As if confirmation of an ideological Zeitgeist fell from heaven, a friend recently came across a dating advice article entitled, "6 Ways to Train Your Boyfriend", where the writer interviews Amy Sutherland, author of "What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers". Here are two other women who can attest to the power of psychological awareness and behavior modification for communicating more effectively with your man.
One part worth quoting emphasizes how communicating what you want to a man through specific direction and demonstration gives him a chance to show his true attitude towards you and his potential as a partner:
"The average guy is plenty romantic, but he's not hardwired to plan out the little details. So if you can't remember the last time he put together a romantic night for you both, you'll have to show him the way. Start by staging your apartment with cues that get you going, like candles and a sultry soundtrack. Have your favorite chilled wine on hand so you can ask him to open it before dinner. This creates a ritual in his mind. Eventually, not only will he get a sense of what your romantic needs are, but he'll also start making a game plan of his own."
See Dating Advice: 6 Ways to Train Your Boyfriend
Also see What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers
Friday, August 7, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
How to Train a Man
Let me let you in on a little secret: Despite all their posturing, men are actually really vulnerable to women, and most men will do anything to hide this. Every day, they obsess over women’s bodies, women’s sensuality, women’s opinions of them, their ability to please women romantically and in bed…. and how to cover all that up under the illusion that they are indifferent to whether women like them or not. Some common ways men are encouraged to prove this indifference to themselves and others include disrespectful talk about women with the guys, trying to hurt women’s feelings, and generally defying what women want. Curiously, all such attempts from them seem to require an audience, usually male, which operates as a pep rally for psyching themselves out until they actually believe themselves.
They go to great lengths to hide their constant vulnerability towards the opposite sex from themselves. In relationships, they might hold on to this persistent façade by arguing, being contradictory, teasing and pushing buttons, and acting out in brazen selfishness with anything from using porn to blowing off household chores.
The thing about denial, however, is that the charade used to mask what one is so ashamed of has to escalate in intensity in order to keep blocking out one’s ever-nagging consciousness of it. And so you see some men making public attempts to provoke women with insults, making a show of indifference towards women’s unhappiness with them, speaking about women in a diminutive way with terms that trivialize their womanhood, and even acting out in physical ways against women. They make a hobby out of denying their emotional vulnerability to women’s approval of them, apparently bitter that women still dominate their thought life.
The fact that so many men work so hard to act this way in front of an audience shows just how much their behavior is an attempt to change their social image rather than being an indication of how they actually feel. Why do they have to prove their emotional invulnerability to others if they are so secure about it? Why put so much effort into denying something if they don't have something to hide?
It’s just like what many of us experienced with boys back in elementary school: boys often went out of their way to provoke, insult, and otherwise annoy the girls they actually liked and wanted to be around in order to prevent them and everyone else from knowing it. (Brilliant, eh? Lot of good it did them).
So, if men’s posturing and arguing don’t necessarily indicate what they want, but how they want to appear, what are they hiding? Consciously or subconsciously, men want more than anything to be wanted by women, to be able to attract the focused attention of the woman they're pursuing to the same degree that she attracts they're attention, which is a lot. Why do you think they drop their guy friends so readily once they get love-struck by some mysterious woman?
This means that whatever behavior of his manages to draw her attention and keep it on him largely determines how he treats her, whether that be because he is charming her or pissing her off.
When a man is really interested in a woman, whatever she wants in a man is what he wants to be for her, because he wants his already intense attention and appreciation of her womanly charms to be reciprocated. If she accommodates her own interests, he will adjust his behavior to ensure he continues to remain one of them. Once he has that reciprocation, however, he’s got what he wants so he has no reason to change what he’s doing. That’s alright if what he’s doing is bending over backwards to please you, but not if he’s slacking off. Give a man his ego trip and your attention and he’ll take both. Make him choose between the two and, if he’s into you, he’ll eventually choose your attention and drop the attitude.
Behavior therapy is very handy for this purpose.
The incentive for a man to leave his comfort zone and charm a woman is her expression of pleasure and approval when he responds in a charming way. Consistent acknowledgement of what a man does right will evoke more of the same from him, and willingness to go even beyond that to do other things you suggest. Expressing satisfaction when he does it right is the key to keeping it going.
