Blogs and Stories
Bedding the Boss
John Paul Filo, CBS / Landov
The Letterman scandal raises questions about the wisdom of sleeping with your supervisor. Tracy Quan on what women want—and how the rules of the game have changed.
What kind of woman sleeps with her boss? In the ’90s, she was cast as a victim, in the ’60s as a predator.
David Letterman's televised account of a blackmailing attempt concerning his sex life has raised inevitable questions about whether he abused his power in the workplace.
Letterman is, however, atypical. Most women don’t work for the king of late night comedy, and most sex-with-the-boss (we hope) is unlikely to attract the attention of Gawker or TMZ.
Common sense tells us that lots of women are attracted to father figures and mentors. Banning such a relationship doesn't just put the brakes on male desire. It’s also an attempt to suppress some healthy female impulses.
Wherever it may happen—whether in media, banking, or a more down-to-earth industry—a man having sex with younger female colleagues is characterized as a lecher or a domineering ogre.
Once upon a pre-feminist time, it was more common to vilify the woman. In the ’60s, she was an ambitious vamp out to destroy her boss's marriage, and the early modern workplace was seen as a hunting ground for capturing a husband—anybody’s husband. As middle-class women became more careerist, this phantom vamp used her carnal savvy to “sleep her way to the top.”
Whether you're the masculine monster in this story or the feminine schemer, you're a dehumanized cartoon.
Still, in the pantheon of stereotypes, culprits are more colorful. Feminist tropes about sexual harassment can make working women seem like ciphers. If you think back to the stories told about Clarence Thomas, he had the best lines and a far more memorable personality than his offended victim.
After making a transition from prostitution to publishing, I find the idea of bedding a boss shocking. I would be horrified if someone I work for came on to me today, but I wasn’t perturbed when it happened in the sex industry. My only experience with sleeping with the boss occurred in my teens. A madam asked me to be part of a three-way with her boyfriend.
• Paul Shaffer on being Letterman’s comic foil
• Lloyd Grove: Is This Dave’s Blackmailer?It was more like found money than coercion, but it would have been awkward to say no. Since she was my only professional contact in the New York industry, I was dependent on her for business and never considered refusing. We had our session before, not after, dinner - a nice touch on her part—and she was an eminently civilized sex partner. A few days later, I compared notes with a male escort who, I was amused to learn—resented having sex with our boss. I really didn’t mind.
Mainstream feminists may regard Stephanie Birkitt, believed to be one of Letterman’s office affairs, and other women in her situation as victims of a power imbalance. This is the official ideology in many a workplace where sex between senior and junior staff is verboten. But common sense tells us that lots of women are attracted to father figures and mentors. Banning such a relationship doesn't just put the brakes on male desire. It’s also an attempt to suppress some healthy female impulses.
It may, in fact, be harder to police female behavior in the workplace, harder to tell women to keep their hands off a man and easier to tell men what they may or may not do—because women and men express attraction and desire in different ways.
If sex between a male boss and his female staff is purely the result of masculine appetite, it’s more easily prevented. The average male likes to know how the system works, what’s available and what’s not. Women are less obvious. We like to break rules, even when we don’t own up to it. We also don’t love being told whom we should be attracted to.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Amateur Hour at the White House
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Going Rogue: The Index
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
Mary Magdalene and Me
Tracy Quan's latest novel is Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl, set in Provence and praised in The Nation as a "deft account of occupational rigors and anxieties before the crash." Tracy's debut, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, and the sequel, Diary of a Married Call Girl, are international bestsellers. A regular columnist for The Guardian, she has written for many publications including Cosmopolitan, The Financial Times, and The New York Times.
Bernie Made Off With My Wife
Tracy Quan's latest novel is Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl, set in Provence and praised in The Nation as a "deft account of occupational rigors and anxieties before the crash." Tracy's debut, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, and the sequel, Diary of a Married Call Girl, are international bestsellers. A regular columnist for The Guardian, she has written for many publications including Cosmopolitan, The Financial Times, and The New York Times.
Madoff's Sex/Money Paradox
Tracy Quan's latest novel is Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl, set in Provence and praised in The Nation as a "deft account of occupational rigors and anxieties before the crash." Tracy's debut, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, and the sequel, Diary of a Married Call Girl, are international bestsellers. A regular columnist for The Guardian, she has written for many publications including Cosmopolitan, The Financial Times, and The New York Times.
Ms. Quan didn't address the more typical non-consensual victims of those office affairs -- the co-workers.
