February 5, 2009 Ok, I’m going in…
So Sam in the City asked the question “Is it worth dating a divorced woman (or man)?”.
It’s probably unnecessary to tell you she doesn’t answer what is a ludicrous question to begin with.
As far as Sam goes, it’s – well it’s almost a radical feminist moment by her standards. She actually engages with the fact that the myth is that through divorce women get it all and live a life of luxury, that less than a third [this is apparently in the U.K] get any maintenance, and over a quarter end up living in poverty. Now I’m never that sure of Sam’s studies and stats, but fuck me, she’s dug up and published one that doesn’t trash the women as greedy, ballbreaking shrew bitches!
Really, as a divorcee myself, I’d suggest you don’t follow either suggestions of Sam here:
Either avoid the topic altogether and pray to the relationship gods that your date never checks your personal records. Or, get it out in the open within the first few sips of your vino so ensure oh-so-coquettishly that there are no secrets between you too.
Ok, stop. First of all checks your personal records??? I reckon any argument starting with ‘I went through your documents/I hired a detective/I looked you up through Births, Deaths and Marriages and you were MARRIED??’, ends with ‘You’re fucking insane and a stalker and you’re upset about the marriage?’. You win any argument that starts that way. SHIT!
Second…I don’t think that the other option to keeping it a deep dark secret is to blurt it out on a first date. What the fuck? A/ on a first date how is it their mother-fucking BIZNEZ? B/ Just…don’t for fuck’s sake. A first date generally speaking is about banter and flirting with maybe a hint of anxiety-induced nausea. I’m prepared to accept there’s all kinds of first dates, all kinds of topics that might feel natural and acceptable, but I don’t think that screaming “BEFORE THE SHRIMP COMES OUT YOU SHOULD KNOW I’M DIVORCED” is really the conversation starter you’re looking for here.
Then there’s some generic boring crap filler (no, really!) then THIS:
I reckon the most important tip for divorcees, and anyone looking for a new relationship really, comes from US matchmaker Patti Stanger (of the hit reality television show Millionaire Matchmaker) who says that there is to be absolutely no sex until you’re in a “committed monogamous relationship”.
So first she just obliterates any consideration of the specific pressures on divorcees (or whether they’re worth dating) to dole out her inane uber-prude advice.
Second. WHAT? God DAMN this woman is a prude.
Third…you want people to commit to monogamy and a serious relationship BEFORE they have sex? How exactly are you supposed to discover you like someone enough to get serious, to commit to them in any way if you aren’t sleeping together? I would imagine it ends up being advice to dangle the possibility of sex in front of someone in order to lock them down and extract promises, which – YUCK!
Where are the spaces for different kinds of relationships, different times and spaces? Different ways of dating? Shit. Perhaps if your sole goal was getting re-hitched you’d listen to her…but even then…it feels like headfucking and manipulation to me.
So here’s my sex advice: if you like someone, if you’re having fun, if it feels right to you, feel free to have sex. Regardless of whether you’ve been married before or not. And if you have some ‘secret’ like ‘Once I was married by I didn’t like it so much’ or ‘I have a secret stash of James Blunt cds’ , well for fuck’s sake!! You don’t need to blurt out your secrets on a first date.
IF you get to know one another well enough that you think it’s any business of the other person’s, then tell them, but IN YOUR OWN TIME! If you feel a need to ‘confess’ then I’d suggest not putting it off for so long that it feels like you’re about to confess to killing their pets, making their pelts into vests and hiding the bodies down the back of the lounge, but god! If some person you’re just getting to know gets angry and all up in your face that you didn’t lay out your Virgin Credentials or lack thereof prior to sharing your first meal? I reckon I’d be thanking them for a nice time and getting the hell out of there.You don’t need other peoples absolution for previous relationships. Shit.
And finally, what a shit stupid question to begin with.
You like the person or you don’t.