All men, however, are prone to slip into the selfish modes of their upbringing. If they think they can’t be what a woman wants, they will settle for negative attention from a woman and begin to provoke her. Often, women can reinforce a bad behavior in a man just by giving him extra attention for it, even if it’s negative attention. That’s why negative attention towards men, like nagging or throwing dishes at them, rarely keeps a bad behavior of theirs at bay for very long- it is still a type of attention. This is where your honesty about how his behaviors turn you on or off comes in handy, if it’s expressed as an increase or decrease in your interest.
One of the best ways to discourage a bad behavior then is to highlight your lack of interest in it. Whether he’s just getting to know you or he already knows better, let the loss of your attention be the punishment for his disrespectful or difficult attitude by taking distance from him in whatever way works best for you.
If he complains about your cooking, for example, have him cook for himself the following night while you go out to dinner with a friend. If he teases you or makes jokes at your expense, look at him as if he’s speaking gibberish and acting unusually strange, then postpone your Saturday night plans with him to go out with the ladies to a hot comedy club instead. It will be much funnier than him, apparently. If he argues with your personal decisions, or pressures you to change them, cut your time with him short by saying you have to get up early in the morning and need the whole bed to yourself to get a full night’s rest. Subtle reminders that you have other things you can be doing and other people to see will usually snap a man out of his indifference act.
If he repeats any of these negative behaviors, tell him directly what you don’t like about what he’s doing, and what behavior you want from him instead. If he persists despite your warning, tell him to leave so you can re-evaluate the relationship, then ignore his calls. Don’t argue. Take space and cool down. He’ll regret it later. A woman doesn’t have to get emotional and upset to teach a man a lesson. Just give him a choice.
If you’re in a female-led relationship, you can make a policy of stopping a heated argument by tying him to a chair in the bedroom for a little while and getting other things done around the house. Don’t forget to gag him! It gives him time to calm down and rethink his approach and it gives you time to do something you enjoy instead. Finish that book you’re in the middle of, or order take-out and relax in front of a rented movie.
To complete his lessons, wait until he shows a change of heart and until you’re feeling better, and then give him a chance to rephrase what he was trying to say before. Tell him what behavior you want from him instead of what he did, what type of behavior will please you, and have him do a few practice runs with you right then and there. When he does it to your satisfaction, reinforce this with some light praise.
Then, just to prove to the both of you that he can earn back your trust and confidence in him, assign him an unpleasant task or duty as a punishment for having upset you in the first place. It will prove just how sorry he really is for putting you down and being knowingly offensive. It can be cleaning toilets, buying tampons at a crowded supermarket, or bending over to take a spanking of some sort. You’d be surprised how much better you’ll feel once he accomplishes this as a token of his commitment to change his attitude. And once he endures it, he will feel much more optimistic about trying to be the man you want, now that he has a way to make up for his possible failures and start over with a clean slate from you. The more a man thinks he can be what a woman wants, and knows she won’t tolerate anything less, the more he will try for the positive attention rather than the negative attention.
In fact, assigning a man tasks that benefit you, especially tasks that challenge him, and showing him positive attention when he carries them out, strengthens this positive dynamic, increasing your trust in and satisfaction with him and increasing his sense of adventure in pleasing you.
Physical challenges are the best. Ask him if he can cook a three course French meal totally nude without burning himself or the food. See if he can carry both you and the groceries up the stairs and through the front door at the same time. Have him vacuum the whole house each day with 20-pound weights on his arms and legs. That will help get him in shape. Suggest he practice Kegel exercises and see how many times in a row you can have sex without him losing his erection. There are endless variations on this theme. Make sure when he succeeds to show him how excited and pleased you are by the results of his hard work. Challenge him to make slightly larger sacrifices of his comfort zone than he is used to in order to accommodate your sense of fun, and both of you will be excited when he exceeds his previous achievements. It will increase his excitement about making you ultra happy.
These are just the basics, of course. A woman can develop her own strategies along these same principles, according to what she knows about her partner, and the relationship will take on its own style of conflict resolution and romance.
Training a man is all about a woman getting the most from her man for the building of intimacy in the relationship, which requires him to come out of his privileged status so he can get to know and relate to her more. Helping him break free from ridiculous corporate myths and personal denial by confronting him with his desire for and attraction to her is all part of it. Why should other men's delusions control his state of mind towards her and get in the way of the intimacy between them?
For more, check out Sherry Argov's advice on getting the most out of your man.
They go to great lengths to hide their constant vulnerability towards the opposite sex from themselves. In relationships, they might hold on to this persistent façade by arguing, being contradictory, teasing and pushing buttons, and acting out in brazen selfishness with anything from using porn to blowing off household chores.
