Sex, Tinder, Relationships and Romance

[+ quoththeraven]

Subtitled: some women engage in casual sex using apps like Tinder for much the same reasons other people may hire. Aka what women want is not necessarily all that different from men. There's also a brief supportive discussion of sex work.

 

http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast/172-tinder-sex-romance-and-relationships-a-frank-discussion-of-sexuality-with-amanda/

 

Excerpts (from transcript) (Sarah is the interviewer; Amanda is the interviewee):

 

Sarah: But you, you are looking at the difference between real life and the romantic ideal –

 

Amanda: Oh, yeah!

 

Sarah: – and you think there’s, like, a big distance there.

 

Amanda: There is. I mean, I wouldn’t describe any of my interactions with my Tinder dates as romantic necessarily.

 

Sarah: Now, for anyone who’s not familiar with Tinder, because someone may be listening and thinking, what’s a Tinder? What’s a Tinder?

 

Amanda: [Laughs] So, Tinder is an app on your phone, and there’s some conflict on whether it’s a dating app or a hookup app. It’s kind of whatever you make of it? I’ve, you know, gone on dates, and I’ve used it for hooking up, so it depends.... You write, like, a little profile blurb if you want. Most dudes do not. They just take a picture of themselves at the gym, and that’s essentially their entire profile. [Laughs] And you go through, and if you swipe –

 

Sarah: Like they look like that all the time?

 

Amanda: Yeah! Essentially. They’re either holding –

 

Sarah: I generally walk around in a pair of shorts, no shirt, holding a dumbbell.

 

Amanda: They’re either holding a fish or they’re a selfie. [Laughs] Those are the only two pictures.

....

 

Amanda: I mean, I have that goal. I would like that to happen eventually, but part of the reason why I, you know, took the leap into dating apps or whatever is because I was, I was super busy. During grad school, we had grad classes from six to ten o’clock at night –

 

Sarah: Right.

 

Amanda: – which was miserable. I had a full-time job or an internship. I was doing stuff for Smart Bitches. I was doing freelance writing for Book Riot. Like, I had no time to go out and try to find members of the opposite sex, and if I did go out, like, I wanted to spend time with my friends and socialize and not worry about getting picked up by a dude. So I was just kind of, like, expediting the process by using this thing?

 

Sarah: But also compartmentalizing it. Like, I, I wish for my hooking up to happen in this context. I don’t want to get dressed up so that some guy will hit on me when I want to go out with my friends.

 

Amanda: Yeah, it’s very, like, it’s – at least my experiences, what I’ve made of it, have been very businesslike, which I like. It’s like, get, like, when we’re done, leave. Like, I don’t want you to stay here.

 

Sarah: [Laughs]

 

Amanda: I want you to leave me alone! [Laughs] You know? Sometimes a high five is shared, and then I send them on their way, and I – [laughs] – which is what I’m aiming for at the moment. But you don’t see that in romance. I, there are heroines who, you know, maybe they’re an escort for their job or, or whatever, but I was thinking of, I think it was The Master where the heroine signs up to be an escort to pay her bills, ‘cause that’s what usually happens, and of course it’s her first time being an escort, so it’s, like, her first client, so, you know, she’s not a highly sexed woman.

 

Sarah: She’s not actually a sex worker.

 

Amanda: Yes.

 

Sarah: I have read very few romances that depict sex workers. Because there’s, there’s this idea that’s –

 

Amanda: Or people who enjoy doing that.

 

Sarah: Yes. There’s this, well, first of all, there’s so much built up that’s negative, so much stigma surrounding sex work, and, you know, if you do have people who are engaged in sex work in a romance, they’re, it’s, it’s for noble cause.

 

Amanda: Yeah.

 

Sarah: Like their own education or to pay some bills or something. No one, no one voluntarily does sex work because they’re good at it, it makes a lot of money, and they’re, they’re owning their agency in that way.

