Why Do Girls Talk So Much About Guys?, pt. 2: The Argument
I’ve now left you, precious reader, textually unfulfilled for over a month. You’ve no doubt experienced difficulty sleeping, tantalized (as you are) by the question I asked so long ago: do girls really talk so much about guys? If so, why? More importantly: what does it all mean?
In my last article (which commentator Siena admonished as “[just] a tease”), I merely laid out the rules of the game. I argued that you ought to evaluate my theory of intrasexual communication biologically and not culturally—and that you therefore ought to demand that it explain all cases whatsoever, not only those involving everyone but you and your best friends. In other words, since I believe that something about human psychology (i.e., biology) best explains the cultural phenomenon we’re considering here, the only two ways it could possibly fail to apply to a given situation are that (1) the parties involved are not human females, or that (2) I’m wrong.
Unfortunately, many of you criticized the step I next took in the article. I attempted to defend the premise that girls do in fact spend a good deal of their time talking about guys by appealing to my own experience of female-female communication while urging you to consider your own. Some of you argued that my reliance on public-transit eavesdropping may have skewed my results (apparently, girls most enjoy gossiping about private matters when in public places). Others simply rejected my conclusion, emboldened (no doubt) by the conviction that I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. And to a certain (i.e., small) extent, my critics are right: I should have qualified my assertion. I have never intended to argue that girls’ only topic of conversation is guys. Indeed, I should have mentioned the point of reference from which I write these essays: what I’m really attempting to explain here is why girls talk about guys far more than guys ever talk about girls.
Now, why is this true? (And I assure you it is.) The short (but convoluted) answer is this: that, contrary to the fantasies of naïve sexual politics, guys and girls are not equal in every respect save their choice of chromosome; in fact, what guys are to girls is the exact opposite of what girls are to guys because implicit in all sexual interaction is a binary structure of submission and dominance.—Woah, woah, woah, Robot. Slow down.—Ok, let me explain.
Imagine a group of guys playing pool. After a few beers, one of the guys, Alpha, slaps another one, Beta, on the back and says, “So! Beta! Tell us what happened last night with, ah, what’s her name?” “Omega,” Beta replies hesitantly, while the other guys gather ’round, grinning expectantly.
Now it’s imperative we understand what’s actually going on here. Alpha is not inviting Beta to effuse over his night with Omega, nor even to say anything accurate about it at all. Alpha is simply challenging Beta’s dominance. (We call this either “an asshole thing to do” or “just a joke” depending on how obvious it is.) Now, let’s suppose things didn’t go so well last night between Beta and Omega. What motivation does Beta have to say as much? Can you imagine him saying to the grinning group ready to explode into laughter in front of him something like: “Well, guys, not too well. First, she stood me up for like twenty minutes, and then while we were at dinner she kept looking at this guy across the room!” Absolutely not.
And why not? The answer should be obvious. Because in male-male interaction, to admit difficulties in a sexual relationship is to admit weakness: and no guy would ever divest himself of his own social power on purpose by complaining of the way a girl treated him.—But Robot, what if things between Beta and Omega did go well?—The answer should be equally obvious: nothing much changes. Alpha and the group of guys are going to elbow each other and joke at Beta’s expense regardless of what actually happened because no one was ever interested in what actually happened in the first place. Even if for some reason Alpha and the guys respect Beta’s night out with Omega as something obviously praiseworthy—let’s say Omega is really, really hot—Beta would just be considered arrogant were he to go on-and-on about his great night with her. In short, there’s never any reason for guys to talk seriously about their relationships with girls because any attempt to do so will either weaken or embitter their claim to power.
But let’s contrast this with what we’ve already noted regarding women. However representative of female-female communication as a whole, my bus-ride experiences of women complaining to other women about their relationships with men prove (by their very existence) that a sharp difference exists between the human sexes on this point. We’ve just said that a guy would never complain to his mates about a girl because to do so would be to fall on his own sword—that is, to strip himself of his own power. But clearly this isn’t the case with women. In fact, I would go so far as to say that for women, to complain about male infidelities actually has the opposite effect: it actually strengthens their social standing.
But why is this? (This is the paragraph where it all starts to come together.) Now we can finally understand my short but convoluted answer above. Talking about the opposite sex has opposite effects for opposite genders because, I argue, “implicit in all sexual interaction is a binary structure of submission and dominance.” This is a separate assertion about the nature of sexuality, and I only have time to explain it, not defend it—but I think it will appear unexceptionable enough once understood. It simply means that the masculine and feminine sex-drives correspond to the desires to dominate and to be dominated respectively.—Woah, Robot! That’s a very, very sexist thing to say!—As long as it’s true, it really isn’t. And it’s true.—Well, Robot, I’m a girl, and I certainly have no desire “to be dominated.”—Sure you do, you just never think about it using those words. All I’m really saying is that you find certain men more attractive than others because (for a variety of reasons) you think those men are more sexually powerful—that is, (potentially) more dominating.
