There’s this quote I heard a while back that I can’t seem to get out of my head that’s been helping me to make sense of my inability to choose just one man to commit to. I scoured the internet trying to find it but to no avail, so I’ve accepted that it must have just been some Insta post that popped up on my feed and managed to embed itself deep into my psyche. It goes something like this:
The patriarchy forces men to choose between power and connectedness.
The Effects of Societal Conditioning on Identity
I’ve written before about how the patriarchal capitalist power structure in which we live is just as damaging to men as it is to women. While women are reduced down to their sexuality and fertility, men are reduced down to their productivity, net worth, and ability to provide.
It’s a constricting system whose problems have been identified, to the point where meaningful changes are being ushered in – changes that challenge gender norms and enables people to live more and more in alignment with the most authentic versions of themselves as the years go by.
But we’re still a long way from having thousands of years of societal conditioning stripped from our collective consciousness. As someone who was raised by parents who taught me that I could do and be anything I wanted, even as a woman, I never felt confined to direct my energy towards explicitly “female” activities, although the culture around me certainly influenced me to be a “good girl” by epitomizing stereotypically feminine qualities that the patriarchy deems virtuous: agreeableness, submissiveness, and compassion.
While I do feel that underneath my “good girl” conditioning, I am in fact a sweet, empathetic, and easy going gal, I’m so many other things as well. I’m strong. I’m cruel. I’m manipulative. I’m angry. I’m stubborn. I’m mischievous. I’m a leader, a fighter, and everything in between. And so is everyone else. We are all far more complicated than the societal scripts we’re fed at birth and which evolve over time based on the decisions we make regarding our careers, relationships, and lifestyles.
Some are more in touch with the multifaceted depths of their souls than others, but even those who have all the self-awareness in the world are forced to accept that they are part of a system and that as ludicrous of a system as it may be, they are best served learning how to play the game to their advantage so as to accomplish their personal goals. We can realize the absurdity of the caricatures others mold us into while also leaning into them to get what we want. A conventionally attractive woman who goes into sex work or marries rich to secure financial stability for herself would be a prime example of this.
At some point though, I think we start to lose ourselves under the weight of such external expectations, to the point where these expectations become internalized and we begin living our lives in the pursuit of maintaining our carefully constructed personas. We hide behind our aesthetic tastes, our cultural (and subcultural) identities, our politics, our societal and familial roles – deluding ourselves into thinking that such labels have been chosen exclusively by us as individuals, as a means of self-expression, and that these identifying descriptors represent who we truly are, deep down.
But in reality, all of these things are social constructs and while they are undoubtedly helpful tools for giving us purpose and fostering a sense of belongingness – they are nothing more than masks which, more often than not, hold us back from rising into our full power. As a good-girl-turned-renegade, I’ve recently come to terms with how much I’ve allowed societal conditioning and self-limiting beliefs to hold me back – despite thinking I had it all figured out.
Coming to Terms With My Own Brainwashing
When a run-in-with-the-law turned my life upside down and pushed me towards a “fuck societal conventions” existence, featuring sugaring and “living outside the matrix,” I thought I had managed to free myself from the shackles of societal conditioning. But in truth, all I had done was swap one mask for another. It was definitely a mask that brought me closer to the truth because it allowed me to see the world in a more 360 degree way than I ever would have, had I not gotten arrested, finished school on time, and become a “productive member of society” aka a cog in the machine of corporate America.
As much as I want to believe that I’m an enigma who can’t be pinned down, there’s a team of marketing executives somewhere who probably have me figured out better than I have myself figured out. I’m that bitch who secretly thinks she’s superior to the basic suburban white girls she grew up with because she’s more well-traveled, has done more psychedelics, and experienced more adversity in the form of sex work and mental health struggles. The one who thinks she’s deep and interesting because she’s lived at an ashram, refuses to work a 9 to 5, and might be going to Burning Man this year.
I’m the free spirit who played into the manic pixie dream girl fantasy of daddies and lovers alike, as a means of shielding myself from having to be vulnerable and getting my heart broken – a trauma I experienced at the hands of my first love at 20, and again at 27, when I decided I was finally ready to fall in love again. But in the end, the only person I’ve really played is myself. Despite having willingly participated in an impressive method acting charade over the last decade in order to further my own self-interests, I don’t have much to show for it.
The investment fund I planned on starting when I started exchanging sex for cash? Non-existent. The love-of-my-life relationship I thought would morph into marriage? Dead in the water, in large part because he could never fully accept my sex work past. The business I convinced myself some ex-daddy would fund? Still hasn’t come to fruition and likely never will because there will be too many strings attached.