Being caught around that kind of power differential, mixed with big emotions and families that could implode is stressful and politically dangerous for everyone, not just them.
Exactly. This is why CBS claiming that Letterman didn't violate their policy is a joke. Of course he did. By definition any woman (or man) he didn't sleep with was harrassed by his actions with those he did. Sometimes it really is that simple. This one is black-and-white. When someone in a direct position of power has sex with a worker under his/her control, everyone is potentially impacted. Any real company strictly forbids this for this reason. If he wanted to have sex with his employees, they either needed to quit or he did. There were millions of other options that didn't compromise the workplace.
He was pond scum. Not as bad as Polanski, but still scum.
"Pond scum"? Because the man was attracted to someone he worked with for 15 hours a day, are you kidding me. Join the Taliban, they're absolutist nuts and absolute hypocrites. Yes, he F'd up. But, "Pond Scum"? Get real. Corporations need the rules you refer to for economic reasons. But that doesn't change human nature, it just keeps it partially in check. Letterman genearates profits. This might cost CBS some of those profits but Letterman isn't going anywhere. In fact, it should help him as he will now be seen as more human and not as old a man. Deal.
CBS had a valid point because their policy has no bearings on Letterman. Letterman is not a CBS employee. Letterman's company, Worldwide Pants, Inc. is his company and has it's own policy on interoffice relationships. If you want to be that specific about the rules, this is where it stands. Two separate companies with two distinct policies. If you don't like the guy, that's fine but he is the victim of an extortion plot, a failed kidnapping plot and a stalker who killer herself. So, everyone wants to focus on the boring sex but his life has been besot with people wanting to do harm to him and his family. And if you are to believe these speculative reports about the women he supposedly bedded, not all of them were interns. And all of these rumors are not proof of what may have occurred to a single man who had office romances and also preferred to have his private life remain private. How many were surprised when he announced he was a father?
mmorgan1969s, you seem to be confusing attraction with action. Have you forgotten that people are capable of self-control and discipline and that most adults are actually held responsible for controlling their impulses? Our entire concept of civilization and society are rooted in our ability to forgo instinctively self-interested behavior in favor of a larger compact that forces us all to compromise in exchange for other benefits, like security, fairness and the potential for greater prosperity. The workplace is no different - just a different variation of this collective compact.
It's not surprising he would be attracted to some women in his workplace. But what does that have to do with sleeping with them? Believe it or not, most people in the workplace actually manage to not sleep with their employees or bosses even despite possible attraction. Is that concept so hard to grasp? And he's pond scum because he was in a long term relationship with a woman he had had a baby with (and was living with) while he was doing this and he didn't just "fall for A woman," he seems to have acted on every woman who gave him a hard on who responded to his advances - he was a serial letch. In the meantime, how do you think it made the people he didn't sleep with who were not promoted in his organization? How can they possibly know whether the fact that they didn't bed him (or weren't his type) was a factor in their career there? That's the whole point of workplace relationships with a boss or subordinate - it's not just the participants but all the non-participants that are potentially victims.
Of course Letterman will survive this. Never thought otherwise. The entertainment world (and politics) is full of pond scum. Success doesn't make them less so.
Welcome to real life - where powere differentials exist between people..
Exactly. Yin-yang baby...yin-yang. It's the way of the universe as a whole, including personal relationship dynamics.
Those power differentials are not helpful or desirable.
Yes, power differentials are real life, but that doesn't mean they should be exploited on the job. A lot of things would or could be part of "real life" if not for some kind of restraint, whether that restraint be legal, moral, religious, or just plain common sense.
'That's the way it is -- so that's the way it always will be and should stay' defies the more pervasive reality, ironically.
The women staffs should have come out to report the sex relation and make lots of $$$$$$.
Bosses should never engage sex act with employees! It's creepy.
This article appalled me. In particular, several comments stood out:
"But common sense tells us that lots of women are attracted to father figures and mentors. Banning such a relationship doesn't just put the brakes on male desire. It's also an attempt to suppress some healthy female impulses."
Women who do not have good fathers, who take an interest in them, who respect boundaries with them, and who support their agency in the world, including their ability to develop careers, often do bring this need for a father into the workplace (which has usually become subconscious by that time) and seek intimacy with a boss for this reason. This is not healthy adult female sexuality; this is a dysfunction. And often the women that bosses want to sleep with are younger, under 25 in Letterman's case, and not aware that there are costs to this behavior, not only in reputation but in self-esteem.