And if that’s true—that men and women have fundamentally opposed sexual drives—it’s easy to see why talking about the opposite sex would have opposite effects for each. Take women, for instance. Since woman’s fundamental desire is “to be dominated,” she is the object, not the subject, of the “sentences” of sexual relationships. In other words, she can talk to her friends all day long about a guy because she is talking about what Alpha did to her: like stand her up for twenty minutes or look at a girl across the room. Of course, she could also talk to her girlfriends about what she did to Alpha: like ignore his phone calls. But this is either a weak retaliation against something Alpha did—thus retaining her position as the object of the sexual sentence—or it’s a genuine indication of her having supplanted him as the dominating (i.e. masculine) force in the relationship, in which case the relationship won’t last long enough to talk about for very long precisely because she has no desire to be in that position (i.e., she will get bored and leave).
Likewise, guys could chat it up with their mates about what they did to their girlfriends: but for two reasons this never happens. The first is the one we’ve noted before: introducing the subject of what one has done to a girl will be met either with parody or with disapprobation because it will always be interpreted as an attempt to gain social power. The second reason is more commonsensical: let’s suppose a guy were not subtly seeking after power by bringing up his activities with Omega. Well then… why bring it up at all? If he truly occupies the masculine position in that relationship, he’s got things “under control”—what need has he to discuss it with his friends? Indeed, it seems plausible that conversation about the opposite sex usually comes about when aid or advice is being asked for; but asking for aid or advice only makes sense when one has yielded one’s claim to the dominant position of a relationship. And as we’ve already pointed out, to do that would be to admit weakness and thus intentionally to fall on one’s sword.
Wow, this was a lot. Let’s summarize. Girls talk about guys more than vice versa mainly because conversation occurs more naturally when a practical reason brings it about (like asking for advice). And since no practical reason could exist for guys to talk about girls except the one guys protect themselves against (i.e., vying for power), while practical reasons abound for girls to talk about guys (i.e. asking for advice on how to react to what guys have done to them), girls quite naturally talk more about guys than guys talk about girls. Furthermore—and this is probably the most controversial part of my argument—I believe that a woman’s complaining about what a guy has done to her actually increases her social standing (whereas it would decrease a man’s) because it demonstrates that a very powerful man indeed has her in his grasp—which is, after all, exactly the sexual fantasy she and all her friends share. I imagine that girls, like guys, probably have mechanisms to defend themselves against too much complaining/power-struggling—they might use comments like, “So just break up with him, Omega!”, for instance. But the practical reasons Omega might offer in her defense (”I’m only asking for advice, sheesh!”) offset such defenses enough to create the disparity we now observe.
So, my dear human readers, this is why girls talk so much about guys. This is about all I have to say on the matter myself; but I would love to write a third article in the series responding to any critiques you might have, if you would only leave them either below as a comment or here as an email.
Judy said,
August 5, 2007 @ 7:47 am
At least you have made it clear why girls don’t talk much about robots.
J
DM said,
August 7, 2007 @ 6:56 am
I almost agree with everything you’ve said. I think a few qualifications should be introduced about us talking to each other about girls: some sex stories are told for shock/humor value, sometimes we’ll brag about conquests when they involve infidelity, &c. In these cases, I don’t know if we’re vying for social power or just unable to contain the secrets; I suspect the latter.
Suppose you are with an already-hot girl, Psi, and you have a quite active sex life. Your buddies all know this. When you and Psi go to a party and some other girl ends up flirting with both of you, and the three of you get freaky that night, you will certainly share this among friends.
Perhaps you may argue that you are still vying for social power, or re-asserting yourself as alpha. But some arguments lose their force when such a broad conception is made that almost anything can be interpreted through it. I think guys do talk to each other about sex with girls, and I think you used a loaded example to fit the preconceived notion that this will always be a power issue.
Consider, for instance, two adult male friends at a baseball game, laughing and sharing some mishaps in bed with their long-term gfs or wives. This is not a setting so conducive to the notion of social power struggles among adolescents. Perhaps they are subconsciously trying to “one-up” each other, but your premise is about the nonexistence of such genuine conversations, in which each party is interested in the other’s stories and listens intently.
PS: Isn’t it “vice-versa”?