 

Amanda: I would love to see a heroine who, you know, is, likes having sex and is open to talking about it and, you know, gets it on the regular, and –

 

[Laughter]

 

Amanda: – like, I would just love that, and somehow, you know, she finds someone that she wants to be with, but, you know, still she’s leading her life and getting some when she needs it, and that’s that. But usually the heroine has hit a dry spell or she’s still a virgin or her scary, scary…

 

Sarah: Or she’s given up on men. Given up on men –

 

Amanda: Yeah.

 

Sarah: – because something bad happened and she’s giving up on men.

 

Amanda: I mean, men are idiots. [Laughs] Which is why I’m like, leave me alone. I’m only using you for one purpose.

 

****

 

Amanda: But it, it’s, I don’t know, it’s very strange, I guess, but if I don’t have a good conversation, like, if there’s not that interest there, I probably wouldn’t sleep with them. Aside from the Republican, which was a whole different deal. [Laughs]

(bolding added)

[BaronArtz]

60,000 years ago, humans evolved from hunter/gatherers to farmers. It is then that more or less monogamous marriages were invented. It made sense.

 

In 2013, Tinder was invented. This is the demise of the concept of monogamy and of marriage. We are going back to being hunter/gatherers. And have sex all over the place.

 

The New York Times published something brilliant about Tinder, a few months ago, I think. I have no time to look it up right now, but I will. It was a great article. I find the Tinder concept fascinating. I talk about it a lot with anybody I know in their 20s. It is a seismic change in human interactions.

[BaronArtz]

OK, here is the New York Times article I referred to. I thought it was very well written, and well researched. If you have a few minutes, recommended reading:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/nyregion/on-tinder-taking-a-swipe-at-love-or-sex-or-something-in-new-york.html

[bimbosavant]

Thank you thank you thank you so much for sharing.

 

I'm starting an "article club" like a book club with a friend and this is perfect.

 

cheers.

[+ FreshFluff]

Sarah: Or she’s given up on men. Given up on men –

 

Amanda: Yeah.

 

Sarah: – because something bad happened and she’s giving up on men.

 

Amanda: I mean, men are idiots. [Laughs] Which is why I’m like, leave me alone. I’m only using you for one purpose.

 

[....]

 

Amanda: But it, it’s, I don’t know, it’s very strange, I guess, but if I don’t have a good conversation, like, if there’s not that interest there, I probably wouldn’t sleep with them. Aside from the Republican, which was a whole different deal. [Laughs]

 

This sounds less like carefree sex than the result of unsuccessful attempts to use Tinder to find a relationship.

[+ quoththeraven]

This sounds less like carefree sex than the result of unsuccessful attempts to use Tinder to find a relationship.

 

She was talking about romance novel heroines at that point, not Tinder.

[BaronArtz]

She was talking about romance novel heroines at that point, not Tinder.

 

Isn't that every woman's dream though, to be a romance novel heroine? Not that I understand much about women ...

[+ quoththeraven]

Isn't that every woman's dream though, to be a romance novel heroine? Not that I understand much about women ...

 

She was being critical (as in "I hate stories where this happens"). And no. There are women who hate the concept of romance novels (because the subtext is "every woman needs a man/relationships are the most important thing in life") and don't or won't read them. I used to be one of them. I started reading gay romance well before trying heterosexual romance. (For one thing, gay romance doesn't feature tortured, stupid gender role inequality, aka heteronormativity.) It took me awhile to find books and authors whose stories didn't make me want to stab something.

 

Note: some of Jane Austen's books would technically qualify as romance novels, but they were written ages before the advent of what we mean by the term romance novel.

[+ quoththeraven]

Isn't that every woman's dream though, to be a romance novel heroine? Not that I understand much about women ...

 

More on this point:

 

Is Feminist Romance an Oxymoron?

 

Women are more varied, and possibly more like you, than you may think. Some women have no interest in men sexually, but they may not be butch. And they may still have children with a man (witness gay SF writer Samuel Delany marrying a lesbian friend with whom he had a daughter) or otherwise. They have casual sex or don't, practice serial monogamy or don't. Their lives and beliefs can change over time.

 

Don't think of women as aliens but individuals with their own stories to tell and particular strengths in getting the details right, communication, and being practical instead of thinking things will get done magically just because we say they will or want them to.

