(I posted this on my other blog too, so skip it if you read it there, it's the same thing.)I've obviously been thinking about marriage a lot lately. Not just WEDDINGS, although I am thinking about that too, but MARRIAGE. About what it means to be married and about what a big deal it is, and kids, and having kids with Matt, and what problems we'll have, and how we'll deal with them, etc.
NY Magazine had this really stupid cover article out last week or whenever, entitled "The Affairs of Men - The trouble with sex and marriage". I am afraid to post a link to it, because I know that NY Mag put this article on the cover BECAUSE it would get people's attention. I think it's almost encouraging a magazine to put out terrible articles when I draw attention to it myself. I am definitely not BUYING this magazine, at least. Anyway, it was about marriage, so I read it, and I have to say, it was the most selfish, immature thing I've read in a long time. I think the wife of this writer needs to really take a long look at her marriage, because she married a douche.
The article starts off like this: When the Eliot Spitzer scandal broke in March, I had only sympathy for him: another middle-aged married guy tormented by his sexual needs. Already, I know this guy is coming from a land of make-believe. I DO feel sympathy for people unsatisfied in their marriages - whether it's emotionally, sexually, whatever - because it's a bad situation and I don't want anyone to feel that way. However, to feel ONLY sympathy for a man who had FREQUENT, UNPROTECTED SEX WITH A PROSTITUTE, and then went home to his wife and LIED to her - ONLY sympathy?! Basically, because this man wants to have sex outside his own marriage, he has transformed a liar into a victim.
My biggest problem with the article, is that it looks at infidelity from a VERY narrow perspective - the perspective of middle class/wealthy older men (or as he calls them: "enlightened affluent boomers" - how gross is it to hear someone call themselves "enlightened"? SPARE ME)- and assumes that the perspective of these wealthy men is the only perspective that matters. I didn't think journalists did that anymore now that they all go to college and have to take at least one humanities class. When he goes into how superior Europeans are, (even if sometimes, the wives of these European men are "suffering")I just want to puke.
"What did it mean about men — and marriage — that [A sex scandal from a man with a "hot wife" who was known for public moralizing] was possible?" The article assumes that only men have a problem with being faithful to one partner. That men alone bear this heavy burden of fidelity. That women don't desire the excitement of a new sexual experience. "An article of faith among the men with whom I discussed these issues (and an idea ignored, if not contested, by most of the women I know) was that the hunger for sexual variety was a basic and natural and more or less irresistible impulse." Now, again, he "discussed these issues" with men, but when it comes to women, he's sure it's an idea they have ignored or contested. It just makes my head spin. NY Magazine PUBLISHED this as THEIR COVER article.
Of course it's not just the male, but the HETEROSEXUAL male perspective that matters. In a paragraph where Weiss praises his own "enlightened" generation (of course) for changing a great number of sexual mores and traditions, he laments that monogamy has so far withstood the revolutionary impulse. He then uses this example: "[NY Congressman]Fossella is being pilloried for having an affair, while his sister Victoria Fossella, according to published reports, is openly gay, lives with a partner, and has adopted children that her partner has borne." In other words, people can't seem to get over someone lying and cheating on their wife, but seem to have no problem with a gay couple. Can someone please explain to me why someone should be "pilloried" for having a committed partner, and for adopting that partner's children? I think it's a beautiful thing to adopt your partner's children!
The whole thing is an argument I've heard before from all sorts of sources. But this article makes it somehow the most sexist, offensive things I've read in awhile. When Weiss visits a "handsome townhouse on the Upper East Side" to talk to the female president of the Ackerman Institute for the Family, he asks her what she thinks of a man with a wife "uninterested in sex" (although, we can suppose, she might just be uninterested in sex WITH HIM) - who goes out and gets "lap dances and maybe a little more" on the side. Again, Weiss sympathizes with a man who is lying to his wife. When this woman claims that the marriage could still fulfill this man's needs, and doubted the husband's claim that his wife was completely "uninterested in sex" -"We know that age does not end sexual arousal or interest, we know that’s a myth. Was there some argument about something else, feelings hurt?" Weiss blames her gender "the old male-female morality play" - and says she was "missing the point, and making[him] feel guilty". When really, and throughout this article, WEISS IS THE ONE MISSING THE POINT. these are only the first few paragraphs, he goes into more disgusting displays further on.
When you get married, above all else, you promise to love your partner. To love, honor, and CHERISH your partner. To treat your partner with RESPECT. I 100% expect Matt to be attracted to other women during our marriage, he is a human being, and I expect to be attracted to other people too! I think it's foolish to get married expecting your partner not to think about other people sexually. That is one of the challenges of any marriage. Every couple has to deal with this natural, normal conflict in their own way.
Again, staying faithful is hard for BOTH partners. I know SO MANY women that have cheated on boyfriends and done sketchy things - and I think that men like Weiss like to assume that women aren't into sex when they just aren't into their sexist, selfish husbands. The women got a lot from the affairs... passion and a sense of themselves as sexual. - Weiss of course, likes the idea that women have affairs to FEEL a certain way, not because they want a good deep dicking and might be in a marriage where they are sexually unfufilled themselves, or because they might get curious about about what sex feels like with different people. No, with women it's all about our EMOTIONS. YOU ARE WRONG, WEISS.
People can be stupid, insecure and selfish, and sometimes, persuaded into doing horrible things if it makes them feel good about themselves. This whole article was basically a disgusting display of a man trying to make himself feel better about wanting to do something that would hurt his wife. When his wife says "Fine, let's have an open marriage" and he refuses, Weiss really thinks he is taking some sort of moral high ground, when he is really just adhering to a vow HE WILLINGLY MADE. "YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR KIDS!"
Weiss SIGNED UP for marriage, he KNEW WHAT IT WAS. If he and his wife couldn't talk openly about sex, and openly about their attraction to other people, and find something that works for them, well... that sucks. Likewise, Weiss knew when he was married that eventually he would be older and so would his wife, and she wouldn't look like a 20-something hooker from Jersey - but that his middle-aged wife would remain his sole sexual partner. If he really can only get it going for hot tattooed waitresses (how cliched is that?), and isn't making an effort to be sexual with his partner, he shouldn't be married. He has BACKED OUT ON HIS VOW. He failed the marriage and the promise he made. So little in this article touches on what Weiss thinks HE could do to stay faithful to his marriage, what other men (and of course women, even if he doesn't believe we have the same feelings)feeling similarly could do. Weiss takes the role of a victim of societal pressure - THIS WEALTHY WHITE GUY IS UNDER SO MUCH PRESSURE FROM SOCIETY. THE POOR THING - and looks at the problems of MARRIAGE in general rather than the problems in his own. He doesn't own up to anything.
I know, this is all easy for someone engaged to say. I know Weiss put himself out there and it's eay to criticize. I just think he's full of it, and that NY Mag is n awful rag for printing this. I 100% think that marriage is hard, that it's going to be difficult for Matt and I even if we love each other, and even if we try our best to be as open as possible about sex and everything else, we might run into all sorts of issues and think selfishly and act selfishly. I know that marriage IS an old idea and maybe it SHOULD be re-examined, I think thinking about it and talking about it can only be good... but not like this. This article was terrible. Just, UGH - the minute I start feeling sorry for myself for having a loving, committed partner, just punch me, OK? because I obviously don't deserve it.
