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silveradept[The December Days theme this year is "Things I Used To Fully Believe About Myself." Some of these things might be familiar, some of them might be things you still believe about yourself, and some of them may be painful and traumatic for you based on your own beliefs and memories. The nice thing about text is that you can step away from it at any point and I won't know.]
#1: "Nerdery Precludes Sex and Intimaacy"
Let's start with something from my farther past, in the middle of my provincial (rustic, not Canadian) upbringing, at the point in time where the things that I have enjoyed for my life have run into, essentially, unflattering media portrayals. In media that is supposed to appeal to nerds, the brilliant brainy ones are saving the day, but it's a bit of a toss-up between whether they're also beloved by all, including incredibly sexy women that want to throw themselves at the nerd, or whether their world-saving heroism means they will not ever have the distraction or the detriment of being attractive to women. Outside of that specific media, in patterns that continue to this day, nerds are almost all supposed to be laughed at and condescended to, and no conventionally attractive woman would ever give them anything more than a scornful laugh.
Then, as now, there were also the things that we now name (and shame) as toxic masculinity, although there wasn't a slick name such as "the manosphere" to describe it, nor did we have the vocabulary of those who declared themselves "involuntarily celibate," nor did we have any of the Wachowskis' Matrix quadrilogy and the "redpillers" who generally mangle what messages were in that movie to their own ends. The World Wide Web was still mostly on dial-up, rather than cable, and the flurry of amateur and hobbyist content that mostly was on said Web was about to be brushed aside for "Web 2.0" and the soulless corporatization that it also brought with it. So instead, people took some of the concepts that mass media brought to us and ran with them. When a show like Married...With Children proposed the idea of a National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood (NO MA'AM), the sigil of it would appear in one of the classrooms at my school. It was supposed to be a joke, yes? Well, this was also the kind of school where rumors went about that one of the more overtly feminist girls at the school was pleasuring herself with a soda bottle. And that the woman teacher who taught advanced mathematics and was an athletics coach had her classroom ruined with skunk and piss and vandalism during my senior year that required relocating to a different room for the remainder of said year. I wasn't baffled at why that teacher was targeted, but I was surprised at the thoroughness and viciousness at the targeting and the cruelty of other students toward a teacher that I was perfectly fine with. Small things that I remember, as part of a larger whole. There were feminist attitudes and practices, and there were queer people there, and I was comfortable around them, and the goths, and others.
It would take time and being out of that environment and more mature for people to point out that much of my belief about my social status was self-inflicted, rather than any kind of objective reality of the situation. But given that one of the quad-mates at the summer band rehearsal intensive told me and a friend to shut up because nobody cared about nerd stuff (we were talking Trek), and the regular methods by which the local Scout troop (that two close friends and I stuck with as a way of seeing each other regularly and theoretically learning how to get along with others) would make us the target of pranks, or blockade our space in the sleepover areas with chairs so that we wouldn't theoretically be able to get out, or would ask inane and fallacious questions at sleeping time and declare victory when we refused to rise to the bait and debate them for it, I'd say there were at least a few environments present where being nerdy was seen as willingly setting yourself up to be a target for mockery or teasing from the more "normal" children, and that kind of teasing would presumably also mean that your prospects for finding attractive people and successfully maintaining relationships with them would also precipitously plummet, because the attractive people at the top of the social pile don't associate with the people at the bottom. And being a nerd meant willingly being on the bottom for as long as you chose not to hide all of those aspects in favor of becoming cooler and more normal.
I had bought the idea that nerdery turned me into the "beta" male that would be a good settling-down with after someone had chased all the "alphas" that she wanted, and that I could only aspire to be a second-choice, someone who would be supportive, but ultimately would be left as soon as someone "better" presented themselves, possibly as the person who would take her back after the fling with the "alpha" and be sufficiently cowed that if I raised an objection, only a sharp word would be enough to make the objection go away. Perhaps, if I were incredibly lucky, like someone in the anime fans group was, to find someone who was both highly attractive and interested in the same things I was, I could hit the jackpot, but I was not supposed to hope for that or to believe it was possible, but instead to be forever "friendzoned" and to plot revenge in wild fantasies of full control of another person, or in a Stepford replacement scenario, or (and I suspect this was where the peddlers of this bullshit wanted me to go) to support the kind of political and social situations where women would be forced back into being chattel and unable to do anything without having a man say it was okay. Where I could then have my pick of attractive women who I could use as a domestic and sex slave, confident in my belief that she would meekly submit to me because she had no other choice, and that she would eventually come to see that such domestic enslavement was what she really desired in life, and she would throw herself fully into it for the rest of her life, in a happy marriage to me. (As opposed, to, say, ending up with a "mysterious" heart attack, poisoning, or other untimely end brought about because she lacked any other way of getting rid of me short from cutting my life's thread.)