The thing about denial, however, is that the charade used to mask what one is so ashamed of has to escalate in intensity in order to keep blocking out one’s ever-nagging consciousness of it. And so you see some men making public attempts to provoke women with insults, making a show of indifference towards women’s unhappiness with them, speaking about women in a diminutive way with terms that trivialize their womanhood, and even acting out in physical ways against women. They make a hobby out of denying their emotional vulnerability to women’s approval of them, apparently bitter that women still dominate their thought life.
The fact that so many men work so hard to act this way in front of an audience shows just how much their behavior is an attempt to change their social image rather than being an indication of how they actually feel. Why do they have to prove their emotional invulnerability to others if they are so secure about it? Why put so much effort into denying something if they don't have something to hide?
It’s just like what many of us experienced with boys back in elementary school: boys often went out of their way to provoke, insult, and otherwise annoy the girls they actually liked and wanted to be around in order to prevent them and everyone else from knowing it. (Brilliant, eh? Lot of good it did them).
So, if men’s posturing and arguing don’t necessarily indicate what they want, but how they want to appear, what are they hiding? Consciously or subconsciously, men want more than anything to be wanted by women, to be able to attract the focused attention of the woman they're pursuing to the same degree that she attracts they're attention, which is a lot. Why do you think they drop their guy friends so readily once they get love-struck by some mysterious woman?
This means that whatever behavior of his manages to draw her attention and keep it on him largely determines how he treats her, whether that be because he is charming her or pissing her off.
When a man is really interested in a woman, whatever she wants in a man is what he wants to be for her, because he wants his already intense attention and appreciation of her womanly charms to be reciprocated. If she accommodates her own interests, he will adjust his behavior to ensure he continues to remain one of them. Once he has that reciprocation, however, he’s got what he wants so he has no reason to change what he’s doing. That’s alright if what he’s doing is bending over backwards to please you, but not if he’s slacking off. Give a man his ego trip and your attention and he’ll take both. Make him choose between the two and, if he’s into you, he’ll eventually choose your attention and drop the attitude.
Behavior therapy is very handy for this purpose.
The incentive for a man to leave his comfort zone and charm a woman is her expression of pleasure and approval when he responds in a charming way. Consistent acknowledgement of what a man does right will evoke more of the same from him, and willingness to go even beyond that to do other things you suggest. Expressing satisfaction when he does it right is the key to keeping it going.
All men, however, are prone to slip into the selfish modes of their upbringing. If they think they can’t be what a woman wants, they will settle for negative attention from a woman and begin to provoke her. Often, women can reinforce a bad behavior in a man just by giving him extra attention for it, even if it’s negative attention. That’s why negative attention towards men, like nagging or throwing dishes at them, rarely keeps a bad behavior of theirs at bay for very long- it is still a type of attention. This is where your honesty about how his behaviors turn you on or off comes in handy, if it’s expressed as an increase or decrease in your interest.
One of the best ways to discourage a bad behavior then is to highlight your lack of interest in it. Whether he’s just getting to know you or he already knows better, let the loss of your attention be the punishment for his disrespectful or difficult attitude by taking distance from him in whatever way works best for you.
If he complains about your cooking, for example, have him cook for himself the following night while you go out to dinner with a friend. If he teases you or makes jokes at your expense, look at him as if he’s speaking gibberish and acting unusually strange, then postpone your Saturday night plans with him to go out with the ladies to a hot comedy club instead. It will be much funnier than him, apparently. If he argues with your personal decisions, or pressures you to change them, cut your time with him short by saying you have to get up early in the morning and need the whole bed to yourself to get a full night’s rest. Subtle reminders that you have other things you can be doing and other people to see will usually snap a man out of his indifference act.
If he repeats any of these negative behaviors, tell him directly what you don’t like about what he’s doing, and what behavior you want from him instead. If he persists despite your warning, tell him to leave so you can re-evaluate the relationship, then ignore his calls. Don’t argue. Take space and cool down. He’ll regret it later. A woman doesn’t have to get emotional and upset to teach a man a lesson. Just give him a choice.
If you’re in a female-led relationship, you can make a policy of stopping a heated argument by tying him to a chair in the bedroom for a little while and getting other things done around the house. Don’t forget to gag him! It gives him time to calm down and rethink his approach and it gives you time to do something you enjoy instead. Finish that book you’re in the middle of, or order take-out and relax in front of a rented movie.
