Love Languages, Feminists in Romantic Relationships & Prostitution

[iverglas]

11. me too

I read all the way down and found you all saying it.

The model is based on he earns, she trades services for keep.

I am the breadwinner. Don't ask me why; I've never quite figured it out. It was not part of the original deal. But I earn a lot of bread so we can afford it. I am also the cook (which as redqueen has seen is similar to being a general in my house and occupies my hands and mind handily for hours on weekends: cooking for a diabetic - who is 6'4, eats like a horse and looks like Jack Sprat, and I complete the picture). I do not do dishes unless I've made a particular pigsty of the kitchen while cooking and feel slightly guilty, or am particularly bored. I don't know how to operate the washing machine. I hate vacuum cleaners with such a passion I can't bear to be around them. I am too lazy to take out the trash and recycle and clean the catboxes. I don't feel a tremendous need to weed gardens and shovel driveways. And I have a very high tolerance for dirt, although not quite as high as his. I do clean a bathroom occasionally. Is this trade for him getting supported? Sure. He has an obligation to do something with his time to contribute to the household and not just faff around with his music for the entire day while I work.

But sex? How on earth would that come into it??


Anyhow, this does get more complex though. Objectification.

Do we "love" someone wholly and entirely for themself? Or do we do it in part for ourself -- because of a need or needs of ours that are being met -- not material needs, but emotional/psychological or, yes, physical needs. Love does have an element of use. You use your partner to fill needs, and they use you to fill needs.

I have never got the whole love thing myself, so our trade goes along the line of trading intellectual stimulation for intellectual stimulation, companionship for companionship, laughs for laughs, and I suppose sex for sex. But sex for groceries, or flowers, or catbox cleaning? I can't believe I can even type something that dumb.

Except, as you others have said, it isn't dumb for some women, it's reality.

And it's called exploitation, just like what WalMart does. Find somebody who needs what you have more than you need what they have, and set up an exchange that gives you power over them.

The relationship doesn't have to be male-female for there to be exploitation based on an economic power imbalance. But that imbalance has been inherent in male-female relationships in our societies for millennia, and the exceptions don't "test" that rule, they just show that in some cases, other factors (like class) alter the equation. And the power imbalance can lead to all kinds of other serious problems and serious harms to the weaker party.

So, as what we might call a systemic problem, it's a problem that straight women have and lesbians don't.

And it isn't a choice, in the sense of there being an alternative that would provide equivalent benefits, because we just can't help our orientation!