You’re Doing It All Wrong
If you are only attracted to able, ‘mentally well’, cis, normatively beautiful people, from class privileged backgrounds, then you are upholding violent norms.
Attention, husbands, wives, lovers, seekers of amour, and the partnered of the world. Student activist and avowed “feminist killjoy” Josefin Hedlund wishes to correct your desires in a totally non-dogmatic, non-presumptuous way:
This myth [of love, marriage and monogamy] still has a powerful hold in today’s Western neoliberal societies. Its most important message is that love is magical and apolitical. However, at a closer look, it is obvious that love actually works to uphold hetero- and cis-normative, patriarchal, capitalist, and hierarchical structures in society.
Better stow your luggage and strap yourselves in. The ride may be bumpy.
Test yourself: write down the gender, race, class, social, political, educational, and geographical background of everyone you have been attracted to. Do you see a pattern?
Maleness aside, can’t say I do. In fact, I doubt I could recall everyone who’s ever caught my eye. And it occurs to me that if even momentary attraction requires a thorough preemptive vetting of each person’s geographic and educational background, and knowledge of their bank balance and socio-political views, then something’s gone horribly wrong. I should think few of us have time to maintain what sounds like a hugely impractical academic sorting fetish.
If you are only attracted to able, ‘mentally well’, successful (by society’s standards), cisgender, normatively beautiful, slim people, from class privileged backgrounds… you cannot just declare that who you are attracted to is a personal preference.
I feel there ought to have been some kind of explanation here, to pad out the assertion. I’m still waiting for some elaboration on that “upholding violent norms” thing. And it’s not entirely clear to me how my own lifelong coupling, with a chap, is “upholding hetero- and cis-normative, patriarchal, capitalist, and hierarchical structures in society.” Perhaps we’re supposed to enjoy the air of mystery. Still, there’s lots of boilerplate and rote regurgitation:
Instead, we should actively resist these norms by challenging who and what we find un-attractive and un-interesting. This can be done through art, culture, porn, but also of course through changing who we interact with and who our communities are made up of.
Ah. Apparently, we should be cultivating politically correct romantic and erotic attractions to unappealing people – say, overweight bores with borderline personalities. Because, says Ms Hedlund, love and sex are unequally “distributed,” with an unfair amount of both going to people who are deemed lovable and attractive by the people loving them, and not insufferable sociopaths with horrific disfigurements. Or, one suspects, self-styled “feminist killjoys.” And this is because of capitalism. It’s “obvious,” you see. And so we’re told,
Rejecting standard notions of love… goes hand in hand with rejecting capitalism.
Though I’m not convinced that staring intently at chubby amputee porn is going to do much for me, or will recalibrate my preferences, so hopelessly entrenched are my capitalistic, neoliberal tendencies. Readers are of course invited to try it anyway and report back on how it goes. I promise we won’t judge.
Via Tom Owolade.
Short version: “If you don’t fancy me there’s something wrong with you. Because capitalism.”
Translation: Nobody loves me and it’s everybody else’s fault.
I actually – genuinely – feel sorry for her, and Laurie. They are miserable now, but the depth of unhappiness that’s going to hit them later in life, in their 40s say, is going to be horrible. And it will happen, because there are truths about the nature of human beings, and because reality will give them a cluebat beating.
Short version: “If you don’t fancy me there’s something wrong with you. Because capitalism.”
It is hard to avoid the suspicion of personal excuse-making. Though I suppose hugely presumptuous, mentally rigid feminists need hugs too.
Bags not going first.
Bags not going first.
Snort!
there are truths about the nature of human beings,
Well, setting aside romantic neglect and its unconvincing rationalisation, I can’t help thinking that “rejecting capitalism” was the conclusion of choice well in advance. And apparently the notion of assortative mating hasn’t yet penetrated the feminist hive mind.
Oh yes, let them begin the beguine, make them play
Till the stars that were there before return above you,
Till you whisper to me once more,
“Darling, I actually work to uphold hetero- and cis-normative, patriarchal, capitalist, and hierarchical structures with regard to you!”