To complete his lessons, wait until he shows a change of heart and until you’re feeling better, and then give him a chance to rephrase what he was trying to say before. Tell him what behavior you want from him instead of what he did, what type of behavior will please you, and have him do a few practice runs with you right then and there. When he does it to your satisfaction, reinforce this with some light praise.
Then, just to prove to the both of you that he can earn back your trust and confidence in him, assign him an unpleasant task or duty as a punishment for having upset you in the first place. It will prove just how sorry he really is for putting you down and being knowingly offensive. It can be cleaning toilets, buying tampons at a crowded supermarket, or bending over to take a spanking of some sort. You’d be surprised how much better you’ll feel once he accomplishes this as a token of his commitment to change his attitude. And once he endures it, he will feel much more optimistic about trying to be the man you want, now that he has a way to make up for his possible failures and start over with a clean slate from you. The more a man thinks he can be what a woman wants, and knows she won’t tolerate anything less, the more he will try for the positive attention rather than the negative attention.
In fact, assigning a man tasks that benefit you, especially tasks that challenge him, and showing him positive attention when he carries them out, strengthens this positive dynamic, increasing your trust in and satisfaction with him and increasing his sense of adventure in pleasing you.
Physical challenges are the best. Ask him if he can cook a three course French meal totally nude without burning himself or the food. See if he can carry both you and the groceries up the stairs and through the front door at the same time. Have him vacuum the whole house each day with 20-pound weights on his arms and legs. That will help get him in shape. Suggest he practice Kegel exercises and see how many times in a row you can have sex without him losing his erection. There are endless variations on this theme. Make sure when he succeeds to show him how excited and pleased you are by the results of his hard work. Challenge him to make slightly larger sacrifices of his comfort zone than he is used to in order to accommodate your sense of fun, and both of you will be excited when he exceeds his previous achievements. It will increase his excitement about making you ultra happy.
These are just the basics, of course. A woman can develop her own strategies along these same principles, according to what she knows about her partner, and the relationship will take on its own style of conflict resolution and romance.
Training a man is all about a woman getting the most from her man for the building of intimacy in the relationship, which requires him to come out of his privileged status so he can get to know and relate to her more. Helping him break free from ridiculous corporate myths and personal denial by confronting him with his desire for and attraction to her is all part of it. Why should other men's delusions control his state of mind towards her and get in the way of the intimacy between them?
For more, check out Sherry Argov's advice on getting the most out of your man.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Chivalry is Not Dead
Many people in our culture often give women the impression that the way to get a man to contribute more to a relationship, to motivate him to meet a woman’s needs and wants, is by figuring out what men want and giving it to them. Hogwash.
Put them to work. Give them a list of duties to accomplish that will free up your time if they want to continue taking it up. Assign them challenging tasks that would really excite you to see them carry out, and tell them what they can do that will really impress you and make you want them over other men. Decide on rules of conduct for them that will make you comfortable when they are around you, and determine the consequences, both bad and good, for breaking or keeping these rules. Then carry them out accordingly. Why do you think men are so devoted and dedicated to their workplace?
For a relationship to last and keep both partners interested it is important to put the woman’s happiness first before the man’s, because in romance and sex men are easily pleased compared to women; and if she’s happy, he’s happy.
Nevertheless, many people consider it to be a sign of weakness of will for a man to defer to what a woman wants of him, or what she values as right, on a regular basis. In a culture where male dominance is considered the norm, male reverence and submission to women is difficult to confess the existence of, usually resulting in people going into a panic whenever they are forced to confront it.
Yet, the men of our culture publicly show reverence and submission all the time. They show reverence for and unquestioning submission to rituals of national unity, fraternal rights of passage, military superiors, and athletic coaches. They show emotional abandon and devotion towards sports teams, sports cars, and successful male role models. In plain sight, men who our society recognizes as masculine are submissive with certain people, and in certain contexts. They know that public submission and deference to others doesn't make them weak-willed, because society recognizes the ability of men to be submissive in certain relationships while remaining competitive and assertive in others. As long as their submission is aimed at men and male traditional values, no one has a problem with it.
So, the controversy surrounding the concept of male submissiveness is not over men having a submissive side, but rather over what men choose to ascribe sacredness to and recognize the power of.
