Pay attention, young ladies. Your older sisters have a plan, and it involves you, crushed under a bus.

 

 

Princeton Mom is doing a media tour for her advice manual, laying out some numbers for young women and encouraging them to understand how the sexual value market works and then make decisions based on their own personal goals.

 

Obviously, that’s bullshit.  Plan your life?  Make decisions based on facts and reality? Accept personal responsibility for your own choices?  Consider your personal attributes and what they might be worth?  Consider what men actually like, want and need? Learn how to bake bread? Wear lipstick?!?!?!

 

Unacceptable.  That bitch.  Who does she think she is?

 

I love this rebuttal piece, called How to Actually “Marry Smart”  by Tracy Clark-Flory, posted at Salon.  It’s supposed to come off as irony or perhaps parody, but in reality it lays out exactly how older women are selling younger women out. Let’s look at it in detail.

 

 

Young single straight women, take cover! Susan Patton is out there flacking for her book, “Marry Smart: Advice for Finding THE ONE.” She stopped by the “Today” show this morning to tell college-age women to find a husband immediately — and also to learn how to bake bread, get plastic surgery in high school and, you know, not get themselves raped, as women are so often wont to do.

 

Hmmm. Respect your fertility (if you want children), have children within the commitment of marriage, have some life skills, pay attention to your appearance and take some measures to protect yourself from sexual assault by not being a complete and total idiot?

 

Yep.  Bad advice.  All of it. Of course, young women tend to express precisely those desires, and that won’t do, will it?  Simone de Beauvoir kicked off feminism by saying that women should not have the option of raising children at home, because if that exists as an option, then most women will take it.

 

I wonder why?

 

What to do, what to do?  Young women need these basic desires and instincts broken.  Shattered into bits, because we can’t have lovely women in their twenties scooping up all the good men.  What will the well-ridden spinsters do then?

 

Nope, nope, nope.

 

It’s such patently absurd advice and yet this is exactly the sort of cultural messaging that used to freak me out as a 20-something single straight lady. In acts of self-punishment, I would read these self-appointed gurus, or watch them on the “Today” show spouting their B.S., and genuinely worry that they were right — that I would end up sad and alone.

 

Looky look.  Even bitter self-proclaimed feminists had to fight off their own desires and instincts.  The self-punishment, of course, wasn’t in reading the cultural messaging in advice manuals.  The self-punishment is thinking they are wrong, when every fibre of your young female being knows they are right.

 

Well, guess what.

 

Do tell. Also, that sentence needs a question mark.

 

I did everything the Susan Pattons of the world said not to do and I ended up marrying a freaking wonderful man — not despite disobeying these retro rules, but because of it. That’s why, amidst all the “Princeton mom” noise, I bring you instructions on how to actually marry smart, according to me. True story, I recently went to the optometrist and she told me, “Your eyes aren’t young anymore,” so I feel like that makes me at least as qualified as Patton to give life advice.

 

You married a freaking wonderful man because you have created a situation in which young women have been trained to ignore him, and then do exactly that, against all their innate desire.  The Nice Guy.  Sidelined for an entire decade so you could slut your way across the country and still be assured of having a good choice at the end of a long string of bad choices.

 

This is the key part you need to note, lovely young ladies.  Writers like Tracy are telling you a giant pack of lies so they can pull a 180 degree turn at the last minute and still have some choices.  If you young ladies refused to play along, these spinsters would have a lot of cats and you would have all the good, decent, kind, worthy men.

 

And more importantly, you would have something to offer them.

 

Work your butt off. First in college, then in the work world. Become the man you want to marry — or rather, the woman the man you want to marry will want to marry.

 

Work your butt off?  At what?  Being a secretary?  Some government job that wouldn’t exist if we didn’t need to find some way to occupy all the ever-so accomplished ladies with fancy college degrees in feeling and reading and teaching small children how to count?

 

The reality is that women don’t actually do anything in the workforce – or rather, that they do all the housewifely things they have always done except now it’s for strangers, in exchange for cash, rather than for your own family, in exchange for love.

 

Good job on that one.  Now, instead of creating your own loving home and caring for the people in it, you get to go out and care for someone else and then pay some poor woman of color to pick up the slack and try and make your children and husband feel loved.