With craven apologies to Cole Porter. But not to Ms Hedlund. She’s just thick.
I can’t help thinking that “rejecting capitalism” was the conclusion of choice well in advance.
But dating is Capitalism. The more attractive, desirable people get more “customers” in the form of mating alternatives in exactly the same way that the best or least expensive product gets the most customers.
To smash capitalism, you must choose the poorly constructed item because of the virtue of the people who made who’s virtue consists of being too oppressed to make a good product. You must love the “feminist killjoy” exactly because she is not lovable. Love somebody because they’re lovable? What kind of cheap assed version of love is that?
Stop the oppression of the creepy and manipulative! You owe it to the future to love the weirdo who’s staring at you and give it all up to the psycho bitch from hell. Oh wait, in tomorrow’s lecture, we’ll find out weirdo has male privilege, so it’s only the psycho bitch from hell that you have to give it up for.
Because, says Ms Hedlund, love and sex are unequally “distributed,” with an unfair amount of both going to people who are deemed lovable and attractive by the people loving them,
I’m off to stalk a handsome doctor and then tell him it’s his duty to seduce me.
#Fairness
I’m off to stalk a handsome doctor and then tell him it’s his duty to seduce me. #Fairness
Heh. Someone fetch cake for Alice.
And possibly chloroform.
Instead, we should actively resist these norms by challenging who and what we find un-attractive and un-interesting.
These are completely different things. Except, clearly, when a demented narcissist is considering who finds them un-attractive and un-interesting.
I’m sure the people I find attractive, the vast majority of whom I haven’t exchanged a single word with, are a range including monomaniacs, idiots, Corbynistas, and even people who are actually very interesting. Equally, I don’t need to find somebody attractive in the slightest to find them interesting.
If you are only attracted to able, ‘mentally well’, cis, normatively beautiful people, from class privileged backgrounds, then you are upholding violent norms.
Hmmm. My wife is batshit insane, albeit in the most delightful way imaginable. So I’m one of the good ones.
write down the gender, race, class, social, political, educational, and geographical background of everyone you have been attracted to. definitely one of the good ones.
Sorry.
Oh, and I once got involved with a bisexual feminist who was probably mentally ill. It was a fucking miserable experience. There are good reasons why people choose to associate with normal people over headcases.
And don’t forget, our dear friend Laurie Penny thinks that mild titillation should be shared out fairly too, and be inspired by all body types, even the ones that are hairy and lumpy in all the wrong places. Because a light-hearted Instagram page about attractive men and their pets has too many attractive men on it.
I broke up with my ex boyfriend to be with my current partner of seven years. About six months before it ended my ex retired (at the age of 30) by selling his shares in his company and making a lot of money. He now spends his days studying for a new degree (on to no. 3 now, paid upfront), tinkering with inventions and doing volunteer work at the museum. Good for him! 🙂
But I left him to be with my current partner who works from contract to contract (research scientist), is not wealthy and who is less conventionally good looking (according to my friends, although I think he is absolutely handsome and wonderful and thank god everyday I made the choice that I did).
How does this fit with Hedlund’s stupidass theory?
Btw when I was with my ex I was a hardcore socialist doof – I was that girl always carrying a guitar for no reasons and was way more proud of that fact than I had any right to be.
Oh, and I once got involved with a bisexual feminist who was probably mentally ill.
If any readers wish to share their more catastrophic amorous entanglements, do feel free.
..everyone deserves to desire, reject, be desired, and be rejected.
What a huge sense of entitlement this woman has! No-one automatically deserves to be desired; one has to earn all those things.
In a capitalist world of competition, domination, and individualism, practicing love in this way is a form of feminist resistance. It is about creating a world where love –in the form each person needs it – is accessible to everyone, rather than a scarce resource that only the most privileged can acquire.
IoW: ” I demand that other people love and desire me, no matter what I’m like both physically and personality-wise.”