When men in our culture choose to apply their submissive adoration towards other men, they also choose to channel their physical competitiveness and self assertion elsewhere- and guess where that might be. Current male social leaders and media directors still discourage men from offering their submission to female role models, female authority figures, or any symbol of collective female values, fearing that to do so would eliminate the one area of life where men still have opportunity to express their aggressive and competitive natures without immediate danger to themselves –their relationships with women. They prefer to use social interaction with women as an outlet for their physical prowess and pioneering independence by attacking women and defying their desires. Tackling a female associate to the floor doesn’t require much discipline or risk of physical injury, nor imagination for that matter, and it doesn’t endanger a man's popularity with other guys; yet it gives them the appearance of being competitive in the eyes of other men. I suppose you could say such men are “dick-whipped”.
Believe it or not, there was a time in history when venerating and deferring to a woman was seen as a sign of heterosexuality. Yes, it’s true. Back then, men consciously chose to meet their need for submission, their need for a leader and a source of inspiration, by deferring to women and worshiping female values. Out of loyalty, they devoted their physical strengths and hormone-derived valor to protecting the interests of women and applied their desire to compete to male troublemakers or alternate suitors. Prestigious men were expected to serve and entertain women, which was considered a sign of strength of will. To not serve women in this way eliminated a man’s common ground with other men, came across as undisciplined, and made him generally unpopular. In fact, public submission to women was one of men’s most favorite hobbies and gave them opportunity for all kinds of creative play and adventure. This cultural movement was chivalry, practiced across Europe and England from the 11th century to the 13th century. The men who bound themselves to live by its code did so to join a brotherhood of knights who worked to protect their society.
These men were not afraid of risk or hard work. After choosing the profession, a man went through a long and arduous right of passage before being tested and approved to serve as a knight. His right of passage involved: seven years of working as a servant for a knight’s household, another seven years serving the prestigious woman of his choice by carrying out duties for her designed to test and refine his character, being ordained a knight in an elaborate ritual, fasting for twenty-four hours, staying up all night in a church watching his new uniform, and undergoing a religious confession and communion, all before being allowed to swear loyalty to the code of chivalry.1
It seems the code of chivalry was so attractive to these hardened men of war because it gave men an honorable social role and a meaningful guide to measure their own manliness by. The principles of the code were the love of adventure, carrying out service as guards or soldiers with noble virtues, protecting the safety and honor of all women, showing loyal devotion and deference to one chosen noblewoman, and carrying their services out with self-sacrificing generosity and courage. This often took the form of practical protection of women from physical attack, which led to the practice of a noblewoman selecting a favored knight to escort her to her carriage; the role of escort eventually allowed opportunity for a knight to express his devotion to protecting a noblewoman by deferring to her wishes, as trivial or challenging and risky as they might be. This included defending women’s honor by protecting them from insult, as well as simply entertaining them with creative praise or performing athletic challenges.2
The movement was believed to be a reaction against the barbaric violence and corrupt excesses that were the customs of battle for warriors under the direction of feudal lords; the notion of chivalry developed among knights as they began to pursue a more just and noble purpose for their social role. In contrast to past self-centered values, chivalric knights identified their purpose as adventurously protecting women, upholding traditionally female virtues, and worshiping the inspirational power of femininity.3 They worshiped femininity in spirit and in action.
Spiritually, they venerated what they considered to be female values by emulating them. The values of honor, courtesy, hospitality to the poor and oppressed, deference to others, unselfish love, endurance of suffering, loyalty, chastity, and faith in God- these were all seen as the virtues of the Virgin Mary, which they valued as noble and sought to experience personally for their own edification of purpose.4
In action, they protected women from physical danger and social insult while also putting their newfound female virtues to use by honoring and pleasing women with their masculine strengths. Knights saw the truest and purist expression of heterosexual love as a man’s worshipful longing for a woman in response to her powers of sensual appeal and savvy, channeling their passion for her into honor and praise for lack of a sexual outlet. For this reason, knights from this period of time courted their chosen mistress while practicing chastity.5
One historian says,
“Thus, the lady leaves her isolation and becomes an inspiration; the relationship between the sexes tends to acquire a teaching dimension, above all else for the man, the sentiment of feminine gentleness and the joy of serving the lady disciplining and gentling his warrior roughness and ferocity.” 6
There are still men who connect with this archetype of masculinity and relate to its way of building relationships with women. Though they do not have the advantage of an organized brotherhood or a universal code of demonstration to be recognized as such by women, they do tend to have certain features in common and their behavior takes on a similar pattern.
