I sympathize with the author. I more-or-less broke up with a guy because he hated Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying." (That's not the only reason we broke up, but it explains a lot.) Being a feminist doesn't keep me from having an active love life, but it does change that love life.

I started my blog to write exclusively about pleasure, dating and sex being one of many pleasureable activities.

However, it's turning into a journal that describes this conundrum perfectly: How does a (mostly) heterosexual feminist find love in America? By definition, it almost requires that one circus-perform for the Patriarchy and sleep with the enemy.

It all turns into good blog fodder, eventually. I feel like a journalist working under cover. My last "big" date began with a surprise visit to a Playboy studio! How to reconcile THAT with my feminist sensibilities? By writing about it, I suppose . . .

By the way, I think "Sleeping With the Enemy" would be a good title for a blog, if no one has claimed it yet.

>>I sympathize with the author. I more-or-less broke up with a guy because he hated Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying."

Some feminists also hate "Fear of Flying".

yeah catharine mackinnon does and all the other anti-sex feminists. while i think they have alot of great things to say, i believe they take it WAY too far and make women out to be victims ALL of the time. i dont think that will get us anywhere personally.

>>How does a (mostly) heterosexual feminist find love in America? By definition, it almost requires that one circus-perform for the Patriarchy and sleep with the enemy

Now this is why some people perceive feminism as an anti-male ideology. Men are not the enemy.

It's funny, I've found that most guys are feminists when I talk about feminism as helping men be themselves, rather than having to play masculine stereotypes--because it works both ways. Even my staunchly christian, anti-feminism ex-boyfriend had a bit of a change of heart when I talked about what feminism means to me on a personal level (ie. friends of mine who suffer from eating disorders, the ways I've been discriminated against)--a lot of men get bored when you go into the theory of it, versus how it affects you on a daily basis.

At the end of the article it says she has a book on dating coming out next year... I wonder how it will turn out? I've always fantasized about writing a diet book that's secretly filled with ways to love yourself... it'll be interesting to see if her book is a feminist's guide to dating feminist men...

>>How does a (mostly) heterosexual feminist find love in America? By definition, it almost requires that one circus-perform for the Patriarchy and sleep with the enemy.

I haven't found that to be true, actually. There are at least enough feminist guys out there that I can stumble into them pretty dependably whenever I'm single and looking. Sure, I have to reject the option of even talking to the vast majority of men I see on a daily basis, but once you quit the song-and-dance altogether it becomes a lot easier to spot people who will appreciate that, I think.

Her book is "Dating Up: Dump the Schlump and Find a Quality Man". So much for opposition to traditional gender norms which force men in a careerist direction.

Hey easy on labelling on C. MacKinnon as anti-sex--I don't think that's necessarily true and I don't think she makes women out be victims ALL the time. But that's another argument for another time.

As for dating and being a radical feminist myself, I never hid my politics from the men I dated, nor did I compromise my beliefs. (Nor did I try to "sex up" feminism as a cheesy form of girl power).

And I was fortunate to wind up with a man who accepts, supports, and practices the same beliefs as me. So I agree with becca; the feminist men are out there.

(laughing) I know men are not the enemy, I just forgot how toungue-in-cheek doesn't translate well in print.

Anyway, I just dumped a guy because I found out he was hiring call girls. So today, he just SEEMS like the enemy . . . I'll go back to liking men in a few weeks, I swear!

i really identified with this article. im a feminist who wants to be a wife and mother, and it is often hard to reconcile the two, especially to others and especially without compromising my values.

i was lucky enough to find a man who supports me even in our disagreements. i seriously felt like i was reading about my life...

there are feminist men out there. unfortunately for me, i have yet to find one i am physically attracted to. any of them that i have met have been scrawny, way-to-artsy (to look at) men who dont turn me on in the least. i need to find a feminist football player looking type and let me tell you, THAT is hard to come by.

"Even my staunchly christian, anti-feminism ex-boyfriend had a bit of a change of heart when I talked about what feminism means to me on a personal level"

Sarah, I've found this to be true as well. I've had plenty of friends that never really understood what I was getting so passionate about until I explained how attitudes towards women impact me (and often them as well, without them realizing it) on a daily basis, and how frustrating it can be.