"A dominant theme running through pop feminism, affecting so many areas of our culture, is that a woman should mate with an equal-a man who is more like a brother than a father. For many women, peer love sounds okay in theory but spells bed death in practice."
This is not just a theme of "pop feminism." It is a theme of healthy psychology. The "bed death" the author refers to occurs when the woman and man do not have enough emotional maturity to handle true intimacy. Because of this, they think relationships are about drama and power imbalance. And our culture reinforces this idea of sex being about power. Again this is unhealthy, narcissistic sexuality not adult relationship. In fact, good quality sex require that there not be a power imbalance.
The author of this article, like many sex workers, seems as though she may have been sexualized at a young age by authority figures. In any event, sex does unfortunately seem to have become the author's currency for getting things in the world, likely without success as most of us view our "work" as something distinct from our "love." And I for one prefer to keep sex in the "love" arena.
Well stated. I totally agree with your statement about women who seek a father figure are dysfunctional. Hookers should not be dispensing advise as to what is normal when is comes to sexuality as they rarely have any concept of it.
wow...what an enormous generalisation. Please define 'normal' and explain why a hooker should have any less of a concept of 'normal sexuality' than anyone else? If it's about what we trade in, does a banker therefore have less of a 'normal' concept of money, or a sales clerk less of a 'normal' concept of trade? Are you suggesting hookers are less mentally/intellectually able to discern appropriate boundaries?
Considering sexworkers are engaging in sex more then the average person, I would disagree that they have no concept of what sexuality is about. The perspective is different, and while the veiwpoint of a sexworker may not be entirely on point, it is a relevent part of the discussion IMO.
I know healthy, well adjusted sex workers, and I know sex workers that have issues...just like I have non-sexworker friends that are healthy and well adjusted, I also have non-sexworker friends that have issues. My friends that still struggle with various issues still can make relevent points sometimes...maybe they don't ALL the time, but that doesn't mean they should be disregarded as a whole.
Yes, I suspect they are about as reliable as politicians are on the issue. :)
ClaudiaBellocq
Let's see...someone who sells her body for money to perfect strangers.... now that you mention it that's perfectly normal. Are you kidding me? You're comparing a bank clerk to a prostitute? I'm not even going to go there.
And redhot I never said they have no concept of sexuality. I said they have no concept of what is healthy. Selling your body to men desperate enough to pay for it does not strike me as healthy. And if you know a well adjusted hooker then you are either a john or a hooker yourself in which case I would not consider your opinion as healthy or normal. The only people that would take offense to my statement are hookers and the creeps who pay for them. There is nothing normal about what you engage in.
djanimaequeen-how many sexworkers do you know to actually be able to speak about what they do or do not know, or how healthy or unhealthy they may be?? How many men do you know that pay for sex, and how many would be comfortable enough to *honestly* relate to you why they seek out sex from paid professionals?? It's easy to cast stones about things you know little about, or individuals you know nothing about.
I am far from offended by your comments...I just think they lack a full understanding of what really takes place in sex work beyond the sensationalized stories in the media. You aren't required to value my opinion any more then I am required to value yours, yet I do because opinions being shared help open conversation and the chance for all parties to grow from the knowleged shared. I think most individuals choose to value the opinion of those that are like minded with similar ethics and values, but I try not to limit myself to only embracing those with whom I know share my sentiments. For me, I have come to understand that the world is not easily definable in any black and white terms of right and wrong, and to assume to know what another's experience in life can really leave one eating their own words later in life when a similar situation might find its way to their doorstep.
Try and think beyond the knee jerk of judgement we seem to love to do in our society... I have learned much about life, about myself, about relationships, and about sex in my 17 years as a sexworker, and I can say that I am quite proud of the woman I have become...and so is my mother, much to her surprise I think. It's not a profession for everyone, and it is far from perfect, but it has it's merits beyond your assumptions... Sex is honestly not the only thing that drives the industry...that's just the surface stuff. You would need to want to understand it to get beyond that point.
Regards-
Megan
Redhot - interesting post. I personally believe in the legalization of the sex trade and anything that will help women in that industry be safer from pimps and predators. It's a personal issue for me as a childhood friend of mine was killed by a serial killer, her career on the streets lasted less than a month.