[+ FreshFluff]

I'll admit it, I skimmed. But still, the interviewer's statement "I mean, men are idiots. [Laughs] Which is why I’m like, leave me alone. I’m only using you for one purpose" sounds very similar to something the romance novel heroines they're deriding would say. "Men are idiots" sounds a lot better than "I've been hurt."

 

BA, some women do see romance novels the same way men view porn. Τhey may want men to treat them like the male protagonists do, but they don't necessarily want the guys themselves. This guy does absolutely nothing for me.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51C4CYZfbYL._SX346_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

[BaronArtz]

But still, the interviewer's statement "I mean, men are idiots. [Laughs] Which is why I’m like, leave me alone. I’m only using you for one purpose" sounds very similar to something the romance novel heroines they're deriding would say. "Men are idiots" sounds a lot better than "I've been hurt."

 

 

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51C4CYZfbYL._SX346_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

 

 

I picked up on that line as well. Men are idiots? That really sounds like somebody who has been hurt. If not, I find that very cold, very sad, very depressing. I assume this is still a fairly young woman making this statement. Sad, overall. If I was straight, I wouldn't want to date her ... In fact, WHO would want to date her? I see (young) women with that sort of attitude quite often here in NYC. They are the ones complaining all the time about guys not being interested in them ... Well.

 

And 'Fabio' doesn't do it for me either ... LOL

[+ quoththeraven]

I'll admit it, I skimmed. But still, the interviewer's statement "I mean, men are idiots. [Laughs] Which is why I’m like, leave me alone. I’m only using you for one purpose" sounds very similar to something the romance novel heroines they're deriding would say. "Men are idiots" sounds a lot better than "I've been hurt."

 

BA, some women do see romance novels the same way men view porn. Τhey may want men to treat them like the male protagonists do, but they don't necessarily want the guys themselves. This guy does absolutely nothing for me.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51C4CYZfbYL._SX346_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Fabio hasn't been on a romance novel cover since the 80s or 90s, but he is the cliche everyone brings up.

 

Yes, the women who cringe when romance is derided as porn for women are hypocrites, but it's as much if not more that it's where women write about sex and feel okay about sex.

 

I think you are misinterpreting Amanda's comments about men being idiots. (Or as a Twitter acquaintance of mine says, "Men are the worst.") I feel that way sometimes. (Nothing personal, guys.) Men are brought up to repress their feelings, expect to communicate telepathically (or something), and expect others to defer to them and their opinions and need their insight on any topic (to the point where there's a term for it, mansplaining). That also bleeds over to dating culture. It can't all be boiled down to "she was hurt."

 

It's not unheard of for men to be jerks. Not that women can't be, but they are either subtler about it or are jerky in a totally different way than men are.

 

You also seem to be missing that this is a website equally devoted to critiquing romance novels as to celebrating them. I don't understand what point you're trying to make with your observations and what they have to do with Tinder, dating, relationships and sexuality other than attacking a stray comment made by a woman using an app similarly to the way men on this forum use Grindr or why some of us hire (no time for relationships, no strings attached, efficient and uncomplicated).

[+ quoththeraven]

I picked up on that line as well. Men are idiots? That really sounds like somebody who has been hurt. If not, I find that very cold, very sad, very depressing. I assume this is still a fairly young woman making this statement. Sad, overall. If I was straight, I wouldn't want to date her ... In fact, WHO would want to date her? I see (young) women with that sort of attitude quite often here in NYC. They are the ones complaining all the time about guys not being interested in them ... Well.

 

And 'Fabio' doesn't do it for me either ... LOL

 

Everyone can read the interview for themselves and decide. I think you are misinterpreting. She is having a good time until such time she wants a serious relationship. That is not much different from men her age. (She's in her mid-20s.) Why is this painted as desperation or some big deal?

 

Also, you seem to have missed that plenty of men are interested in her and not all of her dates are hookups.

 

I imagine, from your comments here, that you were raised with vastly different expectations of women. Women are more variable than you think.

 

As for Fabio, see my comment to FF above. If I have time later (doubtful, as I need to shovel my car out), I will post representative romance novel covers of today.