thanks. I'm going to go back to chatting with them, have a nice evening." If he continued after that I'd either call in assistance from the staff or leave before it became a dangerous situation.

"lesbians are more adventurous and easier"

I realize I could have been more clear, but I was comparing a lesbian specifically with Maryanne from Gilligan's Island. Every man would prefer Maryanne, but if you are looking for a hookup, yes, I think the lesbian is a better bet than Maryanne.

Women eating alone in restaurants:

I have worked in several restaurants, and I am very skeptical of women's claims that they are treated with less respect than solo male diners. Why would restaurant staff do that? In fact, I think that restaurant staff are far more patient with female customers. Bartenders are much more likely to chide men for not being ready with their IDs/drink orders.

Somebody said that I am an example of a man who is ignoring women's lived experiences. Does anyone really have the whole story here? Solo female diners are unaware of how solo male diners are treated, so they cannot compare. Nobody can really speak to the experiences of both solo male diners and solo female diners.

Servers don't really care who you are. We won't talk shit about you merely for existing. We will talk shit if you are fussy and demanding.

guts @122: "yes, I think the lesbian is a better bet than Maryanne." SMH

"I have worked in several restaurants, and I am very skeptical of women's claims..." SMH

"Somebody said that I am an example of a man who is ignoring women's lived experiences." That was me. And yes, you are.

"Solo female diners are unaware of how solo male diners are treated". No they're not. They can see and hear how solo male diners are treated.

Read back on this page. I said I've never been asked to sit at the bar. Griz has NOT come back and told me that, because her experience has been different, my experience cannot be true.

But you're doing that to her.

And nobody is talking about servers talking shit; we're discussing griz's experience of being punted to the bar. Repeatedly.

If some man says that a generic woman-who-has-zero-attraction-to-men is more likely to be attracted to him than the Mary Ann character, maybe his fear of approaching a woman as beautiful as the actress Dawn Wells is talking.

Again with the ‘every man prefers Maryanne’ line, guts @122, why are you referencing a show where the young women are cardboard cutouts, not fully fleshed out women/ people? And have you asked ‘every man’ or you talking about ‘every man in your friend group’?
LW1; I hope you have taken the words of Dan, his guests & the board’s responses & are making steps to leave this man, father of your child. Being accomodating to this man is killing you, do you see that?
His expression of his kink, is a modern cover for the same situation women have been caught in forever.
Disguised rage at women, wanting to control them.
Starting perhaps with his relationship with his mother & living in patriarchal social structures where women are the fearful, second class citizens.
If you haven’t, jump on Fetlife to see how many predators & crazies are using kink to hide their mental ill health.

I think that people need to remember why we are even talking about lesbians/Maryanne. Another commenter said that when she reveals she is a lesbian, she can often hear straight men's lust. I find this baffling. There is an attractive woman at my work. I was disappointed when I learned she is a lesbian. The whole lesbian/Maryanne thing was me speculating as to why a straight man would be interested in a lesbian. Yes, yes, yes, I think it is weird for a straight man to chase after lesbians. I am just speculating as to why. I am not like that one bit.

Restaurants frequently ask solo diners if they want to sit at the bar. This is a more efficient use of seating and many solo diners prefer to sit at the bar. I am a man, and restaurant staff frequently steer me toward the bar.

I am very skeptical that solo women are disrespected at restaurants. I am also skeptical of middle school kids who think that their teacher hates them. Sometimes people are misinterpreting their own lived experiences.

guts @126: "I am also skeptical of middle school kids who think that their teacher hates them."

I once dated a middle school teacher. She loathed many of the little rugrats.

Fubar @119, then what did you mean by there being some truth to the statement? Did I misread you as saying there is some truth to the statement that lesbians are more sexually adventurous and slutty (in the reclaimed, joyous sense of the word) -- did you mean there was truth to the statement that heterosexual men -see- lesbians as more sexually adventurous and slutty (in the reclaimed, joyous sense of the word)? I agree there is truth to that statement, that it's a common -misconception- among straight men.

EricaP @121, another option is ghosting. It's possible to not return a message. It's not possible to say nothing when someone is right in front of you in a bar. Oddly I find the post-date an easier situation to just say, "Thanks but I'm not really feeling it," because there is no immediacy and no (even subconscious) threat that he'll respond to a "no thanks" with anger or violence -- also, after a date, he's a person I know, not a potentially scary stranger. If the person isn't right in front of me, I have no problem finding tactful words to put into a message.

Fubar @123: ""Somebody said that I am an example of a man who is ignoring women's lived experiences." That was me. And yes, you are." And also me. And also every woman in this comments thread: https://www.thestranger.com/savage-love/2021/08/24/60702925/savage-love/comments
I'll join in thanking you for listening, which you might think is the least one could do!

Guts @ 126: Only you are talking about Maryanne.
And just because, you, a non Lesbian, can’t understand a Lesbian’s experience, that is on you, honey, no one else.
Talking of Lesbians, out today @ a market, slipped into a bookshop & found last copy of ‘The Well Of Loneliness.’

BiDanFan @128: I wrote @101 "Like all generalizations, there's probably some truth to that statement", "that statement" being guts' writing @47 that he thinks that "heterosexual men see lesbians as more adventurous and easier."

It's a generalization to say that heterosexual men see lesbians in a particular way. There's probably some truth in his claim that heterosexual men see lesbians as more adventurous and enjoying of sex; not that they are, just that heterosexual men see them that way. I've read in these pages that they're portrayed that way in porn made for straight men. So I conceded the argument that (some) straight men see lesbians as caricatures and objects. It's presumably a subset of straight men who see women the same way.

In my personal experience, lesbians, like everyone else, run the gamut in every aspect of love and life. In fact, the only sexual identity stereotype I firmly believe is that gay men love show tunes, with the occasional exception simply proving the rule.