All I’m really left with is a few good stories and a profound understanding of how fucked the world is and how brainwashed everyone around me is. Nearing thirty, I’ve wholeheartedly decided that I want to settle down and have kids. With my biological clock ticking louder as each season passes, I’m left with an important question: Who do I manifest – the power player provider or the connected creative?
In an ideal world, I don’t have to choose. The man of my dreams can be both powerful within the context of our relationship and within society, and an emotionally attuned and attentive partner. But I’ve gotten close enough to enough men – men who on paper are all wonderful and who I’m sure will make great partners for other, less complicated women – to know that the patriarchal capitalist conditioning really does force men to opt for one character or the other. Let me break it down for you:
Option 1: The Power Player
Cities like London and New York are full of men vying for power. The classic example that comes to mind is the CEO type. Whether he’s 30 or 50, he has major daddy energy and tends to be a dom at the office and in the bedroom. He’s an analytical thinker, knows how to command a room, and easily fits into the intellectually-minded, masculine paradigm our society puts on a pedestal.
For this, he is rewarded with money, power, and countless women vying for his attention. It helps if he’s handsome, but his alpha personality and relentless drive make him a dream man to many, even when he isn’t the most conventionally attractive. There’s nothing that gets me wetter than when a man like this throws me on the bed, uses me for his pleasure, and calls me a good girl.
On some level I know this sexual wiring is what made sugaring so appealing to me. The idea of getting to cross paths with high-powered men who exuded confidence and wanted to carve out time and energy to make me a priority – even if for just a few hours – was quite alluring. I had grown up romanticizing characters like Patrick Bateman (American Psycho), Don Draper (Mad Men) and Frank Underwood (House of Cards).
I knew I wasn’t their equal but I felt that if I spent enough time around them, I could one day grow to be. But the thing I’ve come to learn about this type of man is that he doesn’t actually want an equal. His need to always be in charge extends into his relationships, to the point where even if you are the one lucky enough to get the ring and the white picket fence, you are merely a pawn in his carefully orchestrated game of chess.
He’s dedicated his life to building his own little universe where he gets to play god. He can love you in his own way, but he’s incapable of ever letting down his guard enough to be vulnerable and connect with you on a deep, emotional level. He shows his love through material wealth and despite how hard he might try, he has a hard time not objectifying the people around him – romantic partners included.
You exist to fill his insatiable sexual appetite and, if things are serious, provide him with heirs. The sad reality about such a dynamic is that because the bond does not exist on a profound spiritual level, you become replaceable. This is why we say the age-old trope play out over and over again both in media depictions and real life: powerful man cheats on wife with younger woman. While you will never be able to control his actions, you do have control over how you react.
You can either be like Jackie O – the stoic, old-school stand-by-you-man-without-retaliating type – or Daphne from White Lotus – the eye-for-an-eye, I-refuse-to-be-the-victim type. Maybe you’re progressive enough to agree on an open marriage from the get go, although I’ve noticed power-hungry men tend to have double standards when it comes to their ladies philandering..
Now of course this example outlined above is about as extreme as it gets. There’s a finite amount of CEOs in the world and most men who are power-oriented have far less resources and time to live out their sexual fantasies, because they are too busy putting in the hours to climb the corporate ladder. Still, there is something hard-wired into them where nothing is ever enough. The same drive that makes them so good at playing the game makes them incapable of relaxing and finding inner peace.
To me, this kind of partnership would be well-suited to someone who prioritizes financial security above quality time and who has an independent personality. While you might not have to worry about being financially independent, you will probably find yourself eating dinner alone a lot, while your husband stays late at the office. Whether it’s finding a side piece, a hobby, or a solid group of girlfriends, the kind of woman who seeks a power player must be at peace with the fact that her partner’s love of providing will make him unavailable, both physically and emotionally.
She must also be able and willing to step into character for the sake of keeping up appearances at her partner’s work functions etc.. While most women have been conditioned on some level to grow up believing that this type of patriarchal protector is their prince charming, the realities of living such a charmed existence require sacrificing a large part of yourself in order to reap the benefits. Some women can make it work, but I get the sense from the often divorced women I’ve met who opted for this route, that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Option 2: The Connected Creative
On the flip side is the connected man – the musicians, the filmmakers, the writers, the healers. These men are soulful creative types who are comfortable expressing their emotions and who get mad pussy because of it. They are hard to pin down but if you manage to do so, they will worship you as their muse, collaborator, lover, and partner. While the highly romanticized honeymoon phase is bound to fizzle out eventually, a deeper, more intense bond built upon shared experiences and a mutual ability to be open and honest lies ahead for those who hit it off and commit to one another.
