Power and sexuality

There was recently a book published by the Finn Henry Laasanen about the power that women in general have over men via the control of sex. The topic is also fairly interesting as the former minister of foreign affairs in Finland, Ilkka Kanerva, was fired for getting tangled in some sort of affair with a Finnish exotic dancer. Anyway, Mr. Laasanen's main thesis in a somewhat simplified fashion is that because women can control who they have sex with and when, they in fact have power over men and this power causes e.g. the slow moving of wealth from men to women, especially when it is considered that the life expectancy of a women is much higher than that of their male counterparts. I'm sure that by googling for the person above, you can find a more detailed explanation of his view.

In short, my intuitive feeling is that the view is very naive and does not take into account or appreciate many subtleties, which do happen to balance things out. The assumption apparently is that it is the woman who controls sex, but I would argue that it may be too bold an assumption to make. It is true that beautiful women have the ability to choose partners, at least when it comes to short term flings. But it is equally true that by the same measurements gorgeous men (or even mediocre men) can decide not to have sex with women who they feel are not attractive enough. And even here we're just playing on the level of physical attractiveness and lust.

If one broadens the scope from simple and boring lust to cover a more fulfilling relationship, it's easy to see that sex is merely one part of a bigger structure, and although it is an important part, it is somewhat silly to disregard other parts of intimacy. And if you take into account the other aspects besides raw sex and focus on the emotional aspects, I guess a fairly easy conclusion might be to see that the want for emotional intimacy isn't necessarily that much tied to gender. And thus in a relationship between two people, it is equally easy for both parties to abuse trust or intimacy to their own ends. I am certain that this approach also has its pitfalls, but it should be sufficient to suggest that the view that "women have the power" is flawed and saying that one or the other gender is more powerful is a dangerous argument to make and can't necessarily be easily justified. Just as women have their "flaws", men have theirs.

Of course Mr. Laasanen might be very correct that in a night club world by default women of decent physical attractiveness might hold a slight advantage over the men. But it is equally easy to say that men with a bit of social skills and a right attitude or men with enough money will easily be able to acquire the women of their choosing in the same setting. I guess one problem in the scene is that most men (the author included) just seem to lack that certain last bit of arrogance required in this type of game. As such the game itself is undoubtedly fairly easy and subjecting oneself to a bit of classical conditioning and self-manipulation would allow nearly any man to achieve satisfactory results, considering the quantities of us mere mortals fumbling about cluelessly. But the same again holds true for women and again it may be difficult to say who has the overall advantage in a game like this. Maybe the women actually do, but it's again not an easy question, nor an easy answer to give.

Regardless, the latter scenario, at least in my opinion, is sort of pointless as the night club scene is essentially merely a game of who can capture who and how one can justify or elevate themselves in a social hierarchy, spiced up with a bit of lust. Because of that, I find it fairly hard to believe that in the current state of the world it is that easy to find meaningful and intimate relationships from that world. Instead they might be found elsewhere, where people are not so focused on playing games. And again, chances are that I am incredibly wrong and harboring too romantic views. Who knows. But I'm not ready at this point to agree with Mr. Laasanen, at least not without putting up a fight first.