Again, I’m fairly sure that’s not how it works.
I’m guessing this is the young woman in question.
Josefin (uses the gender neutral pronoun they/their/them) holds an MA with Distinction in International Politics and a First Class degree in Politics and Modern History (Hons)- both from the University of Manchester. Their MA dissertation “Timely and Timeless Peacekeeping: An interrogation of temporality in the Swedish debates around the Afghanistan mission” received the award for Best MA Dissertation in International Politics 2011/2012.
One can only wonder at what the competition was she had to beat off to win that award in International Politics.
The soon to be Dr Hedlund will no doubt be teaching a new generation of students at a university near you just as soon as she gets through with her thesis:
Violent Solidarity: Exploring the ethico-political through Derrida and Swedish discourses on Consensus democracy, welfare economics, and peacekeeping
So if you claimed Rapists were merely redistributing Sex you’d probably not be invited to dinner parties any more…
Again, I’m fairly sure that’s not how it works.
And yet some people can take an otherwise unremarkable fact of life – that some of us will turn heads less often than others – and inflate this into an absurd political issue and source of ostentatious tutting. And there are those who suggest we could legislate for people who aren’t sufficiently attractive.
This myth still has a powerful hold in today’s Western neoliberal societies. Its most important message is that love is magical and apolitical.
Question-begging par excellence.
And… how dour and dogmatic. Has she no soul? Why shouldn’t there be something in the world that resists tedious Marxoid analysis?
Should I google ‘chubby amputee porn’?
#Dilemmas
Should I google ‘chubby amputee porn’?
I’d almost be disappointed if some didn’t exist. And apparently that’s the kind of thing that will free us from our “violent norms” of attractiveness. I suppose you could tailor the search to a more comfortable middle ground, like, “really plain council estate ladies with unseemly skin conditions.”
“really plain council estate ladies with unseemly skin conditions.”
With husbands called Norm, who are violent.
@Nikw211
From the good doctors biog.:
Together with Alister Wedderburn, Josefin also runs the RCIR Post-structural and Critical theory reading group, which sometimes hosts films for theoretical and political explorations.
Sounds like a fun night out.
Should I google ‘chubby amputee porn’?
In the interests of redistributing erotic interest, I think all porn searches should henceforth be tempered with an additional, less normative term. For instance, “chiselled abs, bad teeth.” Or, “huge knockers, eczema.”
Hey, it’s your duty in the fight against capitalism.
Funnily enough I’ve been waiting for this for about ten years, or since I first realised it was the natural end point of victimhood grievance.
I’ve had many conversations where I’ve pointed out to those who insist I ‘check my privilege’, or should be happy to share my (extremely meagre) wealth with those less fortunate than myself, that the same principles must surely apply in the areas of love and sex.
If a naturally bright person must be prevented from going to college because a thicker person of the current victimhood colour needs that place, then surely an attractive young millenial should be prepare to share the unearned good fortune of their lithe, atttractive body, with an phsically repellant or socially inept individual?
After all, they didn’t earn their looks. Ugly, stupid, socially awkward people are just as deprived as poor people. In fact according to our socialist betters they must be more deprived as human interation and esteem is more important then money or status.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMb0g6I80hI
I can’t help thinking that “rejecting capitalism” was the conclusion of choice well in advance.
That or, judging from her “research interests”, just a turn at the Post Modern Generator for her “thesis”; from her site:
Right. Her interests also include “Academic Activism”, which in English means, “Bitching a lot and not actually doing my job”.
However, aside from her rant about not getting any, I do like the way this lot like to try to spice up their mundane existences by declaring everything equally mundane “violent”.
I’m off to stalk a handsome doctor and then tell him it’s his duty to seduce me.
I have nothing going on this weekend…
I have nothing going on this weekend…
I’ll send the lady a cocktail and bill your account.
Ms. Hedlund writes:
It is about creating a world where love –in the form each person needs it – is accessible to everyone, rather than a scarce resource that only the most privileged can acquire. (Emphasis supplied)
Fascinating unproven assertion, that. Academe seems to have become a lot less rigorous since I was in school.
