Phoboeros
The other day, there was this post I saw on Tumblr that was talking about some service that will bait "your man" with a "catfish" to see if he's cheating. I read it to understand it, and then scrolled by like "Ooookayyyy..." But today I thought about it again, because it bugged me. My initial response to it today was "Boy it would be funny to see that backfire on somebody. He gets the catfish and he's like 'Who is this? How did you get this number?' She keeps trying to bait him, and he's like 'I don't have time for this BS' and blocks the number."
But then I started to think about why the post bothered me so much, and I figured it out. First, that the whole thing of trying to out a cheater, that whole culture of jealousy and doing all kinds of privacy-invading shit to try to out a cheater, just struck me as creepy and wrong somehow. I wasn't sure why, at first, but now I know why: because if a man were doing that shit, most of my fellow feminists would be calling him out on that bullshit, calling him out as a stalker or an abuser or something (not sure the right term). But because it's women doing it, oh suddenly it's crickets all around.
Now I'm not saying the two things are equal in their wrongness, no. Men have a lot of social power and privilege that means when they do that kind of jealous boyfriend thing, most of society supports them, to a point. It's viewed as a sign that he cares, that he's protective, when in fact he's anything but. And the way men and women express jealousy (perhaps even how they *feel* jealousy, but that's speculation) is very different, generally. In our culture, female jealousy tends to be based out of insecurity, fear of how they'll manage without their partner, and a lot of times out of fear that their partner either doesn't love them or doesn't respect them. So their expression of their jealousy expresses these feelings, and then can and often does lead to stuff like trying to out a cheater, and if the suspect is not, in fact, a cheater... well, that can damage a relationship.
Men, on the other hand, tend to express jealousy in a very territorial manner, fighting with others over their territory. Male jealousy (in the West, anyway) also tends to be more violent towards women because of how they're taught to objectify women. Women are their property, and if that property refuses to cooperate, they can get rid of that property, one way or another (or so they tend to feel).
So no, not the same in their wrongness at all, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be called out just because the person doing it is a woman. Feminism means equality of the sexes, and therefore posessive behavior needs to be called out and disparaged regardless of who's doing it.
But at a more fundamental level, what bothered me about the post was that I just don't 'get' jealousy. I've posted before, I think, about how I just don't 'get' jealousy, mainly because I'm fairly sure I've never felt it, ever, in my life. I have felt a lot of emotions in my almost 33 years of life, but never jealousy, from what I've been able to figure out. Which I feel grateful for, because jealousy pushes people away; jealousy is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it would be a really difficult life being pansexual/bisexual (as well as polyamorous) and jealous all the time, so I feel I dodged a bullet there.
Sure, I've felt envy here and there, but envy and jealousy are not the same thing. Envy is an emotion that makes you strive to achieve something; you envy someone's bike, envy makes you go out and earn money to buy your own bike. You envy someone's political power, envy helps you strive to achieve your own political power. You envy someone having a lover, it helps you strive to get your own lover. Whereas jealousy is fearful and posessive; you feel jealous of someone's bike, jealousy makes you steal their bike. You feel jealous of someone's political power, jealousy makes you tear them down or kill them. You feel jealous of someone having a lover, you try to posess their lover (or them, depending on preference). You feel jealous of a loved one talking to others, it makes you act in a way that is posessive, controlling, and hoarding---and nobody likes being the object of jealousy; and thus, jealousy and love are mutually exclusive. Jealousy may arise from a certain kind of "love" (selfish love, if you can call that love, which I don't), but when jealousy arises, it pushes love out; the two emotions cannot coexist for long.
Yes, I said it; jealousy and love are mutually exclusive emotions. Oh, it may not seem so, but it's been my observation that what a lot of people mistake as the emotion of love is actually something else, some kind of pseudo-love, and not real love. Real love is not jealous, and is not selfish. But pseudo-love is entirely selfish, and highly prone to jealousy. That whole "you complete me" or "I can't live without you" stuff is not love, that's pseudo-love. I have only ever felt real love, non-selfish love. Not saying real love is selfless, though; real love is neither selfish nor selfless.
Another point of clarification: the emotion I deem "selfish love" is not the same as occasionally being selfish in a relationship, even when that selfishness is a little excessive. Selfishness can be good in small doses, but it's toxic in larger doses, and large doses of selfishness can occur even in a relationship based out of true, non-selfish love.
Where "selfish love" differs from real love is in its most basic qualities; selfish love is a fear-based emotion. Out of fear of loneliness, one may cling to another in what they think is love, but is actually fear. And if the other person loves you back, either genuinely or also out of selfish love, the relationship will always be tenuous at best when one or more person in a relationship is feeling selfish love. Wait, let me coin a better term for selfish love: phoboeros. (Foe-boe-air-ose, from phobos meaning fear and eros meaning love).
This line of thought kind of clarifies my thoughts on polyamory versus monoamory, too. Because polyamory, by its very nature, makes phoboeros self-defeating. People who are only letting themselves feel phoboeros are not going to last long as polyamorous people, because they're just going to constantly be jealous and miserable the whole time if they try it. Of course, phoboeros is always self-defeating no matter what, but it's a lot easier to manage a relationship based in phoboeros if one is in a monoamorous relationship. Which is NOT in any way implying that all or even most mono relationships are based in phoboeros, that is not even REMOTELY what I am saying, but I have to add this little proviso because I'm sure SOME moron will read my post wrongly and make an entirely inaccurate assumption about what I'm saying. I am merely saying that polyamory does not lend itself well to phoboeros, that poly relationships based out of phoboeros will fall apart a lot more quickly than a mono relationship based in phoboeros will. Which should be a self-evident fact.
