maybe what activist circles need is not more Carries, but more Smith the Studmuffins, not just because he's far more attractive than any activist or lefty man but for the reasons Liza mentioned (and I'd add more).
You and Jon seemed annoyed at generalizations. I'm not sure whether this is an indirect jab at what I'd typed, but I have to say if you don't appreciate generalizations, both of you might want to examine your own words. All lefties? All activists? All women communicate or expression emotions this way or that? Chuck, you're discoursin' with Liza, me, Yoshie, and Joanna. I haven't gotten the impression that any of us wear long baggy skirts and combat boots or that we're uptight about sex/asexual/anti-sex.
The madonna/whore complex I mentioned as a way of interpreting the results of the survey is, of course, one interpretation. We're talking about men who WATCH Sex and the City. It's considered a chick show, so men who are actually fans might be a peculiar population. Or, they were men who, as one Men's mag put it, are watching it just before they tune into The Sopranos. Or, they doing it to please their partners. Or, they just like it.
If the madonna/whore complex makes you uneasy because it doesn't apply to you, that doesn't automatically delegitimate the interpretation. (Jon and Dwayne aren't fans or regular watchers for one thing.) No one ever claims that everyone conforms, just that we can uncover trends, tendencies. And, most sociologists will point out that society _needs_ non-conformists and, to put it too simply, society _creates_ them. :) Not to mention, there's a bit of self-serving rhetoric here: i define myself against the males who watch sports and cop those sexist attitudes. It is probably true, but there's an enjoyment there that almost demands that "those men" stay in their knuckle-dragging states.
The madonna/whore complex (shorthand_ is a pretty old phenom. (See the dirty ditty Carrol sent to the list. ) and social science researchers have uncovered it. E.g., Blumstein and Schwartz' groundbreaking, _American Couples_ which looked at the relationships of 12,000. (that's twelve THOUSAND, not twelve hundred) couples. It is evident in the sex surveys that we do on college campuses all over the country, year after year.)
Deborah Gray White writes about it in "Arn't I a Woman," arguing that the Mammy/Jezebel stereotype pervaded southern whites' attitudes toward slaves and that black women's hypersexuality (animal natures) was the foil against which White woman could be defined as virginally pure, capable of overcoming their natures in the service of Dog and men. The other foil, of course, was the Mammy who was completely unattractive -- so white woman could be sexually pure but sexually exciting if only by contrast to the Mammy.
The madonna/whore complex is also a motif in more films, television shows, novels, advice books, radio call in shows, and women's/men's magazines than you can shake an electric toothbrush at. Not to mention it is evident in things that almost everyone here has _had_ to have heard a few times in their life. Where I grew up it was, "IThaca (college) women to bed; Cornell women to wed." (townies were for the back seat, the golf course greens, or the hay lofts, acourse.)
So, I think it's just as legitimate to talk about that as a possible interpretation of the survey results, as it is to make generalizations about southern white males and the DP. Or, to talk about women in lefty/activist circles. Or, to talk about women's vs. men's ways of communicating.
I was more interested in the survey because it was getting at what I meant by the difference between the intended messages and received meanings. I think it's evident that the women in SATC are archetypes and that the shows creators want us to read Carrie against The Sexpot, The Virgin, The Bitch. Each of these archetypes have their own attractions/faults that are emphasized to the point of silliness and Carrie, it seems to me, is supposed to be read as the most real, the most interesting, the most date-able, the most fuckable, the least wacky, etc.
This is really evident in the coffee shop scenes whenever they bring up some controversial topic: spit or swallow? pussy eating etiquette. hummers. to put out or not. etc. Samantha and Charlotte typically provide the most extreme responses. Carrie and Miranda are always somewhere between them--portrayed as the most like real (or typical) women. But, Miranda is just too successful, too independent, too Redhead. She will appeal to some men. And speaking of isn't it interesting: what about the class/social power implications of pairing a high powered attorney with a barkeep? Liza?
The survey was also an example of what I think is going on when men think women have sexual power. That may be the actual case, but I don't think women have had _social_ power, historically, the create this situation. This is not to say that power is some sort of binary opposition, where power is either possessed or not possessed. (E.g, Gaventa's _Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley_)
It seems to me that, if the fellah I was writing about felt powerless in the face of female power in a pr0n flick because he was, OT1H, expected to be a man by giving women pleasure and, OTOH, felt that this knowledge (of how to pleasure women) was kept from him that this may not be because women are conspiring to create that situation. It seems to me that this situation is a residual effect of patriarchy (for lack of a better term). We may be participaing in it in ways that reproduce the system, but my whole point is not to lay the blame at individuals' feet. Rather, it's to point out how heterosexist gender oppression truncates and delimits _everyone's_ lives.
Think of it in a way that might not be as threatening: I think it's safe to say that most men grow up to believe, no matter how hard they try not to buy into it, that to be a man is to be successful in a respectable job. They feel they are measured by the size of their wallets, IOTW. When they can't attain that success, some men may feel (in the context of the women's movement/affirmative action, etc) that those Others are responsible for their inability to succeed. Or, they become angry with women for only desiring their wallet. [1]
What's _really_ going on here? Is it about white women and black and white men taking all the jobs? Or is about the realities of a world in which success simply can't be attained by everyone, in spite of a cultural ethos that insists that it is (to those who try hard enough).
Dwayne: thanks for reading this far. My reaction to your portrayal of it being a choice between Sam and Char is that, indeed, there was no such forced choice in the survey.
Sam is putting on an act? So is Charlotte. She reads self-help books on how to snag a man. Is i
Is it that Sam wants something. As in tee-shirt famous in the Navy, "Buy your own fuckin' drink." (it's a play on what sailors hear as they trek their way from the ship to the bars and massage parlors, "Buy me drink sailor and I fuck you long time."
Seems to me that Charlotte wants something too.
I guess it's not clear to me that we've escaped the residual effects of the madonna/whore complex. Whores wants something; Virgins don't. Sexually assertive women are just using sex to get something illegitimate, sexual pleasure for themselves. Or maybe it's just a put on since no real woman acts that way. Real women just aren't that interested in sex, so it has to be an act.
OK. I'm sure this feels like some sort of double bind. Apologies -- this is a pub-like forum, we're just working out ideas.
Kelley
[1] I had this conversation with the guy who installed my cable the other night. He had a lot in common with my partner and he was pretty cool, so we ended up inviting him over for dinner, since we're all also interested in kayaking The Cable Guy, Cary, was complaining about how he's tired of women measuring him by his wallet and I said, "But I don't think women only want that. There are plenty of women out their who have successful jobs... I don't know any woman who will only date a man who has $$) To which my partner said, "But you're different...." Sure, I'm different-- to a point--but I could easily detail all the ways in which I still participate in this system. I'm not dating men who have NO job or demonstrate a complete disinterest in earning a living, etc.
And this is why Brian's response, "that's not how _I_ and my partner behave...." is inadequate. If I say, in response to a description of heterosexism or explanation of why heterosexism exists, "This is not how _I_ am," does heterosexism go away. Are the claims illegitimate because one, ten, thousands or even a million people don't behave that way?