P.S. If this site allowed edits, I'd tweak the end of my second paragraph @131 to read "It's presumably a subset of straight men who see /all/ women the same way."

BiDanFan @128: "I'll join in thanking you for listening, which you might think is the least one could do!"

It's absolutely the least one could do, and honestly, I'm blathering on about it here now because I think it's up to men to support women by talking to other men about this stuff.

guts @126: "Sometimes people are misinterpreting their own lived experiences."

It doesn't matter. And whether or not someone's own lived experience of an interaction precisely correlates to the circumstances of an event is irrelevant.

I'm an older white male. When I walk into a restaurant, I'll often tell the maitre'd where I'd like to sit. I'm socialized to express the entitlement that the world has heaped at my feet. Women are socialized to be cautious and to defer.

Case study: several years ago, I had taken a stroll through Central Park with my younger then girlfriend. I needed to pee. So we went into the marble and brass lobby of The Plaza hotel, and I asked the uniformed doorman for directions to the washroom (as the Americans call it) which he provided. The washroom was more marble and glass, with a uniformed man handing out towels. Very nice.

My girlfriend barely got through the experience - her experience - without a panic attack.

Who's experience was "correct"? Was my girlfriend "wrong" to feel unwelcome and anxious?

Going further, how would she have been received if I hadn't been with her?

(In retrospect, I was a dope for putting her through it. I hadn't realized how massively privileged I am.)

Going back to being directed to sit at the bar. It may be true that the restaurant's only conscious priority is optimizing table utilization, but my experience as a man would be entirely different than a woman's. I'll decline a poor table in a restaurant every time, let alone a bar stool.

If I were a restaurateur, I think I'd want to be a little bit conscious of how customers experience their treatment, and not tell people they're wrong for feeling unwelcome and devalued.

fubar, thank you very much for writing on this so well, including taking the time to.

It's horrifying that retrograde culture and socialization that should have been buried eons ago remains such a crushing burden for women.

And I need to go into a ritzy hotel to pee! It would be fun to be treated like a human now that I'm old. While I wasn't as a scruffy young man, I enjoyed the privilege of experiencing that merely as the affront it was, rather than part of a crushingly omnipresent demeaned role women are forced to live.

Fubar, although I am happy to see your contributions to this topic and think that to some men, they might carry more weight than hearing the same thing from a woman, I need to push back a little on your assumptions of what being a woman is like, based on your girlfriends' experiences or reactions. Before I continue, let me reiterate that on the whole, I really appreciate your attitude and I know that for the most part, you get it.

However.

I certainly don't speak for all or even most women--only for myself, but I am getting more and more troubled by the line of reasoning I keep hearing, often espoused by sympathetic or "woke" men, espousing the view, held up as an absolute statement of fact, that the reason women do or do not do something--from having utterly anonymous, NSA, extremely casual sex, to making up fictitious boyfriends in an attempt to dissuade being aggressively pursued by unwanted men, to being nervous about using a bathroom in a fancy restaurant or hotel where one is not a guest or paying customer, is because we're AFRAID; specifically, afraid of male violence. No doubt that is a prime motivator for some women, but not all and certainly not when it comes to all areas of our lives. This is brought up again and again by Dan as the explanation for why women don't behave like men, and that irritates me because
1) It's not true
and
2) it subtly reinforces the idea that men--and their responses to things as the default, the natural, the appropriate response--are the default, "standard" humans and women are inferior, second-rate (because socialized that way) citizens whose existence in what sounds like constant state of fear is the only reason why they don't behave exactly like men.

I can't speak with certainty for auntie grizelda, for instance, but I would wager that her feeling that she is treated dismissively as a solo diner who is a middle-aged woman (because in my opinion, there are many factors beyond gender that account for different treatment, and in the case of women--but not, it appears, men--being youthful is a huge bonus when it comes to the way one is treated by strangers) isn't based on FEAR. She is rightfully annoyed at being treated in ways that she finds disrespectful.

Now, yes; much of that disrespect or respect that we get from strangers in the world comes from how much privilege our specific set of conditions is accorded in our culture, in which being perceived as a middle-aged, presumably straight, white man does confer the greatest amount of privilege. But not being fully privileged is different from being frightened and feeling privileged is a condition that can be brought on by socialization at an early age.

In my individual case (sorry, Larry Stoner, here I go again), I seem to be lacking the fear response so often attributed to women and so often brought up as the reason why a woman doesn't do any specific thing.

I have no idea why I don't have that universally-accepted, female-fear attitude as I walk through life; it wasn't explicitly imparted to me by my family or childhood events. In fact, I was bullied relentlessly as a child, and have been raped twice and sexually harassed by both a former professor and a former employer, so much so that I stopped going to class and failed it and also quit the job rather than endure what had become extremely uncomfortable situations (I was very young in both these cases, which took place long ago and in a cultural climate different enough that I knew it would have been useless to try to complain to someone or to get the behavior to stop. I may have been wrong, but at the time, the only way I could think of to avoid the disturbing and creepy behavior was to remove myself from the situation, consequences be damned).

And I can only assume that your now-ex girlfriend who trembled lest you (and she perhaps) got caught and in trouble (what would that be? Would you be yelled at?) when you peed in that glass-and-marble fancy schmancy bathroom had issues of extreme anxiety in general. But I wouldn't put her reaction down to that of a woman socialized to be fearful of men's reactions--though someone who is anxious might well also have that fear.

I discovered very early in life that if you act like you belong somewhere, people treat you as if you do, too. I have walked into establishments that have prominent signs saying that the restrooms are for customers only, asked a server where the bathroom was (or just could see) and strode confidently to use it. Generally, no one questions or stops me, though occasionally they make it clear that they know I shouldn't be using their facilities, but that they are being nice (which is indeed very nice). Recently, I had an urgent need to use a bathroom, and walked into the first restaurant I saw, whereupon I asked the hostess where the bathroom was. She responded that due to Covid restrictions, they weren't letting anyone who wasn't a customer use the restrooms. I must have looked stricken as I asked where the nearest restroom I could use was, and I think my distress was evident enough that she told me where the bathroom was anyway.