But yes, the primary thing I want people to walk away from this post with is, that we need to call out stalkery/possessive behavior in relationships regardless of the gender of the culprit, because that’s shitty behavior no matter who is doing it.
This was cross-posted from http://alex-antonin.dreamwidth.org/234947.html
You can comment either here or there.
But then I started to think about why the post bothered me so much, and I figured it out. First, that the whole thing of trying to out a cheater, that whole culture of jealousy and doing all kinds of privacy-invading shit to try to out a cheater, just struck me as creepy and wrong somehow. I wasn't sure why, at first, but now I know why: because if a man were doing that shit, most of my fellow feminists would be calling him out on that bullshit, calling him out as a stalker or an abuser or something (not sure the right term). But because it's women doing it, oh suddenly it's crickets all around.
Now I'm not saying the two things are equal in their wrongness, no. Men have a lot of social power and privilege that means when they do that kind of jealous boyfriend thing, most of society supports them, to a point. It's viewed as a sign that he cares, that he's protective, when in fact he's anything but. And the way men and women express jealousy (perhaps even how they *feel* jealousy, but that's speculation) is very different, generally. In our culture, female jealousy tends to be based out of insecurity, fear of how they'll manage without their partner, and a lot of times out of fear that their partner either doesn't love them or doesn't respect them. So their expression of their jealousy expresses these feelings, and then can and often does lead to stuff like trying to out a cheater, and if the suspect is not, in fact, a cheater... well, that can damage a relationship.
Men, on the other hand, tend to express jealousy in a very territorial manner, fighting with others over their territory. Male jealousy (in the West, anyway) also tends to be more violent towards women because of how they're taught to objectify women. Women are their property, and if that property refuses to cooperate, they can get rid of that property, one way or another (or so they tend to feel).
So no, not the same in their wrongness at all, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be called out just because the person doing it is a woman. Feminism means equality of the sexes, and therefore posessive behavior needs to be called out and disparaged regardless of who's doing it.
But at a more fundamental level, what bothered me about the post was that I just don't 'get' jealousy. I've posted before, I think, about how I just don't 'get' jealousy, mainly because I'm fairly sure I've never felt it, ever, in my life. I have felt a lot of emotions in my almost 33 years of life, but never jealousy, from what I've been able to figure out. Which I feel grateful for, because jealousy pushes people away; jealousy is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it would be a really difficult life being pansexual/bisexual (as well as polyamorous) and jealous all the time, so I feel I dodged a bullet there.
Sure, I've felt envy here and there, but envy and jealousy are not the same thing. Envy is an emotion that makes you strive to achieve something; you envy someone's bike, envy makes you go out and earn money to buy your own bike. You envy someone's political power, envy helps you strive to achieve your own political power. You envy someone having a lover, it helps you strive to get your own lover. Whereas jealousy is fearful and posessive; you feel jealous of someone's bike, jealousy makes you steal their bike. You feel jealous of someone's political power, jealousy makes you tear them down or kill them. You feel jealous of someone having a lover, you try to posess their lover (or them, depending on preference). You feel jealous of a loved one talking to others, it makes you act in a way that is posessive, controlling, and hoarding---and nobody likes being the object of jealousy; and thus, jealousy and love are mutually exclusive. Jealousy may arise from a certain kind of "love" (selfish love, if you can call that love, which I don't), but when jealousy arises, it pushes love out; the two emotions cannot coexist for long.
Yes, I said it; jealousy and love are mutually exclusive emotions. Oh, it may not seem so, but it's been my observation that what a lot of people mistake as the emotion of love is actually something else, some kind of pseudo-love, and not real love. Real love is not jealous, and is not selfish. But pseudo-love is entirely selfish, and highly prone to jealousy. That whole "you complete me" or "I can't live without you" stuff is not love, that's pseudo-love. I have only ever felt real love, non-selfish love. Not saying real love is selfless, though; real love is neither selfish nor selfless.
Another point of clarification: the emotion I deem "selfish love" is not the same as occasionally being selfish in a relationship, even when that selfishness is a little excessive. Selfishness can be good in small doses, but it's toxic in larger doses, and large doses of selfishness can occur even in a relationship based out of true, non-selfish love.
Where "selfish love" differs from real love is in its most basic qualities; selfish love is a fear-based emotion. Out of fear of loneliness, one may cling to another in what they think is love, but is actually fear. And if the other person loves you back, either genuinely or also out of selfish love, the relationship will always be tenuous at best when one or more person in a relationship is feeling selfish love. Wait, let me coin a better term for selfish love: phoboeros. (Foe-boe-air-ose, from phobos meaning fear and eros meaning love).
This line of thought kind of clarifies my thoughts on polyamory versus monoamory, too. Because polyamory, by its very nature, makes phoboeros self-defeating. People who are only letting themselves feel phoboeros are not going to last long as polyamorous people, because they're just going to constantly be jealous and miserable the whole time if they try it. Of course, phoboeros is always self-defeating no matter what, but it's a lot easier to manage a relationship based in phoboeros if one is in a monoamorous relationship. Which is NOT in any way implying that all or even most mono relationships are based in phoboeros, that is not even REMOTELY what I am saying, but I have to add this little proviso because I'm sure SOME moron will read my post wrongly and make an entirely inaccurate assumption about what I'm saying. I am merely saying that polyamory does not lend itself well to phoboeros, that poly relationships based out of phoboeros will fall apart a lot more quickly than a mono relationship based in phoboeros will. Which should be a self-evident fact.
But yes, the primary thing I want people to walk away from this post with is, that we need to call out stalkery/possessive behavior in relationships regardless of the gender of the culprit, because that’s shitty behavior no matter who is doing it.
This was cross-posted from http://alex-antonin.dreamwidth.org/234947.html
You can comment either here or there.