3. Men who refuse to pay the full amount or the greater amount are just plain cheap.
Wow, that’s a real skewed argument. I mean, I ask a woman to pay either 1/2 of the total date or pay for herself, and I’m seen as ‘cheap’. Yet, when she asks me to pay the full amount, for both of us, with her paying little or nothing -- doesn’t that not in fact make her considerably more ‘cheap’? I’m only asking for 50%, she’s asking me to pay for 90% or 100%, unilaterally on my shoulders and I’m the one who is seen as cheap? I must say, I fail to see the logic in that argument!!!
4. Men should pay for dates, because they are paying for the pleasure of a woman’s company.
There are several problems with this statement, and in the main they involve the question of what constitutes “pleasure” and who should pay for that pleasure.
a. Is it absolutely necessary for a man to pay a woman to go out with him? For this is, from my male perspective, what is actually happening, if he is obligated to pay for the date. Is this just an economic arrangement, in which basically a man is paying for a less than professional escort service? Is the man being required to engage in a thinly veiled economic arrangement, whereby – instead of directly paying a woman for her time with him – he is indirectly required to pay for all the expenses of the date (by cultural convention) and his refusal to do so will result in the woman’s refusal to go out with him?
Thankfully, this is not always the case. I have dated plenty of women in my life who understand the profound inequity of the situation and who, even when they were ‘poor as church mice’ paid their part of the expenses. If they were just too poor to even go out – and they really wanted to be with me, because they truly enjoyed my company – we scheduled a date to take a walk, or hike, or went to a dollar movie, or did something else which was a minimal expense. On occasion, though, sometimes I was – when it was my free choice – willing to pay for the expenses, when the two of us had a history of truly caring for one another and generally splitting expenses, and therefore I didn’t feel hustled on any particular date. As such, this then allowed me a “free will choice”, rather than a ‘social convention obligation.’
b. How does a man know he’s making a good deal? What are the parameters for determining a ‘good quality’ date? Upon what basis is ‘pleasure’ judged?
• If the date is unpleasant or considerably less than pleasurable (for the man), should the woman be obligated to pay him back for her portion of the date?
• If she derives more pleasure from the date than he does, in which case she has received the pleasure of his company, should she be obligated to refund to him the entire cost of the date?
• Even if they derive mutual pleasure from the date, when the pleasure is more or less equally attainted, who is paying the man for the pleasure of his company? Shouldn’t he be accommodated as well as she? Why is it not a two-way street?
• Demanding that men ‘pay for the pleasure of a woman’s company’ without a reciprocal payment for the pleasure of a man’s company (as would be manifested in equitable dating or in an arrangement where both people were alternating on expenses) assumes that the man is a total washout, that being with him is a complete bummer, on every level. If that is true, if he really is a total ‘lump’, why is the woman with him? What is the point of spending precious time with someone who is a loser, except for using them as a meal ticket? And even most ‘losers’ resent being viewed as a ‘meal ticket’, for damned good reason! Financial objectification, just like sexual objectification, is incredibly demeaning and insulting to a person’s humanity.
c. If, as is often implied, he is paying for the date because his is “exhibiting romance” [or being courteous], why is his “romance” or courtesy necessary to be exhibited with a monetary outlay, when her “romance” [or good manners] only requires her to be present on the date? And when a man first meets a woman, who he barely knows, how is “romance” even an issue? He does not have enough information available to determine if he even wants to be with this woman, let alone be “romantic” with her. That is something that can only be known, in any sense, during the formation of a non-sexual friendship, where there is sufficient emotional and physical space for both parties to freely determine their compatibility. Only in such an open, free, non-demanding situation can both parties clearly determine if going the ‘next step’, that of being “romantic” and possibly sexual, makes real sense.
It strikes me that the real question is not whether the man should be required to pay for a date or not; the real, more pertinent question is whether being required to pay for a date (either by social convention or a woman’s refusal to date him if he doesn’t submit to such a social expectation) creates a situation where the man is with a partner who is inappropriate for him (especially when he is the kind of man who, like myself, finds such an expectation personally oppressive). Ultimately, for me, that is the overriding question: if I am expected, at every turn, to pay for dates regardless of my economic situation, or my personal comfort, or my sense of personal emotional safety, then I am not going to date this person, not because they are otherwise a ‘bad date’, but because ‘going on a date’ with them demands of me far more than I have any desire to fulfill on a regular basis. Since there are [thank god] plenty of women who truly want a feminist, egalitarian relationship that is also emotionally invest (since they aren’t all hooked into sucking men dry economically), my determination is that a woman who is motivated by this economic expectation is inappropriate for me and that I need to continue looking elsewhere.
Mariposa Men’s Wellness Institute was founded in 2001
to help men become emotionally healthy.
Equitable Dating
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