Tales from the front: “He Asked Permission to Touch, but Not to Ghost”

Larry Kummer, Editor

8 years ago

Summary: A woman tells a tale of sexual dynamics in the #MeToo age, after feminism has conquered America. Men have adapted. Women demand even. Post your analysis in the comments.

“He Asked Permission to Touch, but Not to Ghost”

By Courtney Sender in the New York Times.

“A culture of consent, one woman argues, should be less about self-protection
and more about genuine care for the other person.”
They file this story under “modern love.” Perhaps they’re kidding. Perhaps not.

He treated her like a goddess. He asked permission for each move. After the second “date”, he promised to “cook me dinner next time: steak with sautéed mushrooms and a fig-balsamic reduction.” After more than a decade on the carousel, this New Woman had found Mr. Perfect. She had found one of the New Men. But he never calls. She decides society must change so that guys don’t pump and dump her.

Read it and post your analysis in the comments. Here is mine: there is always a counter-revolution; it is always unexpected. George Bernard Shaw explained how this works in his play “You Never Can Tell” (1899). Mrs. Clandon is a pioneer of first wave feminist, mother of Gloria. She divorced her husband, raised her children as a single mother (with his money), and lived her own life. Valentine is a master of first wave Game.

VALENTINE. Have you ever studied the subject of gunnery – artillery, cannons and war-ships and so on?

MRS. CLANDON. Has gunnery anything to do with Gloria?

VALENTINE. A great deal, by way of illustration. During this whole century, my dear Mrs. Clandon, the progress of artillery has been a duel between the maker of cannons and the maker of armor plates to keep the cannon balls out. You build a ship proof against the best gun known: somebody makes a better gun and sinks your ship. You build a heavier ship, proof against that gun: somebody makes a heavier gun and sinks you again. And so on. Well, the duel of sex is just like that.

MRS. CLANDON. The duel of sex!

VALENTINE. Yes: you’ve heard of the duel of sex, haven’t you? Oh, I forgot: you’ve been in Madeira: the expression has come up since your time. Need I explain it?

MRS. CLANDON (contemptuously). No.

VALENTINE. Of course not. Now what happens in the duel of sex? The old fashioned mother received an old fashioned education to protect her against the wiles of man. Well, you know the result: the old fashioned man got round her. The old fashioned woman resolved to protect her daughter more effectually – to find some armor too strong for the old fashioned man. So she gave her daughter a scientific education – your plan. That was a corker for the old fashioned man: he said it wasn’t fair – unwomanly and all the rest of it. But that didn’t do him any good. So he had to give up his old fashioned plan of attack. You know, going down on his knees and swearing to love, honor and obey, and so on.

MRS. CLANDON. Excuse me: that was what the woman swore.

VALENTINE. Was it? Ah, perhaps you’re right. Yes: of course it was. Well, what did the man do? Just what the artillery man does. Went one better than the woman. Educated himself scientifically and beat her at that game just as he had beaten her at the old game. I learnt how to circumvent the Women’s Rights woman before I was twenty-three: it’s all been found out long ago. You see, my methods are thoroughly modern.

MRS. CLANDON (with quiet disgust). No doubt.

VALENTINE. But for that very reason there’s one sort of girl against whom they are of no use.

MRS. CLANDON. Pray which sort?

VALENTINE. The thoroughly old fashioned girl. If you had brought up Gloria in the old way, it would have taken me eighteen months to get to the point I got to this afternoon in eighteen minutes. Yes, Mrs. Clandon: the Higher Education of Women delivered Gloria into my hands; and it was you who taught her to believe in the Higher Education of Women.

————————