If I don't want to have random, casual sex with a stranger, it's rarely because I fear for my safety, and much more frequently because I need to feel some kind of connection with someone to want to have sex with him. I don't have to think we're gonna get married and live happily ever after, but I have to have a feeling that I like him. I have to enjoy talking with him; I have to find him interesting or funny or we have to have some point of connection. His good looks and my horniness are not, in themselves, sufficient reasons for me to want to boink. This is how I am; I don't claim it to be how all women operate. I believe that Dan says the same thing applies to him: that he might not really have a relationship going forward with the dude, but he has to FEEL as if, based on what he has seen of the guy, that is a possibility. I'm sure that there are many women, for whom handsomeness and their own horniness are enough reason(s) to go for it, and that's fine. And I do know that for some women, it is indeed fear that the unknown man might become physically abusive that stops them; that's fine, too, though sad.

And when in my early twenties, I told insistent men that I was a lesbian or had a boyfriend to try (almost aways unsuccessfully) to fend off their repeated and intense advances, it wasn't because I was AFRAID of what they'd do to me if I said "no" more straightforwardly; it was because I was young and didn't want to cause an unpleasantness, to make some guy I had never seen before and would never see again, someone who clearly didn't care if I was uncomfortable, feel uncomfortable. I didn't want to be part of what I thought of as an extremely awkward scene. Now, that is definitely a result of female socialization, but I was socialized to not make a scene, to not make people--all people, young, old, male, female--uncomfortable, to be non-confrontational, not socialized to defer to men out of fear for my personal safety.

nocute@136
I hate to ask you to add to that good work, but can I ask if a woman might expect her cultural experience to differ much depending upon what part of the USA she's in?

IIRC you live in the SF Bay area; I wonder if today's gendered cultural climate is worse when you are some other places? (I'm /not/ trying to make a loaded point, merely to learn the state of the states.)

@137: of course, Curious; different backgrounds, including geographic ones, contribute to all of our socializations. Although I live in the Bay Area now, I didn't grow up here. In fact, my two sexual assaults took place elsewhere, as well.

But in general, I walk through the world as if l belonged, and so far, no matter where I've been, including other countries, people don't typically question it. Or maybe I'm just too oblivious to notice!

My point was supposed to be against generalizing. I was only reporting on my own lived experience. But again and again I'm hearing men explain why "women" (presumably most, if not all women) behave as they do (i.e. not like "men") in a vast variety of situations as if there's one reason. And that reason is always given as fear for their personal safety.

Oh yes, very interesting talk about socialization. A plain emotion, even fear, is bound to be too simple an explanation. Whereas one's socialization and culture ends up being anything but simple. Perhaps one can make an analogy to the water a fish swims in, which analogies frequently suggest they might not much notice, let alone be focused on.

nocutename @136: I'm not sure where in my blathering this week I wrote anything that suggested women fear male violence, or fear for their safety (although I've certainly read about it, and heard about it from women). Clearly, I need to reconsider my future as a writer.

When I wrote about my girlfriends' experiences, I was using those anecdotes to try to illustrate differences between how they experienced and I experienced of shared events, in response to guts' assertion that some people "misinterpret" their own lived experiences.

I have no idea why my then girlfriend was apprehensive about our trip to the ivory loo. It may have been the fear of getting into trouble, but I didn't connect fear of male rage to it. I thought she lacked a sense of unconscious entitlement.

I was not attempting to explain why all women behave the way they do, any more than I can possibly explain why all men behave the way they do.

I did write that women are socialized to defer to men, but I don't think that's the same thing and, for what it's worth, I know a lot of women that do /not/ defer to men.

The idea that men and their responses (socialized or otherwise) to things are somehow the default, and superior to that of women, is nonsense. Maybe it's out there; I'll try to notice. But speaking for myself, I frequently check my own stupid impulses with a number of women I trust.

I didn’t much fear men as a young woman, and luckily, given the incidence of it, was never raped or sexually assaulted in any way.
Then I got with a man who used anger to control & slowly slowly I got fearful, of him.
Now, as an older woman, and away from that angry man & any other people who use anger to control, like you nocute, I go about my life with ease, generally, and with no fear.
What is vastly different is how I now create boundaries. As a young woman I had no real concept of such a thing, thrown here & there by others’ ways.

P.S. @140: I had to Google "woke men". I think I'll shut up and go back to lurking now.

@120 curious2, @122 & @126 Guts: See and read my comment @117 in response to BiDanFan @114 for further clarification.

@123 fubar and @136 nocutename: Thank you both and bless you! :)

@136: nocutename: Gold star for nailing my feeling uncomfortable with being seated in a bar (with one previously noted exception in a particularly welcoming sports bar). Primarily it is a very real fear of being hit on by unwanted men, especially loud, drunken louts who won't take no for an answer. Thank you for another spot on summary. :)

@Curious2, @Guts, and others mansplaining: Um, feeling a little insecure? Have you ever been raped before? No?! Gee, what a surprise!
While rape is indeed, inexcusably cruel and horrible to whomever the victim is, regardless of gender---the consequences, in addition to STDs and HIV---are exponentially graver for women and girls: unwanted pregnancy. Men and boys since the dawn of time have had the unfair biological advantage of being able to dodge that last one.
And why is it that so many men and boys, who themselves will never experience menstrual periods, breast lumps, pregnancy, labor, childbirth and delivery--particularly those who call themselves exemplary Christians and vote Republican----insist on interfering with a woman's right to have control over her own body? >: (
I am quite certain that our own consistently spot on sex advice columnist, Dan Savage, will reaffirm my statement or at least come close to doing so.
Dan the Man?