Meanwhile, somewhat related, a campus protest of note.
Yeah, that will stick it to “The Man”, I just hope if the campus police crack down on this protest that they don’t go too hard on the protesters.
“…I’ve pointed out to those who insist I ‘check my privilege’…” Thank God I don’t know any such people.
I’m divorced – have I done my bit?
Funnily enough I’ve been waiting for this for about ten years, or since I first realised it was the natural end point of victimhood grievance.
Harrison Bergeron could not be reached for comment.
I just hope if the campus police crack down on this protest that they don’t go too hard on the protesters.
I see what you did there.
apparently the notion of assortative mating hasn’t yet penetrated the feminist hive mind.
That.
“Campus Dildo Carry” is the inevitable result of making academia a hostile environment for males.
Of course some of the more ugly (i.e. non porno) lesbians might see this as just nobbling the competition…
That.
Well, it’s a phenomenon that some people on the left have great trouble with.
I wonder if Ms. Hedlund has thought this whole “redistributing love among the less desirable” thing through. I seem to recall feminist outrage when some psychotic loser took that philosophy of romantic entitlement to its endpoint. Or is this new “romantic socialism” only available to fat, ugly, pseudo-intellectual lesbians with shitty personalities?
(I’ll show myself to the correction booth now.)
Bugger. Bad HTML. Extra time in purgatory for me, I guess.
Bad HTML.
Fixed. But wow, those were some seriously up-buggered tags.
But wow, those were some seriously up-buggered tags.
Memo to self: Multitasking is damned lie.
I’m guessing this is the young woman in question.
By my guess roughly 80% of all women I ever felt attracted to had short hair. Miss Hedlund does too. Hmmm…
“Campus Dildo Carry” is the inevitable result of making academia a hostile environment for males.
I am sure there are females who will carry concealed as well which only highlights the idiocy of these intellectual titans as they are protesting concealed carry, i.e, something that cannot be seen (usually), by waving giant fake johnsons in the open.
How these two are similar, and why waving these about isn’t some sort of violent microaggression (or, I suppose macro if they are going for the supersize versions) against female safe-spaces is a bit of a Sphinx like riddle.
Some day, people like this will be assigning us a spouse, entirely on “social justice” principles, so lie back and think of England or something.
Campus Dildo Carry On with be led by Drs James, Williams and Hawtrey with support from Professors B.Windsor and H.Jacques.
Oo er missus!
Well hi theeyur Meeyus Headland..
I shaw fink y’awl perdy. How’s abaht noon tomorrer, aht’sighd the stayshun. Ah’ll be the’awl one wearin the pink carneeshun..
Hell yeah! See y’awl then..
Luv Cleetis xxx
Rejecting standard notions of love… goes hand in hand with rejecting capitalism.
That’s settled then. I’m perfectly fine with capitalism, so it’s not my duty to reject standard notions of love. Evidently, however, it is the duty of every right-thinking (left-thinking?) socialist. Which is perfectly fine with me, because if they take this attitude to its logical conclusion they will breed themselves out of existence.
Sounds like a fun night out.
I’ve just discovered Ali Michael.
Here’s what Michael has to say about resisting “violent norms”:
… everything I learned about the history of racism made me hate myself, my Whiteness, my ancestors… and my descendants. I remember deciding that I couldn’t have biological children because I didn’t want to propagate my privilege biologically.
If I was going to pass on my privilege, I wanted to pass it on to someone who doesn’t have racial privilege; so I planned to adopt. I disliked my Whiteness, but I disliked the Whiteness of other White people more. I felt like the way to really end racism was to feel guilty for it, and to make other White people feel guilty for it too.
Ali Michael is a writer and a filmmaker.
Oh, and she’s also Director of K-12 Consulting and Professional Development at the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania.
Imagine the fun she and Ms. Hedlund could have together – I imagine they would get along absolutely famously.