They make their woman their first social priority. They like to run errands and take care of chores for a woman, cook dinner for her, and attend to her in public. They like to listen to a woman without interrupting her, take an interest in what she thinks without arguing with her, and show a great interest in her work with the admiration and support of a devoted fan. They see the merit in doing things her way at home and in the relationship. They remember what she likes and do it often. They let her set the pace for sexual activity, and once invited they attend to her needs and interests first; they are intensely sexually loyal. They don’t take their sexual cues from porn films. They do not ejaculate prematurely.
They might open doors for women, but it is not out of an effort to confine women’s labor or public role. On the contrary, these men prefer to play the role of assistant to women who are professionally successful and highly independent -women who have their own sense of direction and are not afraid to apply it to men. And yet, at the same time, they will confidently compete with other men, even aggressively, and assert themselves in their profession or hobbies. Again, male selective submissive allegiance to a woman is hard for some to conceive of, but it is much the same thing as a sports fan’s intense admiration for a highly skilled and talented professional athlete. Women may tend to take their strengths as women for granted, but these men don’t.*
Contrary to popular belief, there are a good number of men out there with this disposition, though they are not always obvious to women because they aren’t the ones causing a public commotion in a desperate attempt to get female attention. They’d rather pay attention, and then appeal to her personal interests to earn her attention from her. Perhaps the best way for a woman to find them is to develop a healthy interest in what she wants and use an online profile to let men know exactly what that is so that discerning men will find her. This tends to weed out the self-absorbed ones.
The more clearly women perceive how masculinity and male submissive allegiance to women are not only compatible but also interdependent, the higher women’s standards for men’s attitude and behavior will rise, and the men who want the adventure of a real relationship will meet the challenge. Setting low standards to help a self-centered man get the swing of things in the adult world is a waste of time. Men are not stupid. Men are quite capable; if they aren’t taking direction, the issue is one of willingness.
But there’s no need to contend with an unwilling man. Men that are chivalry-oriented are already motivated, getting a sense of adventure and importance from performing a service for a woman. They are willing to work for a woman’s love and happiness because they don’t take women for granted. All they need is direction.
And why should women doubt it? Women’s physical sensuality and intellectual power exerts a force over men that disarms them of their competitiveness and inspires them to serve instead. It has inspired men to do all kinds of spectacular things in the effort to be as noticeable and interesting for women as women are for them. Women’s power of sensual allure has inspired whole fleets of warriors to rein in the barbaric carelessness and wasteful excesses that were the custom of their position in society and to conform their way of life to a strict ethical code of behavior. All without having to give sex to any of them.
* For a great example of the chivalrous man, and this combination of competitiveness with female adoration, watch The Widow of St. Pierre, with Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil. Also read Graceling by Kristin Cashore.
1 (Sidney, pp.260-261), (Elvins, pp.2-8, 59-61)
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., (Westerson, 2007)
4 (Elvins, pp.2-8, 59-61)
5 (Westerfield, 2007), (Elvins, pp.2-8, 59-61)
6 (Elvins, pp.7-8, quoting Giuseppe Salvioli from ‘Cavalleria’, II Digesto Italiano, Florence, 1912)
Elvins, M. T. (2006). Gospel Chivalry: Franciscan Romanticism. Leominster, Herefordshire: Gracewing.
Sidney, Low, Sir.(1973). Dictionary of English History. New York: Cassell.
Westerson, Jeri. (2007, November 12). Getting Medieval: The Code of Chivalry and Courtly Love. Posted to http://jeriwesterson.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/11/the-code-of-chi.html
Put them to work. Give them a list of duties to accomplish that will free up your time if they want to continue taking it up. Assign them challenging tasks that would really excite you to see them carry out, and tell them what they can do that will really impress you and make you want them over other men. Decide on rules of conduct for them that will make you comfortable when they are around you, and determine the consequences, both bad and good, for breaking or keeping these rules. Then carry them out accordingly. Why do you think men are so devoted and dedicated to their workplace?
For a relationship to last and keep both partners interested it is important to put the woman’s happiness first before the man’s, because in romance and sex men are easily pleased compared to women; and if she’s happy, he’s happy.
Nevertheless, many people consider it to be a sign of weakness of will for a man to defer to what a woman wants of him, or what she values as right, on a regular basis. In a culture where male dominance is considered the norm, male reverence and submission to women is difficult to confess the existence of, usually resulting in people going into a panic whenever they are forced to confront it.