I found the article to be outspoken and balanced. There are some who ignore the reality that some women are attracted to power and find it to be an aphrodisiac. My grandmother was a secretary for my grandfather. In her account, she pursued him with some determination and succeeded - they were together for 60 years before he passed away. The idea that women are always "victims" in this situation is ridiculous. That doesn't negate the fact that some of the time they are - there are indeed men who will leverage their power and position to get sex and this is abuse. The writer acknowledged both realities.
For me the best rule is the old saying - "Don't s**t where you eat!" Unless it seems like it will be a lasting relationship, or neither of you place any value in your jobs then it's better to pass.
redhot
I'd like to get to a world where women (and men) don't have to be sexworkers at all, and where children get a full chance at a healthy, non sexualized childhood (which really lasts until the early 20s when the part of the brain involving judgment and intimacy gets fully grown).
Until then, I suggest we not listen to their advice but instead listen to their perspective in much the same way one might listen to an alcoholic or a battered wife or a grown abused child. All they are talking about is their experience, and it is a heavily damaged one, they are not experts.
Very well said. Smart
What s/he said. Thanks Kansas.
Sex is about power, at least in part. If he has it and she doesn't, there isn't a legitimate transfer of that power because they have sex.
Don't sleep with someone in your line of command. Just a word to the cautious.
If you are saying that "sex is about power" in that the power differential must be minor or nonexistent then I agree with you.
If you are saying that "sex is about power" in that the man must have more power than the woman, I disagree with you.
Because our culture, political economy and religions still overempower men as a group and underempower women, it is very difficult to get to a relationship between a man and a woman where the autonomy and personal power of both man and woman are respected. This is changing, but we still have a ways to go.
Just think, if some normal run-of-the mill responsible official (like Pres. Clinton) or businessman sodomizes or fucks women in the office, he'll get shitcanned. But a member of the celebratocracy like Letterman....everyone is ecstatic because his ratings went up. Is this a ruse? George Patton
We can vote with our consumer dollars. I will never watch Letterman again.
I want to see improvement in the quality of female-anchored comedy, or co-anchored comedy like Weekend Update on Sat Night Live.
For this to happen, we have to make it safe to be a woman in public.
@Kanasrefugee
How true!!! I just came across this at The Post:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/dump_depraved_dave_now_cbs_uBqwrz2 d0rBl6BRmAamE1M
"A former staffer at "Late Show" described to me a "toxic" atmosphere in the studio. She said women flirt mightily with the man. Sometimes, it works in their favor.
Everyone inside the program knows what it takes to get ahead."
and this at Femisex:
"Women and society have struggled for years to get men to stop abusing their power by using sex as a vantage over our career paths. The abuse was so clear in yesteryear: Those who do get promoted, those who don't get a lesser wage and the leftover positions if they kept their jobs at all."
http://www.femisex.com/content/david-letterman-and-roman-polanski-birds- a-feather
I stopped watching the creep Letterman when couldn't stop himself from his sexist attacks on both Senator Clinton and Governor Palin. Where is our late-night female? And don't even think about giving us Kathy Griffen who is as sexist as Letterman, quite frankly!
Yes, I agree.
Maybe we should apply the feminist slogan "Take Back The Night" to late-night comedy for a while in order to even things out.
I agree about Griffin. She is kind-of a patriarchialist in a skirt.
Letterman's problems haven't even started yet. I guarantee you that there are about a hundred women right now at CBS sharpening thier knives along with their attorneys. They have been wronged, or feel they have been wronged by some other network exec and will file suuit on an inconsistent enforcement of sexual harrassment policy. What Letterman did is not illegal per se, but violates every know corporate sexual harrasment policy in existence: No quid pro quo. Management does not engage in banging the staff.
Men who worked there also have an extremely valid case for a hostile environment.
I have watched DL once in awhile for a long long time... but I can honestly say I have never had the hots for him.
Not once.
again people jump the gun, we dont even know if the women did or did not concent. if a woman is into you and you take her up on it or you are into her and she says yes its nobody elses business.
now if said woman was raped thats a different story but I feel this issue is between him and his wife( who is the only one wronged in this cluster fuck).
talk about a double standard on one hand you women say power should not be abused by concentual sex with underlings but any guy who has went to a niteclub knows all the hot women flock to MONEY. the work place is no different the guy sweeping floors asks you out and its harrassment the guy in the office with the oak desk asks you out you go shopping for something to wear. so of course the cubical slave who works his way up to the oak desk at the top floor is going to take advantage of his power because along the way the women in the office have shown themselves to not be human.
Hang on.