Excellent article, I'll be sending it on to my boyfriend!

I say mention the fact that you are a feminist on the first date; his (or her) reaction might tell you whether to bother or not. Having said that, do *not* date people *just* because they are feminists when you're not particularly suited otherwise - it doesn't work, unless you're both just looking for a bit of fun.

I have dated feminists! And knew a bunch in school they all had pretty bad experience with men.

Stuff like going to see the spider man movie when it came out and getting messages on my phone like;

“ ..so you guys went to see that sexist movie huh? Call me later� It’s like what? “Spider Person� we must all bow down to big sister?

I avoid dating feminists because of the double standards. Usually I am still paying for dinners, nit picking can be bad enough with just women with a feminist it is a constant analysis of how you treat her, what about your behavior is “patriarchal conditioning�? It’s just best to avoid. Marriage is slavery and all that so what is the point?
In my experience I have found feminists to be controlling in man/women relationships especially young feminists involved in university feminism, those are the worst to date, there so zealous, hearing about how men oppress these poor middle class women in school, most w/ cars, some with parents paying, is too much to take, total turn off.
Of course you can’t say that for all of them, it can be a turn off for me and from what I know a lot of young men. I think it is because the young men have grown up equal with women and they have a harder time “buying� feminism. What do young men think after watching the vagina monologues? Those feminists seam so approachable and man friendly?

hujo, it sounds like you're not dating "feminists" but "bitches." Subscribing to a social theory doesn't prevent someone from being an ass.

Right but what is feminism? It is an ideology that makes women constantly question men in a negitve way.
It is just more friction than needed.

I don't know how any conscious man can call himself a feminist?
I am a humanist; I date humanists, libertarians, bisexuals, hippies, egalitarians, and all around “normal� women.
For me philosophies clash right out the gate. I cant date a feminist because the cause is not humanity but them and I am somehow seen as flawed and worthy of question, because of my penis? Hot!?

Hujo, that's how you see feminism because you're freaked out by it. You've been on this site long enough to know that feminism isn't manhating. And if you really do think that after reading everything here than I think that has more to do with you than with feminism. But I digress, I don't want this thread to become a why-feminists-are cool defense.

Hujo. A feminist wouldn't purposely inflict double standards on her significant other - you just dated mean girls it seems. Oh, and my boyfriend loved the Vagina Monologues, he even met "Eve Ensler" with me after we saw her perform her new play "The Good Body" - she was quite approachable and sweet. =) However, some of my women's studies classmates did act (probably unknowingly) a bit cold towards him but once he met some of them in more of a one-on-one situation, they got along great.

Hope you have better luck in the future, like Sara said "Subscribing to a social theory doesn't prevent someone from being an ass."

Ok you don’t think feminism, an ideology that says the women are oppressed victims and the men are privileged victimizers, might just make for some unneeded excess baggage in the old man woman relationship dept.

Is that what it says? No one dares define it!

It seems to also say men constantly objectify women.
It seems to constantly mock and belittle men sexually.
(Just read the last two months here for examples.)

Be honest? Feminism would have no effect on a relationship for any guy? For me it is more of a intellectual/moral disrespect for the philosophy, it is hard for me to date a feminist because I am opposed to modern mainstream feminisms effect on society and some of the choices its made. It’s like far left libertarian dating a conservative fundamentalist.
Bad times.

Hujo, this isn't the "is feminism good or bad" site. I'm not here to defend feminism to you or to change your mind about it. Your argument and your comments are SO redundant and predictable, it's kind of impossible to respond.

there's some interesting discussion going on...

i think what it comes down to is you need to be up front about the things that are important to you. my friend jennifer went on a date with a man. when she found out he'd never voted (despite being old enough to have done so more than a few times), she made sure he knew it wouldn't work out, loudly. (it's quite amusing, if you get her to tell the story.)

for me, it's a sense of what's going on around you. we don't have to agree, and i don't expect everyone i date to be an activist, but i just can't be with people who have no idea what's going on around them and how it affects their lives.

i vote for make it known what's important to you. if you find someone who's willing to listen, and at times to argue -- the way that courtney sullivan seems to have found in colin -- perfect. and if not, well, better you know up front so nobody's wasting anybody's time and energy.

