i've been watching some minor fb "drammer" go down, and it reminds me of my hypothesis...

*hypothesis*

hypothesis that young men who appear to be initiating anonymous sexual interactions with women online are actually interacting sexually with whatever other young men are present with them at their end of the interaction, and that group of young men is using the woman as a proxy for their sexual interaction because it keeps them from having to work out how gay they are (because everyone's at least kinda gay - we're systems, not programs.  there are no absolutes).

because you'll notice that heterosexual women don't have the same problem interacting in a superficially sexual way with one another. we braid each other's hair and rate each other's tits and do each other's makeup. there's no need for us to use a male in order to impress a reminder of our heterosexuality into the experience for ourselves because we aren't made to feel bad about ourselves for engaging in first-order sexuality (grooming behaviors) with one another.

i think the closest a young heterosexual man is allowed by "society" to get to having that kind of intimacy with other heterosexual men (where nobody feels compelled to advertise their raging case of notgays) is in the context of physical exertion and competition.  playing sports and working out is the closest men come to grooming with other men without feeling compelled to invoke a female presence to justify their normal, healthy sexual responses to one another.  i mean, have you noticed that auto shops, military barracks, male college dorms... these places are all plastered in images of sexualized women.  look around a locker room next time you're watching a post-game interview.   see any pictures of hoochie-coochie girls there?  hell to the no.  not in a one i've seen.  the locker room is the Man Zone, baby.

that's where real men give each other hamstring massages and carefully wrap one another's most delicate joints to keep them safe. it's the only place we allow men to realize that they're all on the same side, and that loving one another is loving themselves.  men who experience satisfying first order sexuality with other men just don't feel compelled to turn women into a tertiary context for that. team sports affords them all the same-sex interaction they need to feel sexually whole... which, for straight guys, just isn't all that much.  i think we see that an occasional pat on the ass during timeouts tends to suffice.

and what's at fault?  patriarchy.  yes, our good friend patriarchy. this is men telling other men that there's something wrong with them for having any sort of attachment to or need for psychosexual interaction with other men, even though that's normal and healthy. this is men telling other men that they're only "men" if the only people they ever make physical contact with are female.  this is men denying other men the full extent of human experience.  now, nobody's suggesting you go peg a dude for equality or anything if that's not what you're into, but the next time you and your friends are giggling over having made some random woman vaguely uncomfortable by talking to her chest, stop and think about who you're really having sexytimes with right there.

hint: it's not the woman... and that's not her fault.