We're discussing the ethics of a powerful male boss getting intimate with a young, female subordinate... we want to reach back to the 1990s for an example... and we come up with: Clarence Thomas? Who was accused of harassing speech, not any actual sexual contact?
Um, Bill Clinton Bill Clinton Bill Clinton.
Funny how in 1997 we didn't hear any of this debate about the propriety of workplace seduction. How a boss's sexual relationship with an underling could not be separated from the power relationship, and was tantamount to rape no matter what kind of consent appeared on the surface.
Nope, back then if you made that argument you were just a bitter, sexless prude who ought to shut up.
After a dozen years, aren't those blinders starting to chafe a little?
Um... gosh, I thought it got him impeached?
Oh, maybe you forgot.
So now we have entertainment personality vs. sitting president. Telling the truth about it versus trying to cover it up. How much it should matter to us the folks as opposed to his wife/girlfriend/significant others.
I don't think anyone argued that Clinton used his power -- she was what, 19? Or was it 21?? Of COURSE he shouldn't have done it. But should it have brought down the presidency? He was hardly the first. He was just the one where the rules changed about exposing such things. (Ha! Pun.)
Nice article, Tracy. Your piece has inspired the usual flood of hate from your more judgmental and ignorant readers. I am grateful for your voice.
I suppose it's possible that Letterman is guilty of some kind of sexual harrassment, but I think it's much more likely that someone just wanted to bone him and that they both had a great time. There's no need to assume that the women involved have to be either vamps or victims.
Sex is like anything else: the more experience you have, the more you know, and the more people should listen to you and take your advice. Period. You wouldn't say a chemist or a guitar player can't give valuable advice about science or music because they got paid for it, and sex is no different. Some of your readers, I'm afraid, need to get laid--for some of them I think, it's been too long.
Beidler-
"the more experience you have, the more you know, and the more people should listen to you and take your advice. Period"
I want to laugh at this if weren't so insipid and dangerous.
The one type of experience this writer apparently doesn't have is getting ahead only by using her brain and the non-sex-organ parts of her body.
And that's the type of experience that is most valuable.
I am very concerned that people think prostitution, incest, sleeping with the boss, becoming a trophy wife is healthy female sexuality. It is NOT.
You can't see what healthy female sexuality is when you don't have a job that doesn't involve or require sex.
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OK, I might agree with you that it is "sexually primitive."
Or I might not, because many people think this female dependence/male dominance is not "genetic" or "hardwired" but instead is an artifact of a social system that has really only been in existence for 2000-7000 years. Prior to that time men were not as hostile to women (for example goddesses existed and had strong powers just as gods did) and so hooking up with a man was not needed for protection as much as it became so later, especially during the 2000 years of the Christian era but also during Judiasm. In fact the very hostility many men have had (and some still have) toward women comes from men being in constant competition with each other and not being able to relax well in each other's company, so they seek comfort in women, but the women understandably can't relate well to the competition among men and so weren't (and still sometimes aren't) really much comfort at all.
This system, usually called patriarchy, is considered by most, maybe all sociologists to have been socialized. And weirdly and paradoxically, even though it creates an intensely frustrating and difficult life for men, they sometimes prefer it because it gives them privilege over women as a class and the enjoy this feeling of superiority as well as the material and sexual privileges it yields.
We are now seeking to untangle this to form something more functional, peacable, & productive. Prostitution, sleeping with the boss, emotional or physical incest, are abuse by authority figures are not going to help us get there, though.
Funny. Judging from your post is sounds like you've had plenty and you're still a bitch. Perhaps it's that incessant crouch itch that's got your knickers in such a knot.
Djanimaequeen - are you talking to me? Your post makes no sense to me.
The last sentence of my post had a double negative and was probably confusing. I'd like to restate it:
You can't see what healthy female sexuality is like when you have a job that involves or requires sex.
It is not that I like compassion for the author. She appears to be very troubled to me and very damaged, probably both by her upbringing and by the culture. I'd like to see her get help rather than using fora like this to proselytize a dysfunctional and diseased way of life. Who does she think she is?
Again, mistyping - my aplogies. The first sentence of the third paragraph should be: "It is not that I LACK compassion for the author."
Doesn't this scandal sound like a story line from the late, great Larry Sanders show? Larry, a talk show host, also pursued and bedded the young and fetching employees of that show too.
Larry Sanders (as played by Garry Shandling) looked like a jerk then, and David Letterman looks like a jerk now.