As I suspected, once I was out of my provincial environment and into a more metropolitan and cosmopolitan environment, it was much more obvious that being a nerd didn't necessarily do shit for someone's romantic or sexual prospects. At least, the kind that I was, one that was interested in shows and in discussions and that would eventually look into fanfic and transformative fandom and find a nice place there, that did journaling stuff and that eventually, apparently, managed to demonstrate repeatedly that I was an okay person to be around. And to have relationships with people who shared nerdy interests, even if we don't have complete overlap in them. I certainly had opportunities to turn toward places like the Gamergaters, the "incels," the "manosphere," and that entire space of toxicity that has decided that they are perfectly fine in the way they approach and treat partners and blame women for their inability to catch one. (If you go back far enough in this journal, you'll see me posting and complaining about my prospects regarding romance and sex.) Thankfully, for whatever reason, I kept looking at those people and thinking of them as sad fools, rather than as people who had the answers with their glib responses and unwillingness to take accountability for themselves. It certainly would have been easier to go that way.
Enough times in my life, though, it's been pointed out to me that I'm clueless, rather than fundamentally flawed when it comes to relationships. Having it pointed out to me that someone shows up to the conversation when I'm there, as opposed to when others are, for example. Or having people apparently conclude, through my writing and such, that I'm less likely to be a terrible person, and therefore they're willing to ask me outright whether I'm interested in them, and to find that why yes, I am, but I've been trying not to come across as someone who is primarily interested in them for sexual purposes. Or that I like them very much, and now that the prospect has been put in front of me unmistakably, I am also interested in adding a sexual dimension to the relationship. And at least once in my life where someone was flirting with me pretty hard, but because she didn't say it outright, I didn't pick it up. None of these examples of cluelessness have to do with being a nerd, and many of them have much to do with not seeing the world as competitors and targets and to treat everyone else according to such a narrow worldview.
I have more than enough examples in my life to no longer believe that the interests that I have and the things I like in media are going to cause problems for me in my relationships with others. And, to some degree, I've managed to finagle myself into a workplace where having odd interests and being able to talk about things you haven't read or seen turns out to be a very useful and positive skill that others appreciate. (Especially when it leads to good recommendations.) The media landscape still seems very interested, though, in continuing to portray nerds as unlovable and obsessive, and possibly to start adding on that their nerdery is the result of neurodivergence, so now it's not just making fun of the people with the "weird" habits, it's also adding ableism on top of this. Which mixes extremely poorly with the "manosphere" types who are trying to both fleece the gullible and push worldviews that are more than happy to make common cause with other misogynists, authoritarians, and others who believe that a strong, hyper-masculine man controlling everything in all spheres of life is the cure to all societal ills. So maybe what we need is less cop and soldier shows and Strong Female Protagonists and more shows about men who solve their problems without resorting to violence, and who are not belittled and made fun of for their non-stereotypical interests, and who also aren't slotted into the role of being a big dumb oaf whose learned helplessness is encouraged and used as a comedy beat. This happens in prose, and, comically, in several media properties that are meant for nerds, but it doesn't look like it's made the leap completely outside of nerd media. (Feel free to tell me I'm wrong.)
I no longer believe that being a nerd means no sex and no intimate relationships, and I'm much better and happier for it.
#1: "Nerdery Precludes Sex and Intimaacy"
Let's start with something from my farther past, in the middle of my provincial (rustic, not Canadian) upbringing, at the point in time where the things that I have enjoyed for my life have run into, essentially, unflattering media portrayals. In media that is supposed to appeal to nerds, the brilliant brainy ones are saving the day, but it's a bit of a toss-up between whether they're also beloved by all, including incredibly sexy women that want to throw themselves at the nerd, or whether their world-saving heroism means they will not ever have the distraction or the detriment of being attractive to women. Outside of that specific media, in patterns that continue to this day, nerds are almost all supposed to be laughed at and condescended to, and no conventionally attractive woman would ever give them anything more than a scornful laugh.
