Front PagePage TwoRecent OfferingsWeekly MagazineHoroscopesSubscribe!Feedback
Sunday, April 30 | The Newest Hite Report

AS a follow up to the gender issues thread this week, I would like to pass along this link, a New York Times review of Shere Hite's new book: http://snipurl.com/putf

Hite is the author of The Hite Report, the detailed survey of female sexuality that came out in 1976. For the record, this book was profoundly influential on me when I was a kid, and its detailed surveys of women I read at around the ages of 14 through 16 deeply impressed me with their ideas of what a woman is, what she is capable of, what she needs and what I can offer her.

But it did not really address the issue of communication between the sexes. It was not about relationships. Hite's new survey of women looks at just this theme, and if you believe the Times review, it's basically a profile of a world of emotionally incapacitated men, and women who suffer lives with them. According to her respondents, men can barely utter a word about how they feel; they don't know how they feel; women are dissatisfied in love as a result. They don't get the intimacy they want. Women need to communicate, and they need to be understood. Men seem to not be available.

I can say from working as an astrologer primarily for women for 11 years, and as a tarot card reader for seven years before, the main thing that women need is to be heard. They tend to respond very well to being listened to; it is deeply healing. Women who talk to me do tend to feel there is no man with whom they can share their deepest feelings, experiences, and needs. Ah, but then, what to do about those feelings and needs? Hmmmm. This is more salient. This is much more controversial.

And isn't this true for everyone? Is there one man reading this who can tell me honestly that he does NOT need to be heard? That he does not long for contact? Well, like Shere Hite, we have a biased sample at Planet Waves: despite our rather intense political focus, women gravitate to this site much more than men -- which is potentially a clue about the kind of man who does show up (intuitive, aesthetically sensitive, spiritually searching, likes ideas put into words).

But let's pretend, for a moment. Let's pretend that women really are the ones who want to communicate, and men really are the unaware emotional cripples who can think of nothing but golf, sales reports and the last hot ass that walked by. Forget that this [common perception] is grossly sexist and denies the existence of so many men who have, through years of pain, alienation and loss, arrived at a real place of self-understanding and compassion. Forget the ones who were miraculously born that way. Forget the ones whose parents raised them to be people; to be a mensch, borrowing from Yiddish.

Where would women get their practice communicating with sensitive men? Well, this is a very good job for a therapist. Even if you go back every week and pay your $150 and learn how to communicate with a member of the male species, that's well worth the price of admission (most therapists charge a lot less, by the way). If you have one relationship with a man who demonstrates to you that men can listen, care, understand, and share their responses with you, that is enough (in my view). You will have your 'missing experience' and discover that another world is possible.

But most people don't go to therapy. Most people don't understand what it could possibly do for them. Many are way too scared of what they might find out about themselves (which almost always turns out to be far better than they thought). So, where then would women learn about how to communicate with men, where would they practice, where would they get the 'feel', if almost all men are so shut down? Under this model, who is going to teach the men to communicate?

I have an even better question.

Is it possible to be a sensitive, aware listener who happens to be male, and still be perceived, experienced and felt as a man, that is, sexually and amorously? Or, does that sensitivity tend to weaken the sense of polarity and take away some of the fun? Does it mean that (dread!) sex will be blended with intimacy? For now, men carry the whole burden of this issue in the Western world: we are allegedly the ones who want sex with no intimacy. And it's quite a burden to carry, particularly given that it's not true; that it masks a much more complex reality.

In my experience talking with men, and from my own life, I can tell you that being a kind, sensitive listener generally gets a guy female friends -- but not necessarily the relationships we want or need. A typical pattern is, the 'friendship' is going great, but then when the man is a man and responds to the woman as a woman, oh well, see? He's just like all the other guys! You can't trust him because all he wants is sex!

I would ask bluntly: is a man who can feel and communicate really a man? Or is he...scary? Is he just as scary as feminists (and many other women I know) have often claimed a smart, confident woman is to a man?

Who is going to lead the way out of this thicket? Who is going to be the gender, or the person, that embraces the 'other', and recognizes both polarities internally, so that the 'other' is not an alien? Do we really want to hear everything that the 'other' has to say? Do we really want to know about one another? Do we want to know ourselves? Are we willing to grant absolute amnesty to the other, and just listen for a while? If your [male or female] lover told you EVERYTHING, would you accept it?

Or do we smother in our cozy world of don't ask, don't tell -- and then wonder where the passion went?

--

Wikipedia on Shere Hite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shere_Hite