@140 & @142 fubar: Don't lurk too long. You're among the good ones. Thank you and bless you for being among those who basically get it. :)

Anyone hungry for the highly celebrated Double Whammy if not the Double Hunsky this week?
Tick...tick...tick....

Lesbians/Maryanne: Again, another poster wrote that when she reveals that she is a lesbian, men often immediately start hitting on her. I find that to be weird/rude/and idiotic at the very least. In trying to figure out why some heterosexual men engage in this weird/rude/idiotic behavior, I speculate that they might think that lesbians are kinky/adventurous/easy. Other people speculate in other ways. I do not get turned on by lesbians. I do not engage in this weird/rude/idiotic behavior. I think I am being unfairly criticized. Some people are saying that as a non-lesbian I am unfit to speak about this. Honestly, I dislike "arguing by authority," but I do think that as a heterosexual man, my speculation on this topic should not be dismissed based on my identity since we are speculating about the behavior of some heterosexual men.

Restaurant staff frequently steer solo diners to the bar, because it is more efficient use of seating, and many solo diners prefer it. Men are likely to either accept it or decline it and think nothing more of it. Women are more likely to be offended by it. I am a young looking man, and very often staff offer me the bar, and I say I would prefer a table, and they often will insist upon the bar for longer than I would believe they would for an older looking man or a woman of any age. I have worked in many restaurants and it seems as if women are more likely to have seating preference than men, or at least they are more likely to voice them.

Casual Sex: For heterosexuals, casual sex or hookup culture generally leads to a fraction of men attracting a disproportionate amount of female attention, many women having sex or at least sexual opportunities but not according to their terms, and many men struggling and many men having few to no sexual opportunities. Yes, this is what incels claim, and it definitely holds water. Few men can inspire women to want to have sex with them rather quickly, and most women do not want to engage in sex in this manner and many, if not most women are unsatisfed with the current sexual culture. There is a new book called "The Right to Sex" which explores this and other issues. According to the book, 3rd Wave Feminism's idea of "Sex Positivity" pressures women to embrace hookup culture or risk being a "slut shamer" and the result is a lot of women pretending to enjoy casual sex far more than they actually do.

Female fear of casual sex: I am a man and I have long thought that women exaggerate their feelings of fear regarding casual sex. However, I have also long thought that women who want to hookup might be better off doing it at the man's home. If it is at her home, now he knows where she lives and might come back in a way she finds uncomfortable. In "Saturday Night Fever," Fran Drescher's character says she hooks up with a lot of guys and they always send flowers afterwards. Um, I guess that is nice, but if they are doing that, they might come back, perhaps especially because they sent flowers. In college, my friend Tom was one of those guys who had a lot of sex. I think that once that happens, more girls are attracted to him. Because A) he knows what he is doing B) he is less likely to tell many other people, C) he is more likely to just have sex with the girl and then they both can go their merry ways. If a woman wants to just lose her virginity, doing so with a guy who rarely has sex might be unwise because he will be hard to shake off.

San Francisco: I lived there for 3 years, which is less than I have lived in other US cities. SF has a reputation of being very socially progressive, and in Man Francisco, the dating field is said to be tilted in favor of heterosexual women (although I have more thoughts on that). I was consistently shocked at how often I encountered women being overly aggressive and massively entitled. I have 3 anecdotes of women in SF being total assholes in the men's bathroom. Nobody was transgender, and I have no anecdotes of women being total assholes in other cities.

Auntie Grizelda 143: I agree with you about rape, pregnancy, and abortion. I do not know why you are speaking to me about those topics.

nocutename @136 I'm one of those who brought up the idea of men's anger, back on p. 1. I understand you're not denying that some men get angry sometimes or that many women take care to avoid making men angry.

I think I don't feel "fearful" or "afraid" when I consider the real possibility of male anger. I don't tremble or feel my heart rate speed up. I feel practical, sensible, and annoyed that I have to consider the possibility of male anger.

And, no, I don't think that in this regard men are seen as the "default." I think that sensible men and women see the unreasonable anger of certain men as a problem, not as normal. But it's not a problem with easy solutions, given how those angry men were raised to feel that anger was their one acceptable emotion. And the problem comes because those angry men aren't recognizable as such until they get angry; up to that point they look like anyone else. My fear shows up when a man actually gets angry in my vicinity. Before that point I feel calm and rational that I'm planning for a real possibility; I don't feel afraid.

Guts @146 "I have long thought that women exaggerate their feelings of fear regarding casual sex."
Huh. I have been sexually assaulted 2 and maybe 3 times (the uncertainty was a penis that went in the wrong hole; he claimed it was just a mistake, but I will never know). None of those were by strangers jumping out from a bush. In all three cases I was in the man's bedroom on purpose, I just hadn't agreed to what was done to me. The first time was a good friend and I was just hanging out, not there for sex. The other two times I had gone over for casual sex.

I'm not terrified of casual sex and I still engage in it from time to time. But I'm quite sensibly wary that the odds of an unwanted anal insertion are not miniscule (or it wouldn't have happened twice to me in, I don't know, 30 instances of casual sex in my lifetime). My realistic risk assessment reduces my willingness to have casual sex. Dismiss that if you like; it's easy from where you sit.

My fear showed up after the unwanted anal insertions, when I went along and acted as if we were still good pals until I got home. Accusing someone of sexual assault is best done at a distance, not when you're still naked and in their house.

EricaP 147:

I am definitely not dismissive of your negative experiences.

I think that we as a society should reconsider casual sex and hookup culture, or at least its pervasiveness. The book I mentioned and several other sources suggest that I am far from alone, and that a lot of men and women are unsatisfied with it. It seems like the only true winners are the fraction of men who get a lot of hookups.