See this is what usualy happens on the first date.

MEh, well publish that last comment in "DV in RS" and I will just leave you all alone, I guess.

I've dated feminists, too. Most of them weren't comfortable calling themselves feminists, though, because they thought it was quaint or antiquated. One ex, who was actually a dickhead, said to me "Anyone who's not an idiot in the 21st century would consider themselves a feminist" but he refused to call himself that by name because of the association.

For example, I actually just got out of a great relationship with a guy who was a Jesuit Catholic, of the social justice variety (granted, he was pro-life, so clearly we never would have worked out). He was feminist/humanist/whatever you want to call it, but his social justice beliefs were his religious beliefs, not him conciously deciding, nor calling himselfm "I am a feminist."
This is why I think it's important to reclaim the term...because people who are say they aren't.

I agree with whoever posted above that complained that most self-identified feminist men are the scrawny, emo guys. Sensitive, yes, but a little too sensitive, in my experience. Not my type at all.

Hujo, the reason you get such a reaction is because you act like an ass without listining to what others say. Not to mention, you speak without knowing anything about your topic other than what has been force-fed to you (and others) by the media.

Feminism is not about woman = good, man = bad. It's about patriarchy = bad, patriarchy /= to men, patriarchy = a social system that imposes hierarchical notions of gender as a central cannon. It is used by both sexes, reinforced by both sexes, and injures both sexes.

I'm a radical feminist. I've had many, many sucessful relationships with men who wouldn't hesitate to marry me in a second. I'm involved with a male right now who is a feminist, calls himself such, and certainly isn't a sissy (he's a biker and expert whip user, as well as a highly respected dom).

Hujo, grow up, read more, and listen. You might just have potential, but it's pretty deeply buried.

Story time:

I was bored at work and went browsing around on Facebook. I searched a variety of combinations of people, looking for people i'd had class with or whatever else. Then I thought I'd search for these 3 things: single, male, listed "feminist" as part of his interests or group memberships.
Results? 2 men out of a college with 45,000 students. I messaged them both. One said "yeah, i was just being funny. i'm not really a feminist! har har". The other said "yeah, women and men are equal and should be treated that way"

Guy #2 and I are getting married in September.

woah @ Ahlana! That is AWESOME!

there are feminist men out there. unfortunately for me, i have yet to find one i am physically attracted to. any of them that i have met have been scrawny, way-to-artsy (to look at) men who dont turn me on in the least. i need to find a feminist football player looking type and let me tell you, THAT is hard to come by.

This is -- I mean, I don't know, really, what to say to this. I understand it's a real problem for you, and I realize that you don't get to pick who you're attracted to, but what I'm hearing is essentially, "I don't want to live up to patriarchal gender norms, but I'll be damned if I don't expect you to."

It essentially parses the same way for me the same way, "I want to date a feminist, but, man, I'm having a hard time finding any who aren't fat chicks" might for you. Am I wrong? Am I taking you the wrong way?

-- ACS

As for me, I have little to no personal experience in this area. I am almost exclusively attracted to feminist-friendly men. Moving on...

I read, re-read, and underlined "Backlash," "The Beauty Myth" and "The Feminine Mystique." I grew enraged by what I learned. Enraged, and utterly confused. Who was keeping women down? Men.

I think J. Courtney Sullivan needs to re-read (again) some of the feminist classics. Having read all three, I really don’t think that’s what Faludi and Wolf and Friedan were saying. Blaming a patriarchal culture is not synonymous with blaming men.

This was, I'd say, her real issue:

Colin offers neither the typical blow-off of other men nor the mea culpa that I thought I was looking for.

Puh-leeze. I don’t think I’ve ever expected (or wanted) dates or male friends to offer a mea culpa. Some acknowledgment and understanding of inequalities that exist in our society-- and some outrage over them-- is quite enough.