Yet, the men of our culture publicly show reverence and submission all the time. They show reverence for and unquestioning submission to rituals of national unity, fraternal rights of passage, military superiors, and athletic coaches. They show emotional abandon and devotion towards sports teams, sports cars, and successful male role models. In plain sight, men who our society recognizes as masculine are submissive with certain people, and in certain contexts. They know that public submission and deference to others doesn't make them weak-willed, because society recognizes the ability of men to be submissive in certain relationships while remaining competitive and assertive in others. As long as their submission is aimed at men and male traditional values, no one has a problem with it.
So, the controversy surrounding the concept of male submissiveness is not over men having a submissive side, but rather over what men choose to ascribe sacredness to and recognize the power of.
When men in our culture choose to apply their submissive adoration towards other men, they also choose to channel their physical competitiveness and self assertion elsewhere- and guess where that might be. Current male social leaders and media directors still discourage men from offering their submission to female role models, female authority figures, or any symbol of collective female values, fearing that to do so would eliminate the one area of life where men still have opportunity to express their aggressive and competitive natures without immediate danger to themselves –their relationships with women. They prefer to use social interaction with women as an outlet for their physical prowess and pioneering independence by attacking women and defying their desires. Tackling a female associate to the floor doesn’t require much discipline or risk of physical injury, nor imagination for that matter, and it doesn’t endanger a man's popularity with other guys; yet it gives them the appearance of being competitive in the eyes of other men. I suppose you could say such men are “dick-whipped”.
Believe it or not, there was a time in history when venerating and deferring to a woman was seen as a sign of heterosexuality. Yes, it’s true. Back then, men consciously chose to meet their need for submission, their need for a leader and a source of inspiration, by deferring to women and worshiping female values. Out of loyalty, they devoted their physical strengths and hormone-derived valor to protecting the interests of women and applied their desire to compete to male troublemakers or alternate suitors. Prestigious men were expected to serve and entertain women, which was considered a sign of strength of will. To not serve women in this way eliminated a man’s common ground with other men, came across as undisciplined, and made him generally unpopular. In fact, public submission to women was one of men’s most favorite hobbies and gave them opportunity for all kinds of creative play and adventure. This cultural movement was chivalry, practiced across Europe and England from the 11th century to the 13th century. The men who bound themselves to live by its code did so to join a brotherhood of knights who worked to protect their society.
These men were not afraid of risk or hard work. After choosing the profession, a man went through a long and arduous right of passage before being tested and approved to serve as a knight. His right of passage involved: seven years of working as a servant for a knight’s household, another seven years serving the prestigious woman of his choice by carrying out duties for her designed to test and refine his character, being ordained a knight in an elaborate ritual, fasting for twenty-four hours, staying up all night in a church watching his new uniform, and undergoing a religious confession and communion, all before being allowed to swear loyalty to the code of chivalry.1
It seems the code of chivalry was so attractive to these hardened men of war because it gave men an honorable social role and a meaningful guide to measure their own manliness by. The principles of the code were the love of adventure, carrying out service as guards or soldiers with noble virtues, protecting the safety and honor of all women, showing loyal devotion and deference to one chosen noblewoman, and carrying their services out with self-sacrificing generosity and courage. This often took the form of practical protection of women from physical attack, which led to the practice of a noblewoman selecting a favored knight to escort her to her carriage; the role of escort eventually allowed opportunity for a knight to express his devotion to protecting a noblewoman by deferring to her wishes, as trivial or challenging and risky as they might be. This included defending women’s honor by protecting them from insult, as well as simply entertaining them with creative praise or performing athletic challenges.2
The movement was believed to be a reaction against the barbaric violence and corrupt excesses that were the customs of battle for warriors under the direction of feudal lords; the notion of chivalry developed among knights as they began to pursue a more just and noble purpose for their social role. In contrast to past self-centered values, chivalric knights identified their purpose as adventurously protecting women, upholding traditionally female virtues, and worshiping the inspirational power of femininity.3 They worshiped femininity in spirit and in action.