The microwave is all the lover you need for now. Swing by Walgreens after a long day at the office and pick up a Stouffer’s frozen lasagna. Grab a $9 bottle of white wine while you’re at it. You’ll probably cry into your partially warmed food while watching “Snow Buddies” — those talking pups, so cute! — but one day you will look back at these scenes of early bachelorettehood and smile. This is how you learn to be alone, which you need to do before learning to be together. Sorry, them’s the rules.

 

No, those are not the rules.  Living alone for an extended period of time teaches you to be selfish, self-absorbed and incapable of accommodating the needs of other people. And don’t eat frozen lasagna.  That shit is nasty, filled with preservatives, fat, salt, sugar and processed carbohydrates and it will make you fat.  Yuck.  If you’re going to be a selfish bitch, at least try to look good while you’re doing it.  Buy some walnuts and yogurt and lots of vegetables.

 

You know that drug dealer who keeps money in his freezer and doesn’t know where to put apostrophes? Date him. Same with the guy who literally has “I’m a mistake” tattooed on his arm. They are terrifically wrong for you, but they are truly lovely people who will enrich your life. (If they are not truly lovely people, get the hell out of there. Only poor choices with hearts of gold are worth your mistakes.) It’s only from dating these self-styled bad boys that you will realize the folly of making yourself interesting through men. You get to be the protagonist of your own god-damn novel.

 

Oh brilliant.  Yes, date an illiterate drug dealer. Self-proclaimed “mistakes”. Because they have hearts of gold you can exploit for your own benefit.  Use them like tissue paper.  Hey, why not?  They’ll live, right?  Fuck those broken, dysfunctional people anyways.  You are on a mission to be the star of your own show, and you should never hesitate to enrich yourself with someone else’s pain.

 

They’re just men, after all.

 

Disposable.

 

 

Fake so many orgasms. Look, sex in your twenties is going to be horrible. For a long time you won’t even realize that sex can be more. You will take pleasure in giving pleasure. It is all the intimacy that you can take, for now. Despite the faking, these are some of the realest, rawest moments of your young life; two unformed people pressing their naked egos against each other.

 

Look at this one carefully, young ladies.  Tracy wants you to be a blowjob machine and little else. Don’t expect pleasure from sex.  Don’t anticipate that your partner will want to give you pleasure.  You, young lady with your unblemished skin and taut stomach, are a cum-dumpster and nothing else.

 

Do not expect intimacy.

Do not offer intimacy.

Do not connect deeply with your male partners.

Make sex all about your ego.

Just remember your ego may not expect or desire mutual pleasure.

 

Why would Tracy write that?  What’s in it for her?  If the young women are all having emotionless robotic sex devoid of pleasure, faking orgasms and deliberately choosing assholes, where then are the Nice Guys supposed to find intimacy, fulfilment and deep emotional and physical connection?

Oh, with all the older women who have slashed their way through the emotionless sex and are now ready for more?  Tick tick tick.  Is the biological clock ticking after all the pussy-slinging of the past decade?

Think about it, young ladies.  Who benefits when older women encourage you to choose pleasureless sluthood over married fulfilment?

Hint:  it’s not you.

 

It’s not like you’ll have learned all the sex things by the time you get married, either. That’s when the learning can really begin. It won’t be long before you feel like you need an entirely new word for sex.

Nope.  The learning can begin from Day One. If you reserve sex as something that happens in established relationships characterized by kindness, affection, mutual respect and fulfilment, you won’t need another word for sex at all.  What you will need is man who is kind, affectionate, respectful and interested in your pleasure as well as his.

 

Mr. Nice Guy.

 

But hell no!  You can’t take those men off the market!  The slut brigade needs them to father their children and provide them with cash and resources when the time comes.  What will the spinsters do if you young vixens have all the nice guys wrapped up in love and long-term relationships?

 

You’re getting fucked here, ladies.  Do you see that?  The Nice Guys are getting fucked, too, which goes a long way towards explaining why so many of them are washing their hands of women all together, but the solution is in your hands.

 

Don’t believe the lies.

 

Start joking about your shriveling ovaries once you turn 26. Collect plants and pretend that they are your offspring. Impulsively adopt a dog — and then immediately return it after realizing that you will be evicted from your rent-controlled apartment. Cry so much about what a horrible person you are and how this is the worst thing you’ve ever done. Self-flagellate about how you can barely take care of yourself, let alone a dog — let alone a child. Compulsively read trend pieces about “kiddults.”

 

Yes.  Believe yourself to be a child.  Accept no responsibility for your life and choices. Abuse animals. Convince yourself you are little more than a toddler, without agency, accountability, rationality or objectivity.