This essay manages to perpetuate both second- and third-wave feminist stereotypes. Namely that we're all shaved-headed, women’s studies majors from Smith who place inordinate amounts of blame on individual, well-meaning guys for being part of The Patriarchy... yet we’re also breathless curlicue-thinkers who long for The One. As a feminist who’s neither of these things, I found the essay kind of annoying. I know it’s just the writer's personal experience and all, but in a forum like the New York Times (which doesn't publish a ton of essays on life as a young feminist), a lot of people are going to see her opinions and experience as the norm. Which is unfortunate.

"Right but what is feminism? It is an ideology that makes women constantly question men in a negitve way."

Whaaaa? I thought feminism was just about women having the same opportunities as men. I was raised a feminist and that taught me to never let being female hold me back from anything. It also taught me never to judge anyone by their gender, male or female.

Dude, sounds like you've had some bad experiences with women - just like some women have had some bad experiences with men. Seems like ya'll might have more in common than you think.

I'm going to have to go with Ann here. I saw a couple of decent but hardly original ideas, and a lot of self-absorbed bitching. Of course you are not going to find a feminist man if you want the male version of your radical feminist sisters at Smith who will also hold the door and call you babydoll. Those are two completely different stereotypes and no one could live up to both of them without their head exploding.

Seriously, though, are you all so starved for discourse on this topic that you'd accept this article as representative? Any one of Feministing's bloggers could write a much better piece about dating while being an educated feminist in New York. Much, much, much better.

there are feminist men out there. unfortunately for me, i have yet to find one i am physically attracted to. any of them that i have met have been scrawny, way-to-artsy (to look at) men who dont turn me on in the least. i need to find a feminist football player looking type and let me tell you, THAT is hard to come by.

Are you sure you aren't a gay man? I'm one of those scrawny guys who can't get other gay men to look at him because I don't have massive pecs, and I refuse to spend (what I consider) mind-numbing time lifting weights to shape my body for others' satisfaction.

You guys are all nuts... (fascinating discussion though)

stop labeling your potential dates and start seeing them as people - human beings -

one thing i dislike about culture today is the endless pigenholing of people into ever more obscure catagorical, personality and belief labels - i think it leads to cultural segregation - if we keep labeling people as sexist or feminist then we prevent ourselves from meeting people who are from different backgrounds and walks of life than us - I am certainly not against feminist ideals but what i'm pointing out is that our relentless assertions of who's what or who's not polarizes us and blinds us from seeing the good in other people -

I guess this is one advantage to paying out the ass for rent in the NYC area - 99.999% of the people in my social network don't even blink at the term "feminism," because it's not an issue. It's an inherent given we enlightened folk were raised with.

Despite this, there IS the occasional problem with double standards, both ways. Sometimes I give a few of my ladyfriends a hard time by grilling them on why they feel the man should pay on the first date. Likewise, a few close male friends admit they are threatened if his partner has more past sexual partners. I like challenging people on these topics, and they eventually admit there's no basis to their reasoning.

I think there are more feminist men than you or even the men themselves realize. The problems in dating seem to occur not from the basic philosophy, but residual societal traditions hammered into your brain during childhood and puberty.

This seems part of the hangover from the sexual revolution that encompasses feminism. It’s interesting to note that while there is a small “mans movement�, that predominately revolves around issues of child custody (an area that I’m sympathetic towards, as I’m sympathetic towards areas of feminism) it is not a major movement.

There is however a very large, sustained and prominent marriage & family movement. Compassionate people who understand the full depth and breadth of humanity don’t spend there efforts locked in some Hegelian dialectic. Battles such as these only serve to divide men and women, and have left generations miserable and alone.

Any authentic humanism concentrates on bringing the sexes together, encouraging shared sacrifice and commitment. It values children as the natural fruits of the sexual act, and realized that duty & responsibility towards ones husband or wife is the mark of true love, respect, and equality.

"don’t spend there"
I assume you mean "their".

"Hegelian dialectic"
You're tilting with the Marxist windmills in your head.