The danger with these men is twofold. On the one hand, their connectedness with themselves, the world around them, and the people in their lives make them incredibly empathetic. But as sensitive souls, they are naturally more prone to mental health issues than the robot-like power players. I have yet to date a connected man who hasn’t struggled with depression and addiction issues.
Best case he’s a high functioning pothead, worst case he’s a trust fund baby heroin addict whose parents enable his failure to launch. The second, related danger is that because we do exist within a patriarchal system, the connected men have a tendency to become increasingly unstable when they inevitably succumb to hustle culture – abandoning the feminine qualities that make them so unique and appealing to women in the process.
It’s a bullshit double standard but I know society wouldn’t give me a hard time if I were to marry a financially stable man who supported me while I took a break from paid work to find my creative stride. He could foot the bills while I wrote about the things I wanted to write about, went to massage school, and popped out a couple of babies, and no one would blink an eye. As a creative, I appreciate the amount of mental space and self-care required to sustain your craft. Adversity breeds innovation in the short-term, but in the long-term, it drains your energy and dims your light.
A connected, creative man who wants to take a year off to write his novel would not be met with the same level of understanding as a woman in his shoes. He would either have to commit to a monk-like sabbatical – Henry David Thoreau style – or find a way to balance working on his passion project with holding down a 9 to 5 – if he expected to have any dating prospects that is. Most women – myself included – simply wouldn’t give a broke ass creative the time of day.
I used to think that the commercially successful creatives had found a way to game the system. But after falling in lust with a dozen or so of them, I’ve come to realize that they might just be the most cursed of all. On paper they are living the dream, but they’ve swapped their naturally connected nature for a power hungry approach to life, and their souls suffer deeply because of it.
My last fling in New York was with a beautiful hipster boy who had gone to film school hoping to direct eye-opening documentaries and arthouse films, but then he got a taste of that big name fashion brand money. Now he spends his days doing monotonous, highly technical camera operations on fancy sets, facilitating other people’s visions, and promoting himself on social media in order to secure more gigs. He’s lost the spark that drew him to a creative discipline in the first place and self-medicates with drugs more than anyone I’ve ever met.
Does the Ideal Man Exist?
I think the sweet spot between the connected creative and the power player is the man who isn’t quite aware of how sensitive and creative he is – at least not too early on in life. He’s bright and adaptive and allows societal influences to push him towards a career in STEM or something business oriented.
Logging the hours required to reach provider status is something he does almost by default because he innately understands that doing so will expand his dating pool and set him up to pursue his dreams – once he figures out what those are – later in life.
He might not think of himself as an artist but he expresses himself through a myriad of right-brained hobbies — be it growing bonsai trees or teaching himself to play the guitar. He’s burnt out by the capitalist system he operates within, but his ego is not attached to his job nor his creative discipline to the point where it interferes with his sanity. To me, this is the sort of man who is full of potential.
Unlike the power player who has committed himself to rising to the top of the food chain by whatever means necessary or the connected creative who has grown cynical trying to exist in a world that is simply not set up for his sensibilities, he has the capacity to have one foot in the power world and one foot in the connected one.
As someone with entrepreneurial dreams, I think this is who I want to manifest. I crave someone who is level-headed – a rock to my kite – but who also has the capacity to be open-minded and treat our relationship as a true partnership. I refuse to allow myself to be pulled into the orbit of yet another established dom daddy or broken-winged artist who needs constant tending to. Long-term success in a relationship stems from interdependence rather than codependence.
Societal conditioning stunts men and women alike from aligning with and pursuing their dreams but by fostering a deep level of self-awareness in which I can be brutally honest with myself about my strengths, my weaknesses, and my needs (versus wants) in a partner, and accepting the reality that I can have anything but not everything in life – I think there might be hope for me just yet with regard to finding a life partner who lives up to my standards and has the ability to help me tap into my full potential.
Jules
Based in Brooklyn, Jules has dedicated her twenties towards harnessing her pussy power, exploring the muse, whore, and wild woman archetypes along the way. When not blogging, you can find her sweating the toxins out in a hot yoga class or sipping a matcha latte at a pretentious coffee shop, whilst she scribbles away in her journal.