 

Wow, feminists just love and respect women so much, don’t they?

 

Again, think about it?  Why are these older women encouraging younger women to throw themselves away?  Pretend you are incapable of making sane, rational choices because if you did make a sane, rational choice, what would that look like?

And who would lose out?

 

Throw pity-parties with friends. You’re all single, bitter and hardened to the disappointing world of romance. Get together to drink cocktails, watch “The Notebook” and bitch about men who don’t call. You will go to bed at night alone, but this friendship stuff is great! You just won’t appreciate the profound, lifelong importance of it until later.

 

Why is the world of romance so disappointing, ladies?  What is it about faking orgasms with assholes that is leaving you unsatisfied?  What if you decided to have a real orgasm with a man you actually loved?  Would that affect the disappointment levels?

 

YOU THINK?!?!

 

Single, bitter, hardened.  Charming.  That is what your older sisters want you to be.  Why? Because if you believe that is the only choice, the Nice Guys will all still be on the shelf when the thirty-something ladies decide to get off the carousel and actually behave like an adult.

 

Mr. Good Enough is not good enough. That guy who seems almost perfect but still doesn’t feel right? Trust yourself, dump him and then wallow in sorrow. Call him and leave drunken voicemails about how much you miss him, when the truth is that you’re just afraid to be alone. Constantly remind your friends that you’re a woman who “wanted too much.” When books like “Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough” come out, snark it up online. Privately, weep. Later, you will feel sure that you dodged a bullet and thank yourself for being brave.

That’s right.  Look for perfect.  Because you yourself are perfect, right?  No flaws of any kind.

This is a trap, ladies.  No one is perfect and never will be.

Including you.

 

Facebook-marry a friend. You’re both approaching 30, you both feel like you’re going to be alone forever, so announce yourself as married, to each other, on Facebook. Plan to platonically raise kids together if neither of you meets the right person. (Conveniently ignore the fact that she doesn’t even want kids.) Entertain the idea of a male harem. Now you’re just owning this spinster thing. It really doesn’t sound so bad anymore.

 

Doesn’t sound so bad for whom?  Think this one through.  While you pretend to platonically marry your friends, understand that the women around you about to run smack into the wall are hunting those same men.  They are taking you out of the running because they cannot and do not want to compete with you.

 

They will lose.

 

They know it.

 

You know that guy friend you weren’t romantically interested in because he was just too nice and available? Suddenly, you’re grown up enough to come to your senses. Marry the fuck out of him.

 

Here’s what the advice boils down to: fuck a bunch of guys you don’t give a shit about, ignore the Nice Guys, then hope to hell one of them is still available when you reach the end of the line.

 

This advice is crazy. Batshit stupid insane.  Spend your entire decade of fertility and beauty reducing your value and then hope for the best?  Hope one of your chosen assholes doesn’t leave you with an incurable STD? Hope your uterus isn’t scarred into oblivion by multiple abortions from accidental pregnancies?  Hope the Nice Guy still has enough faith in love and commitment that he will overlook the  scores of men who have been there before him? Hope that you will magically figure out how sex and pleasure works after sucking endless lines of dick and never getting off yourself?  Hope you haven’t waited too long?

 

That’s a lot to hope for.

 

Here’s the alternative:  Only have relationships with Nice Guys.  Understand that no one is perfect and never will be including yourself.  Have sex only in the context of a loving, affectionate relationship.  Make your pleasure matter as much as his.  Don’t date men for the sole purpose of using their pain to “enrich” your own life.  That’s cruel and sick. Don’t live alone.  Always have another human in your life whom you must accommodate while not surrendering everything you want.  Learn to negotiate.  Be kind. Be loving. Be as beautiful as you can be.

 

You do not owe older women bitterness or hardness or eligible men when they reach the end of their fertile years. Those Nice Guys?  The ones your older sisters want to “marry the fuck out of”?  Those men are yours. They are your boyfriends, husbands, life partners.

 

And if a boyfriend, husband or life partner is one of your goals, then listen to Princeton Mom:  Make finding him a priority.  Understand that relationships are not free and require effort, obligation and reciprocity.

 

Understand that you are in charge of your own life.  Make choices.  Make good ones.  Accept responsibility for bad ones.  As long as you keep making new mistakes, you’re good. Don’t repeat the same ones over and over again.

 

Don’t listen to feminists.

 

They hate you. They hate all women.

 

Especially young ones.

 

Lots of love,

 

JB