Then, as now, there were also the things that we now name (and shame) as toxic masculinity, although there wasn't a slick name such as "the manosphere" to describe it, nor did we have the vocabulary of those who declared themselves "involuntarily celibate," nor did we have any of the Wachowskis' Matrix quadrilogy and the "redpillers" who generally mangle what messages were in that movie to their own ends. The World Wide Web was still mostly on dial-up, rather than cable, and the flurry of amateur and hobbyist content that mostly was on said Web was about to be brushed aside for "Web 2.0" and the soulless corporatization that it also brought with it. So instead, people took some of the concepts that mass media brought to us and ran with them. When a show like Married...With Children proposed the idea of a National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood (NO MA'AM), the sigil of it would appear in one of the classrooms at my school. It was supposed to be a joke, yes? Well, this was also the kind of school where rumors went about that one of the more overtly feminist girls at the school was pleasuring herself with a soda bottle. And that the woman teacher who taught advanced mathematics and was an athletics coach had her classroom ruined with skunk and piss and vandalism during my senior year that required relocating to a different room for the remainder of said year. I wasn't baffled at why that teacher was targeted, but I was surprised at the thoroughness and viciousness at the targeting and the cruelty of other students toward a teacher that I was perfectly fine with. Small things that I remember, as part of a larger whole. There were feminist attitudes and practices, and there were queer people there, and I was comfortable around them, and the goths, and others.
It would take time and being out of that environment and more mature for people to point out that much of my belief about my social status was self-inflicted, rather than any kind of objective reality of the situation. But given that one of the quad-mates at the summer band rehearsal intensive told me and a friend to shut up because nobody cared about nerd stuff (we were talking Trek), and the regular methods by which the local Scout troop (that two close friends and I stuck with as a way of seeing each other regularly and theoretically learning how to get along with others) would make us the target of pranks, or blockade our space in the sleepover areas with chairs so that we wouldn't theoretically be able to get out, or would ask inane and fallacious questions at sleeping time and declare victory when we refused to rise to the bait and debate them for it, I'd say there were at least a few environments present where being nerdy was seen as willingly setting yourself up to be a target for mockery or teasing from the more "normal" children, and that kind of teasing would presumably also mean that your prospects for finding attractive people and successfully maintaining relationships with them would also precipitously plummet, because the attractive people at the top of the social pile don't associate with the people at the bottom. And being a nerd meant willingly being on the bottom for as long as you chose not to hide all of those aspects in favor of becoming cooler and more normal.
I had bought the idea that nerdery turned me into the "beta" male that would be a good settling-down with after someone had chased all the "alphas" that she wanted, and that I could only aspire to be a second-choice, someone who would be supportive, but ultimately would be left as soon as someone "better" presented themselves, possibly as the person who would take her back after the fling with the "alpha" and be sufficiently cowed that if I raised an objection, only a sharp word would be enough to make the objection go away. Perhaps, if I were incredibly lucky, like someone in the anime fans group was, to find someone who was both highly attractive and interested in the same things I was, I could hit the jackpot, but I was not supposed to hope for that or to believe it was possible, but instead to be forever "friendzoned" and to plot revenge in wild fantasies of full control of another person, or in a Stepford replacement scenario, or (and I suspect this was where the peddlers of this bullshit wanted me to go) to support the kind of political and social situations where women would be forced back into being chattel and unable to do anything without having a man say it was okay. Where I could then have my pick of attractive women who I could use as a domestic and sex slave, confident in my belief that she would meekly submit to me because she had no other choice, and that she would eventually come to see that such domestic enslavement was what she really desired in life, and she would throw herself fully into it for the rest of her life, in a happy marriage to me. (As opposed, to, say, ending up with a "mysterious" heart attack, poisoning, or other untimely end brought about because she lacked any other way of getting rid of me short from cutting my life's thread.)
As I suspected, once I was out of my provincial environment and into a more metropolitan and cosmopolitan environment, it was much more obvious that being a nerd didn't necessarily do shit for someone's romantic or sexual prospects. At least, the kind that I was, one that was interested in shows and in discussions and that would eventually look into fanfic and transformative fandom and find a nice place there, that did journaling stuff and that eventually, apparently, managed to demonstrate repeatedly that I was an okay person to be around. And to have relationships with people who shared nerdy interests, even if we don't have complete overlap in them. I certainly had opportunities to turn toward places like the Gamergaters, the "incels," the "manosphere," and that entire space of toxicity that has decided that they are perfectly fine in the way they approach and treat partners and blame women for their inability to catch one. (If you go back far enough in this journal, you'll see me posting and complaining about my prospects regarding romance and sex.) Thankfully, for whatever reason, I kept looking at those people and thinking of them as sad fools, rather than as people who had the answers with their glib responses and unwillingness to take accountability for themselves. It certainly would have been easier to go that way.