Casual sex, let's define this as having sex the first day you meet someone, can be great for both participants. However, without much of an emotional connection, it seems as if bad behavior is more likely to occur. Unwanted actions in an otherwise consensual situation, "stealthing," etc. With casual sex, women are more likely to have bad experiences, and are very often, if not usually, less likely to have pleasant experience. Also, it seems that a fraction of men get a huge amount of the hookup pie, and all men get painted with the same brush. If a man is hooking up and argues against wearing a condom, he probably has a lot of opportunities. A man with hardly any opportunities is a lot less likely to argue against a condom and ruin his chance. The men who did what they did to you are bad. They probably get far more opportunities than most men.

Guts @148, yes, all three of the men I mentioned were quite charming. It's difficult to protect oneself against be charmed by a charmer. You're right that they probably do get far more opportunities for casual sex than other men. In more recent years (and leaving aside the pandemic when COVID is the cock-blocker), I've focused on making friends first.

"let's define this as having sex the first day you meet someone,"
In most cases I had talked with them for weeks online before meeting in person. And on one occasion it was someone I knew professionally and had met several times before. And back in college casual sex could be with someone I knew from class.

I think of casual sex as sex when neither of you has suggested that a ongoing relationship might be desirable. So I think you can have casual sex with the same person several times.

*against being

@142 fubar: Anyway, in a long previous Savage Love comment thread, I remember you once saying that I can't scare you----you raised daughters. :)

@146 Guts: I believe EricaP nailed it for me in responding. Read her response in comment @147 regarding her thoughts on angry men.
" I have long thought that women exaggerate their feelings of fear regarding casual sex".
I feel that you are making a generalization here. Not all women think alike and want the same thing, and neither do all men.

@147 EricaP: Thank you. Agreed and seconded. In regards to angry men, I have had to be more aware to red flags now and am older and wiser for the wear. Beautifully summed up. Bravo and a Gold Star! :)

@135 Curious2: Thank you and bless you. You and nocutename @136 nailed it on why I am hesitant to sit in bars when dining alone, and am happy to produce a list of eating establishments to avoid for lousy food and service, apparently for single women over 50 (agreed and seconded, nocutename--I believe that age is also a contributing factor to the times I have had poor service and food quality).

Griz celebrates 20 years of freedom as of October 16, 2021.

Fubar @131, thanks for clarifying. Yes, I agree completely that large numbers of hetero men are influenced by "lesbian" porn to think of "lesbians" as women who perform sex acts with each other for men's entertainment, and that this is a good possible explanation for why men only become more interested when you attempt to get them to go away by saying (whether true or not) that you are a lesbian. Because after all, the type of man who is confused by porn is likely the same type of man who hits on women in a way that makes us feel we need to make excuses for why we will never ever want to go anywhere near them.

I will come back and share my thoughts on the debate on whether, or to what extent, fear of men informs female behaviour. It is a thing; it varies from situation to situation; but in situations where there is little or no actual threat, such as being hit on in a bar full of friends and potential witnesses, it's mostly subconscious. I agree with Nocute that if a guy I find pleasant but am not interested in dating is hitting on me, my primary motivator in wanting to let him down gently isn't that "what if he hits me/drugs and rapes me" is literally going through my mind. No, it's that I don't want to hurt his feelings, cause a scene, be the asshole. But the potential for violence is still in there somewhere, deep below the surface, even if the chance of it happening then and there is 1% or less. So we shouldn't send the message "women are afraid of men all the time," because we aren't, but "women sometimes behave in ways men don't because women are physically vulnerable in ways men are not, so, men, keep that in mind if a woman is behaving in a way you find strange, for this is a possible explanation that you need to be mindful of." Is she being weird? Perhaps she's survived things that make her more likely to see you as a danger. Be conscious and respectful of that -- don't, for instance, reason that well, YOU have the right to give random women "compliments" at a bus stop late at night because YOU aren't going to rape anyone. (An argument I've seen go on for literally hundreds of comments on Facebook.)

Griz @152: "I have long thought that women exaggerate their feelings of fear regarding casual sex".

Guts. REALLY!? Have you listened to nobody? If women are saying there is a level of fear involved in casual sex, WHY ON EARTH DO YOU NOT BELIEVE THEM?? The women making this claim perhaps don't speak for all women, BUT THEY SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. The straight men who think lesbians are easy may not speak for you, but that doesn't mean straight men thinking lesbians are easy isn't a thing. Every woman on the planet may not avoid casual sex because they fear male violence, but a lot do.
Why is it simply impossible for you to accept that WOMEN MEAN WHAT WE SAY!?

Dan and everybody: I hope you will all raise a glass in honor of Griz's much happier 20 years of being divorced as of 10/16/2021.

@155 BiDanFan: Hear, hear!

Griz celebrated yet another celebrity birthday. One of my favorite actresses, Susan Sarandon turns 75 today, and I hope to look that good at 75 if I get there. I viewed The Witches of Eastwick, again, also to celebrate another wrap--my latest Stephen King novel based score.

Re: fear of male anger vs being socialized to not cause a scene. To me, these things are just two sides of the same shitty coin that leaves women and girls vulnerable to rape and sexual assault.

Scumbags like URINE's boyfriend leverage their victims' fear to violate boundaries and push for unwanted sexual interactions (and get away with it).

Friendly, non-threatening, "nice" guys leverage their victms' socialisation to violate boundaries and push for unwanted sexual interactions (and get away with it). Sure, it's a different process and a different flavor of scumbag, but the end result is the same.

Ms Grizelda - Better luck at restaurants in future.

Ms Cute - I'm too much of an outlier for my socialization to count and thus won't speculate on the relative harms versus benefits of perception, but enjoy season ten of Call the Midwife.

