Heretofore, when writing about the Nice Guy phenomenon, I have stuck to one line: a Nice Guy is someone who thinks he has the answer to What Women Want, and doesn't understand why women ditch or ignore him for men he calls "assholes," meaning men who realize that women are individuals and want three billion different things.
The formulation of this I used at Feministe, decent behavior is a necessary but not sufficient condition for getting laid, persuaded me, however, that while there is a kernel of truth to the way I put it, there's an element missing from that too.
What it comes down to is that women are not machines. There's no input that guarantees the result of sex. Women have the same sexual autonomy as men do, and nothing -- not putting a woman on a pedestal, not getting her favorite wine/flowers/porno, not standing outside her window with a boom box -- imposes any sort of obligation on any woman to sleep with you, or date you, or anything else. A Nice Guy isn't simply someone who doesn't really know how to treat women1, but anyone who thinks it is necessary or desirable to obtain sex (a loaded phrase right there) by being manipulaive, often deceitful.
Thus to a certain extent my version, too, strips women of their personhood. Finding out what a particular woman likes is no more an automatic in than going down some generic checklist of Things Women Like regardless of its applicability to a particular person.
So, the new version: A Nice Guy is someone who thinks he can obligate women to sleep with him by behaving decently, however he conceptualizes that, and behaves decently for that purpose rather that because he's genuinely decent. This Nice Guy may still have an expansive definition of asshole, but he also doesn't really know how these men actually behave. Most are still probably as decent as the Nice Guy, and more interesting.
1Like men.
a Nice Guy is someone who thinks he has the answer to What Women Want, and doesn't understand why women ditch or ignore him for men he calls "assholes," meaning men who realize that women are individuals and want three billion different things.
I'm confused by that sentence. It sounds like you're saying that Nice Guys are men who realize that women are individuals, but the rest of the essay seems to indicate the opposite. Am I misunderstanding something?
Posted by: Charlie | June 13, 2006 at 10:31 AM
Well, that's why I said I've changed my mind. I'm backing off that position a bit, because it seems to suggest that treating women as individuals is guaranteed to charm the pants off them, while I've come to realize that nothing is guaranteed to charm the pants off women, although treating them as people is a step in the right direction.
Posted by: Hershele Ostropoler | June 13, 2006 at 01:31 PM
Funny how men, in their early stages of sexual development, view sex as an objective to be completed. I remember thinking the same way until about college, when I finally did get laid. Only then did I realize that the really good sex only comes after you stop pursuing it, and instead shift the focus to human contact. You know, like actually liking the girl for who she is? Anything else, it seems, is putting the cart before the horse.
Posted by: Freeman | June 20, 2006 at 11:51 AM
Very good rethinking. I think one of the reasons some Nice Guys get the "You're a nice guy, but I just don't feel that way..." and then assume women want jerks, is that they did behave in a manner the woman liked. But they don't get that consent isn't a matter of not really wanting to but doing it because he played by the rules, but *mutual attraction*, which is elusive and generally spontaneous.
Posted by: Samantha Vimes | July 06, 2006 at 09:32 AM
hi, very helpful comment. i wish my therapist had told me the same thing last time i told her the "i treated her much better than that jerk did who treated her like shit, and yet she preferred that jerk" story.
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