As a (anarcha-)feminist guy, I think that there definitely are some obstacles to dating for me, which are propably a bit different from those faced by feminist women. Most of the social norms that apply to dating as a guy are, frankly, pretty fucking sexist, and so you just need to sort of figure out how to approach the situation without the guidance of "common knowledge" or folk psychology on the subject. This isn't so much a problem once I'm actually dating somebody, but it's difficult to meet people and let them know I'm interested without worrying about whether I'm being creepy or sexist.

Most women I know are (obviously) pro-feminism in that they believe in equality, but they don't really identify with the political tradition of feminism nor do they give a crap about a lot of the analytical side of it, which is important to me. I tend to maybe overanalyze my own behaviour around women.

What the conflict comes down to for me is bassically that I want a relationship with a woman that involves romance and closeness and all the things you'd expect, but I don't want to be "The Man" in someone's life, which is what a lot of women are looking for. I find the traditional male gender roles of our society distasteful, and at this point those roles are perhaps even more ingrained than female gender roles.

Fitz-> Feminism is built on conflict theory, but it isn't "Hegelian". They aren't the same thing. It's also kind of interesting that you seem to feel that ideologies with Hegelian roots caused "generations" to end up miserable and alone, rather than the brutal imposition of Capitalism, Imperialism and Patriarchy that those ideologies were a response too.
You can keep your "authentic" humanism. It does pretty well to explain the world you'd like to live in. I'd rather explain the world as it is.

Apparently Thomas (the English teacher) denies a philosophical relationship between feminism and Marxism. Meanwhile Labyrus touts the “brutal imposition of Capitalism, Imperialism and Patriarchy� while half my friends go barren.

Fitz, I'm pointing out the flaws in your English because I do not like you. You're a Catholic extremist and you have no hope of finding much in the way of common ground in the feminist blogosphere -- nor do you try. Instead, you show up here and troll. I want you out. When you get tired of getting the back of my hand, you can leave.

As for Marxism, feminism has roots that predate Marx, and not all of the second wave is dependent on Marxism for anything.

as a feminist woman one of the things that i find very challenging in dating and having romantic, intimate relationships is dealing with all of the things i've internalized as a woman living in a sexist culture and mainstream society. negotiating what aspects of relationship roles i'm taking on (caregiver, nurterer, etc.) because i want to and what aspects of these roles i'm taking on because of the way society has taught me to have [sexist] relationships is really difficult. i also find it really difficult to asses when i am throwing up the feminist stance because i truly feel that sexism is occuring and when i'm doing it to use it as a sheild.

i guess when it comes down to it the fact of the matter is i love men and i love it when they care for me and when i care for them....its not abusing either of those things (making them care for me at the expense of themselves and me not caring for them at the expense of myself) that counts....

argh.

What the conflict comes down to for me is bassically that I want a relationship with a woman that involves romance and closeness and all the things you'd expect, but I don't want to be "The Man" in someone's life, which is what a lot of women are looking for. I find the traditional male gender roles of our society distasteful, and at this point those roles are perhaps even more ingrained than female gender roles.--labyrus

And, somewhat suprisingly, it's what a lot of feminist-identified women are looking for.

Or, perhaps it shouldn't be so suprising to me, given tia's point:
with all of the things i've internalized as a woman living in a sexist culture and mainstream society.

there are feminist men out there. unfortunately for me, i have yet to find one i am physically attracted to. any of them that i have met have been scrawny, way-to-artsy (to look at) men who dont turn me on in the least. i need to find a feminist football player looking type and let me tell you, THAT is hard to come by.--katie

A couple of men have chimed in on this; I think it would be interesting to ask, is the case that such pro-feminist or feminist men with builds like football players are that rare? And, if the answer is 'yes', then it would be interesting to know why.

"and not all of the second wave is dependent on Marxism"

So some of the windmills in my head are not all fantasy?

Fitz, you've employed a standard guilt-by-association tactic. You're trying to smear all feminists by calling us essentially Marxist, because in most folks' view, Marxism is discredited as a basis for a political system. Since that's