Mr Guts - Did you get the spelling "Maryanne" from anywhere in particular? That one is most uncommon. (I did a spelling survey in 1979 which resulted in a comfortable majority for Mary Ann [Singleton] with Marianne [Dashwood] in clear second place.)

BiDanFan @154: "don't, for instance, reason that well, YOU have the right to give random women "compliments" at a bus stop late at night because YOU aren't going to rape anyone."

I said I'd shut up and go back to lurking, but before I do, I'd like to advise the menfolk slightly differently if I may (in my capacity as a dad).

Don't give random women "compliments" anytime, anywhere, ever. It's creepy and weird, and feeds the myth roiling your brain that your approval is some kind of currency.

Disclaimer, caveat, exception, etc.

@140: fubar, I apologize: I have had a lot of these thoughts swirling around and I suppose your anecdote about your former girlfriend's reaction to your confidently using a bathroom to which you weren't "entitled" and your mention of the privilege that (white) men enjoy kind of sparked something in me and became the impetus for my screed on fear. But you're right--you didn't deserve to have it addressed to you.

@Everyone: I have more thoughts on fear and socialization, and since this week's letters don't really seem mineable for more discussion, I'm going to hope that I don't bore you all with them. If I do, here's your content warning.

I am very aware that many women have good reason to fear men--particularly men they are romantically involved with or men who wish to be romantically involved with them, whom they are uninterested in. This last week alone has featured news stories of women killed by their partners, and a young (19 y/o) woman killed by the handyman at her apartment complex who had been pursuing her unsuccessfully; he then committed suicide. I don't mean to dismiss or diminish women's legitimate, well-deserved fear of violence at the hands of men.

It occurs to me that just as some men will only accept a "no" if it comes in the form of the idea that the woman they're hitting on is already taken as the property of another man, many men can swallow the idea of women rejecting men's advances as being based in fear for their physical safety more easily than they can deal with a rejection for other reasons, such as simply not being found attractive. Maybe it's an unconscious face-saving thing. But just as I long ago discovered that if you really don't want to eat a particular food, it is easier and you get less pushback if you claim to have an allergy to it, rather than simply not having a preference for it or disliking it, I think that a claim that women fear men is more understandable and less likely to be objected to than allowing for many women being less into casual hookups than men are.

Anyway, I want to elaborate on my statement that men are seen as the default.

I know that attitudes are changing, but everything in our culture has been structured around men being the default humans and women being accessory humans. Consider the word "man" or "mankind" used to mean "person" or "humankind." Yeah, yeah, someone's going to come at me with "sounds like you took too many gender studies classes in college," but I'm not advocating for spelling "women" "womyn" or some such thing. I mean that in many significant ways, women are considered to be subsets of men and thus need no consideration when it comes to medicine or design. Here are some quick links in case someone is unaware of the extent of the issue and why it's a problem:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/09/females-are-still-routinely-left-out-of-biomedical-research-and-ignored-in-analyses-of-data/

https://www.evoke.org/articles/july-2019/data-driven/deep_dives/the-dangers-of-gender-bias-in-design

(And it would really behoove EVERYONE to read "Invisible Women" by Caroline Criado Perez.)

When I was younger, it was common to hear that fetuses had some body part that was developed either into the mighty penis or the lowly little clitoris (this was before there was a better understanding about the clitoris--and why, all the way in the 1980s, would that be the case?).

If you don't listen to the podcast, you may want to listen to the one from August where Dan has an expert on to talk about the effects of testosterone (Episode #773 - August 17, 2021: "Let’s Talk About Testosterone," with Dr. Carole Hooven). Unfortunately, you can't hear it if you don't subscribe to the Magnum version, which is a shame, because I think it is a very important topic. If you do listen to the podcast and are a Magnum subscriber, you may remember the conversation. Hooven has a written a book called "Testosterone: the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us," and it's worth a read. You might want to "attend" the virtual lecture she gave at Harvard: (https://hmsc.harvard.edu/event/testosterone-hormone-dominates-and-divides-us).

The gist is that there are real, significant, biological differences between males and females and the problem is that this information is kind of at odds with the idea that male and female persons are alike, save for the socialization they receive. Her claim isn't so much that it's nature over nurture, but rather that they both play a role in the development of a person. She's very careful to not position one gender as superior to the other. But Dan was aware of the sort of slippery slope aspect to this research, as it seems to undermine the idea of pure equality (apologies that all this is based on a binary model of "male" and "female.") that has been driving the goal of equal rights for women.

So anyway, Dan trotted out his tired old theory that the only thing that keeps women from hooking up with random, good-looking men (i.e. acting like a man) is that they are afraid either of male violence or of being perceived to be a slut. He again tried to argue that women are just as likely to WANT to bone down with strangers they find attractive and that it is nothing but socialization that prevents this. He based this on one study he repeatedly refers to, wherein attractive men and women went around a college campus soliciting strangers of the opposite sex for sex (to no one's surprise, men were far more likely to want to take the offers). Then the experiment was repeated with the women being approached told that no one would find out (so that they wouldn't be judged or branded slutty) and suddenly all the women were DTF. * Dr. Hooven suggested that men's overwhelmingly being DTF with attractive strangers is due to testosterone coursing through their veins, and that women's relative reluctance has less to do with socialization and more with their lower levels of testosterone--or at least that the two factors of hormones and socialization can't be so easily teased apart.

What I find irksome about Dan's attitude--aside from the fact that he never seems to have consulted actual women to get their reasons for not being ready to jump into bed with a good-looking rando, given the opportunity--is that it falls into Professor Henry Higgens' lament, "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like A Man?"

This presumes that the male way of being is either superior, or at least normal or desirable and that if only more men weren't so violent, women would naturally behave as men do. I think that positions the male as the default human; the female has only been kept from acting exactly as the male does by fear which has been developed in response to a violent society in which men routinely harm women. This doesn't allow for any other "legitimate" reason for a woman to not behave exactly as men do.

