invariably written by female journalists now in their forties and fifties, who followed a very different code when they embarked on their own sexual lives.
Over the past ten years, there’s also been something quite new in courtship customs for those in their teens and twenties, something that’s never happened before. Today women are looking at men. Looking is the first move in a more egalitarian courtship sequence for women: before you ask you have to choose – and in order to choose you have to look. Most women in this age group may not be asking – but they’re certainly looking.
Suddenly we’re surrounded by images of beautiful men. Gorgeous male bodies are used to sell ice-cream and aftershave. The unreconstructed male has lost his appeal: it’s no longer the essence of masculinity to smell of sweat and be covered in coal dust. Young men are dressing stylishly, growing their hair, even waxing their chests. Sex education videos like The Lover’s Guide include scenes that show off the man’s body as well as the woman’s – and women sometimes confess to watching those aroused male bodies with the educational soundtrack turned down. And then, of course, there are always the Chippendales, and Adonis, and all the other sexy floor shows that women flock to see.
In some innovative publications today, this new female looking is taken one stage further and the male image is deliberately presented as part of a new courtship ritual. First there was the magazine Alaska Men, an attempt to get around the acute woman shortage in Alaska: women across America wrote in to pursue relationships with men they liked the look of. Sony Magazines’ Boyfriend Catalog, which has photos of teenage boys from Tokyo and Osaka and details of their weight, height, hobbies and blood group (the Japanese equivalent of star sign) was first published in March 1995: all 170,000 copies sold. Here, Marie-Claire’s ‘Man of the Month’ featured one man at a time with a photo and a few details: women who wanted to go out with him wrote in, he chose one of them, and their evening together was described in the magazine. In September 1995, Cosmopolitan introduced their Eligible Men Service. ‘Each month, we’ll feature four single men, all looking for love.’ The photos are grouped together on one page: to find out about the men’s occupations, ‘relationship history’ and ‘idea of relationship bliss’, you have to turn over. A male way of going about things – with looking as primary – is structured into the way the men are presented; you’ve decided who you like the look of before you know anything about them. There’s an air of not quite being serious, and sometimes a lot of laughter, about all these ventures: but they’re unquestionably the first step in a new female courtship sequence.
As people get older, courtship becomes more secret. A majority of people over thirty are in long-term relationships, so much courtship over that age will be adulterous. When a friend starts to talk about ‘needing something for me’, ‘searching for something’, or even ‘having a mid-life crisis’, you know you are going to hear an adultery story. There is no knowing how many people have affairs. Research will probably underestimate the numbers involved, because some people are going to keep this secret part of their lives hidden even from sex researchers. A recent ICM survey found one in five people admitting to having an affair while in a steady relationship – and it seems reasonable to assume that this is a conservative estimate.14
In her book, Adultery, Annette Lawson writes, ‘If the social institution of marriage is changing, adultery, as its underside – as another but hidden institution, deviant, like the Mafia, the rules of which are secret – must also change.’15 And what of the courtships by which adultery is arranged? Do the sexual negotiations in these deviant relationships mirror those in socially approved relationships, or do they have their own rules?
There are ways in which adultery is formally different from the classic courtship story. The love-into-marriage narrative is linear: the courtship gradually intensifies, with more intimacy, more sex, more disclosure, and with marriage or cohabitation as its climax. But the adultery story has a different structure. Unless it leads to the break-up of the marriages and the lovers marry one another – in which case it reverts to the shape of classic courtship – the adulterous relationship has no momentum: it isn’t ‘going anywhere’. This is reflected in our fictions. David Lean’s 1940s’ film, Brief Encounter, and Harold Pinter’s play, Betrayal, are two of the most wonderful adultery stories of the last half-century. Both start with the end of the affair, and Betrayal moves backwards in time throughout, so the moment of high drama at the end of the play is the beginning of the relationship – the disclosure of attraction.
There may also be differences in courtship behaviour where the intention is to form a secret relationship. There are some kinds of sexual strategy – playing games, blowing hot and cold, playing hard to get – in which we may create deliberate obstacles to heighten tension. It’s plausible that there will be less of this behaviour when people have adultery in mind, given that obstacles are built into affairs – practical restrictions like separations, and psychological impediments like guilt and emotional conflict. So in some ways the courtships by which adulterous relationships are negotiated may be a little different. But research suggests that, in general, adultery is arranged much like any other form of sexual relationship. The rules about who initiates, who pays, who waits for the phone to ring, are much the same.
The high rate of adultery is part of a wider picture: for a host of reasons – including the availability of contraception, women’s greater financial independence, and the fact that we live so long – our relationship structures are becoming increasingly fluid, with a new tendency toward serial monogamy. And because men tend to pair up with younger women, there is now a huge number of women in their forties and fifties who find themselves back on the dating scene. If they’re looking for another lasting relationship, they may have a sense that time is running out. Geraldine, who is forty-five and just separated, said, ‘My sister told me, “You’d better get a move on.” My solicitor said just the same – and I know what they mean. I know I’ve got about four years – I’ll keep my looks for four years …’ Often women in Geraldine’s situation find it hard to meet available men – or they may work with men they like but struggle to know how to transform a companionate relationship into a sexual one if the man isn’t making any moves. These women, more than any others, are acutely aware of the advantages of making the moves themselves. They’re also ideally placed to take the initiative because they’re experienced enough to know they can survive rejection. But, even among this group, it’s rare to meet women who ask men out.
COURTSHIP STORIES: What a man's still gotta do
Courtship is the narrative part of our sexual behaviour. With its clear goal and many potential impediments, it lends itself to story-telling. In a sense this book is about stories – the stories that shape our sexual interactions. Courtship stories are about what it means to be male or female, about money, about danger, about heroism, about guilt and punishment, about waiting around.
Our stories have a complicated relationship to the events of our lives and how we experience those events. They shape what we feel; they may also shape what we do. They are a rich source of morality and help us to make predictions about experience. But they can also be fallacious, because the very act of ordering our experience into a story necessarily involves simplifications and distortions.
There are different genres of courtship story. First, there are the stories we tell ourselves about what happens to us. Often these private stories concern our closeness to or deviation from the traditional scripts. Hannah says no to sex on a first date because she believes that if couples make love too soon the relationship is less likely to last. Here, she’s using a story as a guide to her own behaviour. Gaby believes she lost a man she loved because she made herself too available: her story provides Gaby with an explanation for what went wrong, and also prescribes how she should behave in future.
Then there are