Enough times in my life, though, it's been pointed out to me that I'm clueless, rather than fundamentally flawed when it comes to relationships. Having it pointed out to me that someone shows up to the conversation when I'm there, as opposed to when others are, for example. Or having people apparently conclude, through my writing and such, that I'm less likely to be a terrible person, and therefore they're willing to ask me outright whether I'm interested in them, and to find that why yes, I am, but I've been trying not to come across as someone who is primarily interested in them for sexual purposes. Or that I like them very much, and now that the prospect has been put in front of me unmistakably, I am also interested in adding a sexual dimension to the relationship. And at least once in my life where someone was flirting with me pretty hard, but because she didn't say it outright, I didn't pick it up. None of these examples of cluelessness have to do with being a nerd, and many of them have much to do with not seeing the world as competitors and targets and to treat everyone else according to such a narrow worldview.
I have more than enough examples in my life to no longer believe that the interests that I have and the things I like in media are going to cause problems for me in my relationships with others. And, to some degree, I've managed to finagle myself into a workplace where having odd interests and being able to talk about things you haven't read or seen turns out to be a very useful and positive skill that others appreciate. (Especially when it leads to good recommendations.) The media landscape still seems very interested, though, in continuing to portray nerds as unlovable and obsessive, and possibly to start adding on that their nerdery is the result of neurodivergence, so now it's not just making fun of the people with the "weird" habits, it's also adding ableism on top of this. Which mixes extremely poorly with the "manosphere" types who are trying to both fleece the gullible and push worldviews that are more than happy to make common cause with other misogynists, authoritarians, and others who believe that a strong, hyper-masculine man controlling everything in all spheres of life is the cure to all societal ills. So maybe what we need is less cop and soldier shows and Strong Female Protagonists and more shows about men who solve their problems without resorting to violence, and who are not belittled and made fun of for their non-stereotypical interests, and who also aren't slotted into the role of being a big dumb oaf whose learned helplessness is encouraged and used as a comedy beat. This happens in prose, and, comically, in several media properties that are meant for nerds, but it doesn't look like it's made the leap completely outside of nerd media. (Feel free to tell me I'm wrong.)
I no longer believe that being a nerd means no sex and no intimate relationships, and I'm much better and happier for it.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-02 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-02 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-04 02:50 pm (UTC)You remind me of the Slashdot April Fools day "OMGPonies!" which even at the time I found to be really cute and I had wished that they would have allowed users to select that theme for themselves. :-) Also it turns out my cousin was well into the "bronies" thing for a time, but she knew even then that she was not a boy. Being the crafty girl she is, for Halloween once she made a life-size pony costume she could walk around in, I was wowed.
I'm very glad you found your way to being the lovely nerdy person you are today 💖, outside the toxic manosphere. Pre-transition me shared a lot of these assumptions too, but he was fortunate to start college a bit early and be surrounded by nerds of all genders. It's a very hard knot to untangle what between the toxic forms of masculinity and femininity, general sexism, anti-intellectualism / religiosity, capitalism / classism / proto-fascism, racism, and of course neurodivergence.
There was a short window of time (1999-2003ish) where the PUA culture that eventually became incel/redpill actually had some surprisingly good advice applicable to the lonely men who didn't fit uber-masculine social messaging: be yourselves, stay focused on your own interests, and also try to think from the perspective of the women you are attracted to: aim to be generally healthy, have clean grooming, keep a tidy place that you can invite people over to, and if you are on a date then actually put your libido down long enough to listen to her. It's sad that that particular strand of men's dating advice petered out. (I just checked our the columnist I used to peruse 20 years ago, and they are still going today, but shifted into the "press these buttons on the woman to get sex" thing. :-( )
no subject
Date: 2023-12-04 03:45 pm (UTC)Your cousin's costume sounds fantastic. I hope you got to see pictures of it.
It is a difficult knot to untangle, and I suspect a lot of people who encounter it and want to deal with it ends up reaching for a way to cut the knot, rather than unravel it. Shame that the columnists who were giving good, if not flashy or miracle, advice ended up moving in the direction of sex dispensary advice, rather than sticking to what worked.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-04 03:26 pm (UTC)