Dan frequently acts as though women, deep down, want to behave exactly like men (see his comments about "everyone" wanting to fuck their baristas, etc. when he chides a woman for being upset that her boyfriend has a sexual interest in other women), and that it is only their fear of "testosterone-soaked dick-monsters" attacking them that keeps them from behaving exactly like men. Considering how far his reach is and how influential he has become, I find this not only willfully ignorant when there are so many ways to get other, possibly better explanations for female behavior, but irresponsible.

*A word about studies: these kind of studies are done almost exclusively on college campuses because the people doing them are either grad students or faculty at the institution and there is a convenient pool of test subjects. Oftentimes, people agree to be part of the studies because they are offered an incentive in the form of extra credit (I have offered my undergrad students extra credit to participate in studies or surveys when graduate students or their professors ask me to help them find enough participants), or for a pretty nominal reward (iTunes or Starbucks gift cards will buy a lot of participation). But the problem is that no matter how great the sample size, it's not representative of society at large: all the participants are usually between the ages of 18-23, all are college educated (or partially so); depending on the institution and the diversity of its students, plus the issue of who wants to participate, they may only represent one race or religious or socio-economic background. In other words, these behavioral studies almost always are conducted only from a homogeneous sample.

nocute@160
Thanks for that!

Good reminder about biology too!

Fubar @159, yup, absolutely agree, this was just one egregious example that popped into my head where a Guts-like man was asserting his right to do this very thing and refusing to listen to the dozens upon dozens of women who were (more or less) patiently explaining why he should not do the thing. Agree entirely that the late-night bus stop is not the only place men should keep their "compliments" to themselves, particularly if said "compliments" have to do with women's bodies. I like the Dwayne Johnson Rule: If you wouldn't say it to The Rock, don't say it to a woman.

Nocute @160, thanks for your thoughts.

Nearly everything I /would/ say to Dwayne Johnson, one also shouldn't say to a woman.

BiDanFan 155:

Who the hell am I not listening to? Sometimes you say you don't want my opinion, while clearly wanting my opinion. This week you said you put me on "mute" and I are now obviously reading my comments. If you could put me on mute, that might be a good idea as you are just that much of an obnoxious brat, but on the other hand I think you should read my comments as you so badly need to learn.

There’s a recently coined word for men like you, guts, and it’s mansplaining. It may not be as obvious as anger, though you’re moving that way, it’s still another way some men can’t ‘ give’ women room to have their lives, their experiences & their interpretations of their experiences.
What you need to do is back up listen and go, ‘oh ok. Thanks for sharing that.’

No worries, nocutename @160. I was just worried your account had been hacked ;)

Thanks for a very interesting post. I eavesdropped on a conversation recently about how medical studies ignore women. Many women (including a couple I know) reported irregular periods after getting their Covid-19 shots. Come to think about it, a guy was mansplaining in a women's group discussion that it's not actually a "side effect" of the vaccine because it hasn't been studied and reviewed, and could just be coincidence. The women responded that they know their goddam periods, and STFU.

Heart attacks is an important one: they can present differently in women than in men, but only the male symptoms are really talked about. And this is really only being talked about in the last couple of years. Meanwhile, women can experience abdominal pain and indigestion, and not realize they're experiencing a coronary.

Erica @121, Bi, Fubar: Just for amusement, I recall the line Audrey Hepburn uses at the start of Charade: "I know so many people. Until someone dies, I couldn't possibly meet anyone new."

nocute, your posts this week (as so often) accurately express how I feel on a number of topics (especially fear/the lack thereof). And I want to very enthusiastically second the reminder that testosterone is a nontrivial difference between the sexes. It absolutely isn't just socialization!

I have to remind myself of this from time to time--I often find myself more likely to agree with the stated positions of men on this board, or find I'm lacking sympathy for some of the stated positions of women, especially regarding casual sex, sex drive, etc. And then I remind myself that I have unusually high testosterone levels for a female--so much so that a prior ob-gyn offered to "fix" me. (This pissed me off no end.)

guts @164: Other people are quoting your comments, and so they're showing up in people's feed even if you're muted. Unless someone quotes you, BiDanFan will not see your question, "Who the hell am I not listening to?" and won't be able to answer.

When you write things like "I have long thought that women exaggerate their feelings of fear regarding casual sex", it's fairly clear that you're not listening to many of the women writing about their feelings.

Worse, you lack the personal experience to make a comment like that, lack the experience to know it's not going to be well received, and lack the humility to know that your unfounded opinion has no value.

To be fair, you've written conciliatory replies to a couple of the women who've commented, but your overall scorecard is looking pretty bleak.

This is one of the places that men can come to learn some very personal insights from women. If you like women, you should take notes.

Thanks Grizelda, got the music. I’ll find the right time to listen. I got out to hear some music over the weekend, at last.

Latest Sporty’s Mutation @ 164
Tough times. Even the one who will always stand up for the supposedly bullied doesn’t buy your shit anymore.

Congrats CMD, @169. I was tempted to snatch it myself.
Your back handed attack on me, needs a response.
I respond to the comment, which is what I’ve done with guts. Is he sportlandia, doesn’t matter to me. He presents as a stone to grind against. A cis male, like others who turn up here, with attitude. Sharpens my feminist claws.
Long as you not the brunt of any bullying, eh? All that matters to some.

Bullying is ugly, CMD. And on a thread like this, an international one, the standard needs to be higher.
Guts is vying for attention. Poor baby. Hugs to you, guts. Try harder to be a man who hears a woman.

Ms Cute - I recall the podcast and thought Mr Savage seemed to be trying to make what the Guest Expert was saying fit his line of argument. I wasn't sure what to make of her, which I think was because of his pushing. It was interesting to hear an attempt to turn an explanation not into an excuse but into a condemnation.