As my grandparents met in the context of a boss-employee relationship, got married, and stayed happily hitched until my grandmother's death, I think the general point of this article that we shouldn't judge all boss-employee romantic relationships in the context of power imbalances is well taken. No one should have to put up with sexual harrassment, but we shouldn't assume that all boss-employee relationships are improper or not consensual.
Your grandparents lived in a different time when options were different for women. We have had (and are still having) the feminist movement for a reason. And they have made possible a move from the companionate type marriages of our grandparents to the soul mate, passionate, bonded family marriages attainable today. I'd like to see these soul mate, passionate bonded family type marriages become more readily attainable.
Don't get your honey and your money from the same place. There should be zero tolerance for this. It's bad for business.
Dale Doback: Suppose Nancy sees me coming out of the shower and decides to come on to me. I'm looking good, got a luscious v of hair going through my chest pubes down to my ball fro. She takes one look at me and goes " Oh my god, I've had the old bull now I want the young calf" and she grabs me by the weiner.
Dr. Robert Doback: Shut the fuck up!
There are many times where sex is just as natural of a thing as God ever created. And many of those times it is also as stupid of a thing as could ever be undertaken.
Setting aside the Puritannical context, sex is still often consequential. Ignoring its consequential nature is stupid. And boorish.
"Women are less obvious. We like to break rules, even when we don't own up to it. We also don't love being told whom we should be attracted to."
Bah, men and women are alike in this regard: we all like the forbidden fruit. Unfortunately for women, men are considered to age more gracefully which is why they pluck the fruit on the bottom of the totem pole while women are more satisfied with older, more successful men.
Plus the income security is nice for you women who haven't been able to overcome your genetic predisposition to seek out that sort of thing in a male partner.
My theory holds up until a woman marries: once they get half they can afford to turn cougar!
Please don't generalize women into one category.
I made a big effort in posts to this article to say that I think women & men do need to find careers & work that don't involve sex with bosses, colleagues, or customers.
But one key element to this is healthy families with two engaged parents, at least one of whom (which is traditionally the father) who helps the children in finding this work and does so in a nonthreatening way. Also, fathers getting in touch with any sexual attraction they have to their daughters (which I understand is something all parents feel to some degree) and managing this (i.e. not acting this out, and being able to handle it when the child shows some sexual attraction to the parent) is critical to a girl developing healthy adult female sexuality.
Also, you might as well learn now that men don't age more gracefully. As a woman who has always provided for myself (and who luckily had a father who was willling to provide some advice/mentoring/money for education in getting me into that position), I can tell you that older men look much different when they are not needed for money.
I'm talking in generalities because the generalities are true. Sorry KS refugee, your entire critique doesn't stand up to anything reality has to offer. Women like older men. Women like tough guys who can protect them. Women like men with money. Conversely, men like women for their looks. Less talked about is how men like women for the social capital they can deliver. But since most women can't deliver, it's about looks.
No, the generalities are not true. I am a woman and I do not "like older women, tough guys who can protect me or men with money." I like adult men who respect women, see them as autonomous equals, and are secure in their masculinity and can handle being in presence of (and in fact enjoy) adult femininity.
Also, to debunk another generality: you are a jerk and not all men are jerks.
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grumpyguy-
Oh, but you don't have the weaker status than your female partner! You are her peer, have the substantial ground of humanity in common with her and differ only in your masculinity and her feminiity
And you get to choose the mother of your children every bit as much as she gets to choose you!
Don't let other men, or women, take these things away from you!
Sleeping with David Letterman is an erotic cuppa? That sounds like one of his half baked jokes.
Tracy Quan brings a very interesting perspective to a rather well worn subject. Particularly apt are her comments that the desires impelling superior-subordinate sex relations may tap deep-seated needs unrelated to workplace issues. As always, the feminist outrage that ensues whenever sexwork is discussed rationally is always a source of amusement.
Glad you are amused when we have done so much work for your benefit. Sounds like you have some "deep-seated" issues yourself.
PS - I think the problem is that sex work cannot simply be discussed rationally without looking at the patriarichy that feeds it. In other words, if you reject feminist analysis as "outrage" and say it is not rational, you are missing an important piece of the puzzle.
You appear to be the one who is not being rational because something (probably emotional) is blocking you from taking feminist analysis seriously (not that you have to agree with it).
I suspect sex as work for women, and sex bought for money by men, precludes sex as love for either.
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Read Maureen Dowd, she gets it right and its more fun to read.