Spiritually, they venerated what they considered to be female values by emulating them. The values of honor, courtesy, hospitality to the poor and oppressed, deference to others, unselfish love, endurance of suffering, loyalty, chastity, and faith in God- these were all seen as the virtues of the Virgin Mary, which they valued as noble and sought to experience personally for their own edification of purpose.4
In action, they protected women from physical danger and social insult while also putting their newfound female virtues to use by honoring and pleasing women with their masculine strengths. Knights saw the truest and purist expression of heterosexual love as a man’s worshipful longing for a woman in response to her powers of sensual appeal and savvy, channeling their passion for her into honor and praise for lack of a sexual outlet. For this reason, knights from this period of time courted their chosen mistress while practicing chastity.5
One historian says,
“Thus, the lady leaves her isolation and becomes an inspiration; the relationship between the sexes tends to acquire a teaching dimension, above all else for the man, the sentiment of feminine gentleness and the joy of serving the lady disciplining and gentling his warrior roughness and ferocity.” 6
There are still men who connect with this archetype of masculinity and relate to its way of building relationships with women. Though they do not have the advantage of an organized brotherhood or a universal code of demonstration to be recognized as such by women, they do tend to have certain features in common and their behavior takes on a similar pattern.
They make their woman their first social priority. They like to run errands and take care of chores for a woman, cook dinner for her, and attend to her in public. They like to listen to a woman without interrupting her, take an interest in what she thinks without arguing with her, and show a great interest in her work with the admiration and support of a devoted fan. They see the merit in doing things her way at home and in the relationship. They remember what she likes and do it often. They let her set the pace for sexual activity, and once invited they attend to her needs and interests first; they are intensely sexually loyal. They don’t take their sexual cues from porn films. They do not ejaculate prematurely.
They might open doors for women, but it is not out of an effort to confine women’s labor or public role. On the contrary, these men prefer to play the role of assistant to women who are professionally successful and highly independent -women who have their own sense of direction and are not afraid to apply it to men. And yet, at the same time, they will confidently compete with other men, even aggressively, and assert themselves in their profession or hobbies. Again, male selective submissive allegiance to a woman is hard for some to conceive of, but it is much the same thing as a sports fan’s intense admiration for a highly skilled and talented professional athlete. Women may tend to take their strengths as women for granted, but these men don’t.*
Contrary to popular belief, there are a good number of men out there with this disposition, though they are not always obvious to women because they aren’t the ones causing a public commotion in a desperate attempt to get female attention. They’d rather pay attention, and then appeal to her personal interests to earn her attention from her. Perhaps the best way for a woman to find them is to develop a healthy interest in what she wants and use an online profile to let men know exactly what that is so that discerning men will find her. This tends to weed out the self-absorbed ones.
The more clearly women perceive how masculinity and male submissive allegiance to women are not only compatible but also interdependent, the higher women’s standards for men’s attitude and behavior will rise, and the men who want the adventure of a real relationship will meet the challenge. Setting low standards to help a self-centered man get the swing of things in the adult world is a waste of time. Men are not stupid. Men are quite capable; if they aren’t taking direction, the issue is one of willingness.
But there’s no need to contend with an unwilling man. Men that are chivalry-oriented are already motivated, getting a sense of adventure and importance from performing a service for a woman. They are willing to work for a woman’s love and happiness because they don’t take women for granted. All they need is direction.
And why should women doubt it? Women’s physical sensuality and intellectual power exerts a force over men that disarms them of their competitiveness and inspires them to serve instead. It has inspired men to do all kinds of spectacular things in the effort to be as noticeable and interesting for women as women are for them. Women’s power of sensual allure has inspired whole fleets of warriors to rein in the barbaric carelessness and wasteful excesses that were the custom of their position in society and to conform their way of life to a strict ethical code of behavior. All without having to give sex to any of them.
* For a great example of the chivalrous man, and this combination of competitiveness with female adoration, watch The Widow of St. Pierre, with Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil. Also read Graceling by Kristin Cashore.
1 (Sidney, pp.260-261), (Elvins, pp.2-8, 59-61)
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., (Westerson, 2007)
4 (Elvins, pp.2-8, 59-61)
5 (Westerfield, 2007), (Elvins, pp.2-8, 59-61)
6 (Elvins, pp.7-8, quoting Giuseppe Salvioli from ‘Cavalleria’, II Digesto Italiano, Florence, 1912)
Elvins, M. T. (2006). Gospel Chivalry: Franciscan Romanticism. Leominster, Herefordshire: Gracewing.
Sidney, Low, Sir.(1973). Dictionary of English History. New York: Cassell.
Westerson, Jeri. (2007, November 12). Getting Medieval: The Code of Chivalry and Courtly Love. Posted to http://jeriwesterson.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/11/the-code-of-chi.html
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