@160. I agree with Nocute that the question, 'why do women behave as they do?', if not very explicitly asked alongside '...and why do men behave as they do?', tends to get construed (prejudicially) as 'why don't women behave like men?'. Theories of female socialisation tend to posit that something particular, sometimes something local or sectional, has gone on in the case of women that hasn't with men, rather than even-handedly having an equally explanatory theory of male socialisation.

Incidentally, hard bioscience, it seems, has a lot stronger account of why a female (girl/woman) might present as male at birth (and later), than of trans women. The girl that appears a boy baby has a normal female karyotype (an XX genotype), but the sex-related gene on the Y chromosome (the 'Sry' gene) has translocated to another chromosome. These are cases of genetic females presenting as phenotypic males; there is no the same scope for a 46XY genetic male to get translocated. Actually the impression I have of the genetics of sexual differentiation and dimorphism is that it's not so great a resource in explaining transness. We know there are more MTF transpeople than FTM, yet the bioscience (or rather genetics) would suggest the reverse.

Lava- I consider my seen above post as an observation. Bullying is in the eye of the bullholder.

I've watched for reincarnations of the banned violent Sporty, so naturally when Guts first appeared I scrutinized his words. I even thought he was, and tested the waters with the theory that he was, Sporty. (And was not dissuaded by that he appeared confused by this.)

FWIW, I changed my mind about the specific question of whether Sporty is Guts a month or two ago, I now don't think he is.

Which does not in any way, shape, or form constitute an endorsement of Guts; in fact Sporty identification was the only reason I had even been reading the likes of his comments. (No disrespect to anyone who ever does, I'm simply very busy and picky.)

So once I decided he wasn't Sporty, I stopped. Though I did un-Mute one of his Comments @146, and the bit

"...this is what incels claim, and it definitely holds water"

jumped out at me.

I personally have so little interest in and respect for incels, I really don't want to be reading someone who is gonna feel like it's worth telling me that anything is something that incels are right about. I may not even want to be reading a man who has bothered to /learn/ what incels think out of anything but opposition.

Of course I did value reading people relate the truth of women's experience /at/ Guts. How could I not value it? Not being a woman, it was by definition something I could only learn about by listening. So, unlike when I do think that I have something to add to a discussion, I only made distantly tangential observations, and supportive remarks to demonstrate gratitude for the generous sharing of others. I thought I should repeat this, particularly since I usually have such a big mouth.

Congratulations on the double whammy, CMD @169.

Your mention of Sporty was a SMH moment, and for a moment I was convinced he's assumed another identity. Not likely, though. Sportlandia trod these pages 3/2016-5/2020, Sporklandia 1/2021 (splat), and Endless Ork (2/2021-present), whereas his doppelgänger arrived in 4/2021.

Ork seems to have tried to mitigate his participation (based on the handful of comments I unmuted for this research), which would be a wise move for anyone who's been officially reprimanded for misbehaving in the commentary. Just sayin'

@175 p.s.
"scrutinized"

By that I mean his language, and his behavior profile. While in his number of incarnations (including multiple variations on Sporklandia with different letters) Sporty has sometimes demonstrated adaptability (particularly when he stopped admitting the was a banned person, and tried to pass as Ork), in some ways (I shall not elaborate upon) I don't think Sporty has Guts' manner in him.

Curious: I read the comment you're referencing @175, and like you, I backed away slowly and did not respond.

I found the agreement with incels, and mention of the book "The Right to Sex" in the same paragraph quite disturbing. I have not read the book, but I have watched an interview with the author. She is a bona fide feminist, and /absolutely/ does not suggest that /anyone/ has a right to sex (other than with themselves). The title of the book is deliberately sensational and provocative, but simply speaks to the intersection between conventional sexual attractiveness and human rights.

To be fair, guts didn't explicitly connect the book's title to the incel point of view, but the comment made me cringe. Metaphorically, I'd have picked it up with a tissue and flushed it down the toilet. That may have to be a future SlogBlocker feature - with sound effects.

If you want to see the new column at the new site, it's up at https://savage.love/savagelove/2021/10/05/quickies-44/

That way we can be all ready to comment whenever it appears here.

Now the new column is up here at https://www.thestranger.com/savage-love/2021/10/05/61721605/savage-love

Congrats to Fubar@1!

@158 vennominon: It's good to see you up and posting again. I hope all is well your way.
I at least know where to--and NOT to--wine & dine when venturing out.

@160 nocutename: Thank you for sharing your deeply profound insights, personal experiences, and highly recommended books, podcasts, discussions, and lectures. I am on the lookout for "Invisible Women" by Caroline Criado Perez at my local bookstore.
Sadly, I don't have a Magnum subscription, and missed Dan's August 17, 2021 podcast with Dr. Carole Hooven: "Let's Talk About Testosterone". I have dealt with road-raging testosterone (I.e.: toxic masculinity) far too many times in my life to ever be comfortable with it. If only I knew at 18 what I do now.

@164: Wow, Guts. For someone who insists he isn't Sportlandia you're doing an awfully convincing impersonation.

@166 fubar: Good points made. I was in the ER a week ago for severe chest pain and had some tests done. Fortunately all tests, EKG, and chest X-rays came up negative, although it is noted that I have an irregular heartbeat. I had a follow up at my doctor's office yesterday. I feel much better now, but just to be sure I have scheduled an appointment to see a cardiologist.

@168 LavaGirl: I hope you enjoy my latest Stephen King-based installment. More to come!

@169 CMDwannabe: WA-HOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Congratulations, CMD, on scoring double numeric prizes this week by hitting The Double Whammy: (Lucky @69 + Big Hunsky @100 = @169). Bask in your much envied glory and savor your newfound riches. :)