HIstorically women have always taken the blame when things "go wrong": bad marriage -- wife not attentive enough; children gone awry -- mother not nuturing enough; unemployed men -- ambitious women not dependent enough. To my mind, it's great progess that we no longer consider women in their twenties to be man-eaters, especially when their lovers are bosses thirty years their senior. It a sure leap that we now see these men as the predators; unfortunately, Kwan's notion that we've lost a "healthy" advantage for women -- because they're now no longer able to seek male mentors, or act on sexually exciting fantasies with men of stature -- is foolish beyond belief. These should not be ideas to encourage. Women can have male or female mentors without sexual intimacy, and they can find sexual excitement without looking for the superficial: status, money, and power. Isn't it better to encourage character, kindness, independence, and common sensibilities rather than the other nonsense.
I agree with you.
I would add that mentoring from parents, including fathers, is critical to fixing this.
Also, in addition to character, kindness, independence and common sensibilities, I would add relational responsibility (whether parents to children, spouses to each other, bosses to subordinates, colleagues to each other, citizens to government, government to citizens, etc.)
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grumpyguy-
It is true that when men and women are equal in partnership there is less toxic drama. So people who want drama in their relationships may find this kind of relationship "boring." I suspect it is actually very unboring and indeed very fun because once you take the toxic drama & power differential, there is room to play all sorts of fun drama with role playing, etc. But it wouldn't have the insecurity to it that so many people seem to think is necessary for good sex (I think wrongly). I think since we still have a patriarchical system somewhat in place (women are below 20% at the top levels in gov't, business, etc), it is difficult to have a relationship where power/control/insecurity issues aren't surrounding the relationship and infecting it.
That Onion article was making fun of an insecure woman who is trying to become dominant in the relationship (even though he earns the money), not making fun of a secure woman who is in equal partnership with a man.
I suspect the more all of us can do to dismantle patriarchy, the easier it will be to find a female partner like you want (and same for women) and to have relationships with less "toxic drama" and more "healthy drama."
You might find some of the following books (all written about men seeking to dismantle patriarchy and improve relations between men and women) helpful:
The Gender Knot, by Allan Johnson
Passionate Marriage, by David Snarch
Any books by Terrence Real
One significant problem is that we women have had to adopt "patriarchialist armor" in doing things in public life, since it remains dominated by men and there are still a number of men hostile to women succeeding. So, you're not seeing femininity in an authentic form; instead you're seeing it masked with a male-like armor or in a little girl style of the dependent housewife.
Hey everybody, she is not taking a position on whether Letterman did or didn't behave badly - the piece is about the question of workplace sex in general, and changing attitudes about it. Clearly, the article hit a nerve, to judge by the clench-jawed reiterations of current orthodoxy on the subject. Good work Tracy!! And let's wish better luck in the future to those who are sure there is only one possible groove for "healthy female sexuality."
Nah - I am happy where I am.
PS - I know she's not talking about Letterman, she's talking about herself. I object to the behavior of the female subordinates she appears to be encouraging. I see it as corrupt; perhaps due to her own failures, perhaps due to lousy parenting, especially fathering, perhaps due to a dysfunctional and corrupt patriachical system.
i have been in the workplace long enough to have been in fear of losing my job because I wouldn't give the boss a blow job, and seen women lose their jobs because they did. Better to keep sex out of the workplace.
So, an admitted whore (Ms. Quan) is commenting on another whore(Mr. Letterman)?
Sounds to me like a monkey shit-fight in the zoo. No one wins and there's a monkey wearing a lot of shit. Great....
Ms. Quan WANTS to be qualified on this subject because she made her living 'testing mattresses' so to speak. Frankly, she was a paid whore and who is she to speak about what REALLY happened with Letterman? Was she there? Was she involved? No, she's blathering (whoring) her words to TDB and really doesn't impart too damn much about the real Letterman situation.
Yep, he admits he banged a few co-workers; no sexual harrassment charges against him; says 'said' enounters happened prior to his marriage - BFD?!?!?!
Because Mattress Tracy knows how to fuck for money, she's somehow an expert here? I doubt it - she's married now and so is Letterman....and Letterman's done his pennance on the show. BFD
Sex is private. Humor is a huge sexual turn on for some. I find it almost funny that everyone is expecting this not to go on in the workplace. Human beings are attracted to one another. Period.It has been going on forever, everywhere and as long as all involved are adults, it is fine. Now the real bad guy is the blackmailer. The rest of the story should be private, but never will be.
"It has been going on forever, everywhere and as long as all involved are adults, it is fine."