Tags: "Is it worth dating a divorced woman (or man)? Asks Sam, Ask Sam, divorce, Sam in the City, Sydney Morning Herald
- 8 comments
- Posted under Uncategorized
Fuck Politeness 
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foginthecloister
said
Monogamous means to have one sexual parter at a time and although I’ve tried to think of a solution that involves time travel and altenative dimensions, I don’t think there is any feasible way of following her advice. Thanks all the same Sam. This is the standard slut shaming position that women who have sex when they want to really don’t respect themselves and so don’t deserve anyone else’s. Blecch.
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fuckpoliteness
said
Yes…shaming someone for having sex when they WANT to instead of having it for STRATEGIC reasons! HOW does that make any sense???
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foginthecloister
said
Oh she’d shame you for that too because there is never a right way only different shades of wrong. Manipiulative bitch! Gold digger! Heather Mills! Also I think the notion that sex is only ever a quid pro quo for women is less threatening.
I’m still trying to work out how one has a relationship that can be properly described as ‘monogamous’ without there being any kind of sexual contact (leaving aside the really pretty small number of people who are completely asexual). What are you supposed to be sharing exclusively with this person? Coffee? Buffy DVDs? Why are some women so eager to climb back into the straitjacket of 50’s-era sexual mores?
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fuckpoliteness
said
There is no way I’m ready to only share Buffy with just one person!
Yeah, but that’s the thing! How is it that women using sex to get something is a less abhorrent idea than a woman enjoying sex?
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foginthecloister
said
Because if sex can be reduced to an economic equation then all you need to do is find the right value goods for exchange and hey, the sex is all yours? Because if women only ever have sex when they feel like it then the base unit of the patriarchy, the marriage, would be fundamentally destabilized? I really don’t know. I do think that your upcoming thesis (! – encouragement for the future, when things are less stressy) on masculinity will nail this but it could have something to do with the intersection between capitalism and patriarchy and/or the instinct to redefine interpersonal conflicts as the problem of the other. And because we are talking Sam then all of this is then put through the internalized sexism filter. In the words of Geoffrey Rush in SIL: It’s a Mystery.
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fuckpoliteness
said
Sigh…I suspect you’re right. Seriously – the deep seated structural and institutional basis of misogyny is getting me down, but so is all the peripheral casual misogyny/sexism. The way turds like Sam and her ‘experts’ make money from making women insecure/blaming women. The way in her next article she ‘manslates’ men’s behaviour and just reinforces that it’s natural for them to be absolute turds to their women. The way that men *do* think it’s their right to enjoy a woman sexually, to keep her for his own, but then to undermine her confidence in her own body/desirability with little comments and unfavourable comparisons with other women…then when there’s a consequence to blame the woman for being paranoid/unable to ‘take a joke’.
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Jet
said
Y’know, if I were on a *first date* and a guy felt the need to start talking about his divorced status, that would be my cue to get the hell out of there, because he’s clearly not ready to move on. Or he’s about to start on some varient of “all women are bitches, poor me.” If divorced status comes up later in a relationship? Fine.
Unless, of course, I was on a date with a woman, and she wanted to talk about where she’d come from – that’s a whole ‘nother story.
– Jet, posting entirely hypothetically as she is currently very taken anyway.
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fuckpoliteness
said
It just feels a little bit like emotional vomiting you know? The inability to realise that you are ok, you will be ok, and you can carry on a conversation about something else.
And I do get that in the middle of traumatic events that can just kind of happen, and that people’s lives aren’t always happy and there are reasons WHY people might be in that kind of space.
It’s just that I’ve nursed people through all sorts of concerning behaviours, and I’ve worked out it’s not my job to care-take in that invested way. So now, if I were to go on a date with someone I didn’t know and they just blurted out all over me ‘I’M DIVORCED’, well to me that’s worrying behaviour, I’d immediately be concerned it indicated a lack of emotional stability in where they’re at, and while that’s a part of life, it’s their thing to go deal with and not mine as an almost stranger you know?
I guess a lot of it depends on mood/tone/background. I did admit to people I had not met in person when I was dating online that I had a child who lived with me after a few conversations. I felt like that was something that might legitimately impact on their decisions about whether to date me or not. But the marriage thing? I didn’t speak of that til much later. Cos what’s it got to do with someone you’re flirting with/casually dating/dating? It’s only really when things are kind of serious where you go, well I suppose I ought to say something.