Siena said,
August 7, 2007 @ 10:16 pm
Oh, Robot. While I had high hopes that we would not completely disagree at the close of this article, there are several points with you on which I whole-heartedly disagree but I do feel that you have made interesting points and are correct about some of them. But I’ll present my qualms here and let you respond to them in kind in whatever mode you see fit (e-mail would be best, with facebook being the second best mode of transmission–message, not wall though, since it might end up being lengthy):
1) This one is more of a statement than a critique. I can’t imagine that you are okay with describing men as so completely devoid of emotion and inauthentic friendship that they cannot even have a conversation in which a genuine exchange of advice is the purpose. Your characterization of men as these big babies who are constantly acting out this evolutionarily-driven power struggle is not only reductionist, but it clearly appears inaccurate and perhaps even offensive, at least to some members of the male sex, as evidenced by DM’s post. (sidebar: contrary to the simplistic view of humanity that many–including the Robot sometimes–derive from scientific study, evolutionary biologists are not trying to say that we are just slightly more sophisticated versions of primates that fight and kill and want to spread our DNA around. Not only do many evolutionary biology professors remind us of the “naturalistic fallacy”–that just because something IS a certain way doesn’t mean it OUGHT to be–but there are also multitudes of theories out there about why communication and language evolution in human beings allow us to forge more complex and enduring bonds, such as friendship, that have nothing to do with submission and dominance. It is simply too easy to say that every man craves dominance and every woman craves submission, because not only does it presuppose that we are exactly like our evolutionary predecessors and have no more complicated or nuanced inner workings in our mind, but it also presupposes that those animals we are studying as our predecessors have no more complex aims in their activities than to dominate or submit. That, if you really look at the data I’m sure, proves not to be true, either. The long and short of it is that I think your analysis short-changes men as well as women. And though you are a Robot who may feel yourself to be superior to us humans, you’ll find that most who feel short-changed by your arguments without feeling there has been any kind of constructive benefit to the article, will demand, as I am demanding, that you provide more of a reason for your observation–that is, what are we supposed to DO with this fatalistic information about our sexual politics?– and more of a defense of the more outstanding claims that go along with it.
2) My main objection to your analysis lies in the claim that women all seek to be dominated. Not for the reason you may suspect, however. At no point do you really and truly specify what you mean by that. If you are suggesting that all women seek to be deprived of power, then your assertion is tanatmount to saying that all women seek to be raped. Rape is the ultimate instance of being dominated, without any physical or psychological aspects of your environment under your control, and I am SURE that however controversial you are trying to be, that statement is not what you intended to convey. In order to clarify what you mean by every woman seeks to be dominated, you must give a better definition of that concept and try to understand that dominance and submission are much more intricate than the treatment you have given them here. I do, however, agree with your statement that compaints among women perhaps increase their social standing. To complain about guys with your girlfriends usually indicates that you have a guy to complain about, which is already better than having no guy to complain about. But you also fail to note the complex interactions between women as well, in which admissions of failure can be used against the woman complaining as well. Have you never noticed the way that certain women will cut each down by subtly indicating that their sex lives/dating lives are more fulfilling? That they have more sexual experience, are better at holding onto a man, better at catching a man’s attention in the first place? Have you never noticed that way that younger teenage girls when they run into an older woman will almost certainly ask, perhaps as their first or at the latest, second question: “So do you have a boyfriend?” This may have to do with power and dominance between women as well, make no mistake, and if it does not, then it has to do with information gathering and sheer curiosity. So again, your attempt to imply that men only seek to reveal and increase or decrease notions of their own status meets with opposition from me, as well as your attempt to imply that women are any less concerned with infrasexual power struggles than men.
Okay whew I guess that’s it. Thanks for the shout-out in the intro to this one by the way.
Happy writing! Still on the whole, a well-done and well-articulated piece, other than the clarification I ask for and leaving aside the fact that I disagree with you.
Alex said,
August 18, 2007 @ 12:34 pm
I suspect, Robot, that this “power struggle” between males that you describe is what takes place in a male’s common environment. I am sure that males do confide in closer friends about females and that if Alpha and Beta were closer friends and in a different social setting, Beta might feel more of an inclination to ask for advice. But that is just a guess. In your description Beta was in a typical male situation, surrounded by companions. The series of events you described are what I too would expect to happen. I found the explanation of your assertion very interesting and look forward to reading your defense.
I am also interested in what your observations between male and female friend relationships are. That is to say, if Beta was asked the same question about his date by a female friend, Theta, what would his response be, and how it would vary by the closeness of their friendship? Likewise, how would a female respond about said date when talking to a male friend of hers?
Emily said,
September 10, 2007 @ 5:41 pm
A few comments:
1) Like Alex, I’m interested to hear what you have to say about guys asking their closer female friends for advice in relationships they are trying to pursue, since asking for advice you claim is a submissive act and giving advice is a dominant act. If your claim is correct, then we have to assume that women do not like giving advice to men because they would prefer to be submissive, when this is not necessarily the case.
2) When you stated that women find certain men more attractive than others due to their “sexual power,” I found that to be untrue in certain instances. For example, when I think of a man with “sexual power” I think of one who has skill and experience in that matter. Basically he has sexual power because his skill allows him to best sexually please a given woman at a given time. This may show his potential domination inside a sexual situation; however, outside the bedroom a certain amount of domination is intolerable. In many cases, if a guy [even one with “sexual power”] doesn’t treat his girlfriend with a certain amount of respect (in other words, if he is too dominating), the girl will view this as unattractive and dump him. In this case, the girl has chosen the dominant position [calling off the relationship] as preferable to staying in the submissive position. This doesn’t line up with your claim that women like to be dominated. How can you account for this?
3) If you are correlating “sexual power” with “potential domination” to make your main point, your argument would be less debatable if you defined each term and explained how one implies the other so cases against your claims will not be made because of a term is not defined or because the connection between two terms is not explained.
Just my 2 cents worth, keep on thinking!
-Emily