Actually not by psychiatric and social standards. When behavior is destructive to emotional, mental and physical health to you and those around you, it's not 'fine'. When it destroys families is it fine? It's self-destructive and possibly sociopathic.
Not talking about Letterman on the latter, I have no idea who or what he is.
Do you live in the real world? Sex is not destructive when two adults make the choice to have sex. Letterman was not married when he made this choice. I doubt these women felt they HAD to have sex with Dave. I'm sure they wanted to. Exactly how is this destructive, emotional and against social standards? For the record, I do not condone this if one is married.
How is it socipathic to have sex when not married?
Kscr14
It is sociopathic to have sex with women subordinates, colleagues, customers, bosses. It is sociopathic for a man of this age to have sex with someone under the age of 25; she's not really an adult yet.
Did you read any of the other posts?
I find this desire, rabid in some cases, to criminalize sex between consenting adults not only sad, but dangerous. First of all, sex and desire is a very complex, personal, human business -- full of joys and pitfalls, sometimes where you least expect them. It cannot be legislated. The caricatures we often subscribe to: the "lecherous" old guy or the "predatory" vamp certainly exist, but they do not begin to describe what REAL human beings think, do, feel, or need. All this discussion about "an imbalance of power" makes me laugh. Power takes many forms: Beauty is power. Personality is power. Position is power. Youth is power. Experience is power. Wealth is power. So how, then, do you do the math? Is a beautiful, younger woman more or less powerful than an older boss? Some would say more. Was Monica Lewinsky more powerful than Bill Clinton? I would argue yes -- the minute she had sex with him the balance of power shifted. He had the power to promote or fire her, but SHE had the power to bring him down -- in a spectacular, humiliating, nearly career-ending way. Which is exactly what happened. So let's dispense with the simplistic formulas.
Of course it is wrong and evil to demand sex in exchange for a pay raise or promotion and that SHOULD be outlawed. But other than that, forget it. In a perfect world no one would be promoted for anything other than exemplary work performance. In the real world, however, people are promoted for all sorts of unfair reasons -- the boss simply likes them better, or they are the "right" race or gender, or they have a more agreeable personality, or they have friends in high places. Co-workers have ALWAYS had to deal with these situations; many "toxic" work environments don't involve sex at all.
Third, as a feminist I resent the paternalism showcased here. Women are not children who need protection -- they have to go out into the world and discover how to behave, just like anyone else. If they have an unfortunate sexual experience with a boss or co-worker, so be it. Live and learn. You can always write a book about it. Just ask Tolstoy.
KWaugh
You make some good points but your unwillingness to protect women who are young and new to the workforce loses major points for me in your claiming to be a "feminist." All children, girls or boys, need parents who support for and recognition of their need and ability to earn money and participate in the working world. Lots of girls still do not get this from parents. Sometimes one parent will help with this (usually the mother) and the other parent will not. In very difficult cases, there are even parents (usually fathers) who actively inhibit and object to development of a daughter's agency in the world in this respect.
Unless it becomes nearly universal that parents understand and follow through with supporting and recognizing their children in this way, I think we all (and particularly those of us who call ourselves feminists) ought to be playing compassionate-mentor type colleagues, bosses, etc. to newbies just entering the workforce. Some mistakes, like becoming a household name for sleeping with the boss, can haunt you your entire career.
PS- Talk to Polanski's victim about how much she enjoys having to have her story told in public and in the courts over and over again. Victimhood is that; it's painful, it's debilitating, and it can take years (maybe a lifetime) to recover from.
When people like you say these "you'll enjoy your victimhood" things it makes me think you have zero compassion, which in my book means you ain't no feminist at all. Get some counseling.
Referencing Polanski, as if it had ANYTHING to do with the Letterman case, is really disturbed. We're discussing sex between consenting adults, here. Women are adults. Not children, not "victims" in need of "protection" -- adults. When you can't make the distinction between a 13 year old and a 25 year old ... I don't think it's me who needs the counseling.
Letterman. Still making us laugh after all these years :)
"If you think back to the stories told about Clarence Thomas, he had the best lines and a far more memorable personality than his offended victim."
Ugh! I disagree! I remember watching the hearings when I was in college and remember the jokes about pubic hair and the can of soda. Clarence Thomas' defensiveness and "outrage" were ridiculous -- not memorable at all. Anita Hill, on the other hand, seemed truthful and calm. Then all of the later stories afterward corroborated her version of what happened.
Thank you.
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