The Sex and the City movie is about to open and New Yorkers can hardly wait.
Tabloids are ablaze with the our politicians' peccadilloes -- Eliot's hookers, Patterson's mistresses, Vito's love child, McGreevey's gay life/endless divorce.
Practically every woman in this town is reading Eat, Pray, Love (short review: lady gets divorced, goes to Italy and eats lots of food, goes to India and gets all spiritual, goes to Bali and screws her brains out).
New Yorkers write myriad blogs giving us the intimate details of their romantic endeavors.
In short, we New Yorkers are pretty frickin' horny. So what else is new, right?
Tom Wolfe has often referred to the "season of the rising sap" to characterize periods of lust. And as springtime gradually yields to summer, New Yorkers' collective sap seems to be brimming over this season.
To whit, how appropriate then to read Phillip Weiss's article in New York magazine, The Affairs of Men. What's interesting about it is how obvious most of his observations are. See, he arrives at the shocking conclusion that men want to cheat because, well, they crave sexual variety! Who knew?! And not just men, women too! Oh my God! The article also reports that 1 in 4 men and roughly 1 in 6 women cheat. Now that was a shock. I didn't realize the numbers were that low.
Weiss also concludes that the idea of marriage being synonymous with long-term monogamy is a puritanical American myth. The Europeans, he says, appropriately view marriage for what it is: a social convention, a socioeconomic arrangement, where sex and romance aren't its fundamental underpinnings by just by-products -- and that looking for "strange" elsewhere is normal and accepted.
So what does this have to do with dating and mating in NYC? Well, Mr Weiss doesn't go into it in his article, but my observations is that we're a little more European than most Americans but certainly more puritanical than most Europeans. Yet at their core, sex and love in NYC is all about status. It's social Darwinism run amok. Welcome to Love New York Style.
In a city like New York, with so many people, so much variety, and so many opportunities to meet new people, fidelity is practically impossible -- or at least really, really, REALLY hard.
If you're a guy, the better looking you are, the more affluent you are, the more socially accepted you are, the more chicks will be looking to snag you. And if you're an even an only half-way decent looking woman, guys will be willing to spend all of their disposable income, even non-disposable income, trying to score you (obviously if you're a woman, the hotter you are, the more money guys'll spend on you and the more picky you can be about selecting a fella but that goes without saying).
And because looks and money rule in this town, the more you have of both, the greater the opportunities you have to cheat. In New York, so much temptation exists, its really hard to refrain. Of course some people are more easily tempted than others, and temptation is not equally distributed to everyone but still ... in NYC, the lure of "sexual variety" exists for everyone and everyone feels its pull sometime. Cheating is therefore inevitable.
So ladies: the better looking and richer the guy, believe you me, he ain't gonna settle for only one woman for the rest of his life. And guys: the hotter the lady, the more vicious the competition for her affections will be and the more likely she'll have no problem dumping you at a moment's notice when someone better comes a long.
New York may be the epitome of civilization but, when it comes to sex and love here, the laws of the jungle rule.
Love New York Style is like so much about life in this town -- a tough game of negotiation wherein some win and some lose.
Tabloids are ablaze with the our politicians' peccadilloes -- Eliot's hookers, Patterson's mistresses, Vito's love child, McGreevey's gay life/endless divorce.
Practically every woman in this town is reading Eat, Pray, Love (short review: lady gets divorced, goes to Italy and eats lots of food, goes to India and gets all spiritual, goes to Bali and screws her brains out).
New Yorkers write myriad blogs giving us the intimate details of their romantic endeavors.
In short, we New Yorkers are pretty frickin' horny. So what else is new, right?
Tom Wolfe has often referred to the "season of the rising sap" to characterize periods of lust. And as springtime gradually yields to summer, New Yorkers' collective sap seems to be brimming over this season.
To whit, how appropriate then to read Phillip Weiss's article in New York magazine, The Affairs of Men. What's interesting about it is how obvious most of his observations are. See, he arrives at the shocking conclusion that men want to cheat because, well, they crave sexual variety! Who knew?! And not just men, women too! Oh my God! The article also reports that 1 in 4 men and roughly 1 in 6 women cheat. Now that was a shock. I didn't realize the numbers were that low.
Weiss also concludes that the idea of marriage being synonymous with long-term monogamy is a puritanical American myth. The Europeans, he says, appropriately view marriage for what it is: a social convention, a socioeconomic arrangement, where sex and romance aren't its fundamental underpinnings by just by-products -- and that looking for "strange" elsewhere is normal and accepted.
So what does this have to do with dating and mating in NYC? Well, Mr Weiss doesn't go into it in his article, but my observations is that we're a little more European than most Americans but certainly more puritanical than most Europeans. Yet at their core, sex and love in NYC is all about status. It's social Darwinism run amok. Welcome to Love New York Style.
In a city like New York, with so many people, so much variety, and so many opportunities to meet new people, fidelity is practically impossible -- or at least really, really, REALLY hard.
If you're a guy, the better looking you are, the more affluent you are, the more socially accepted you are, the more chicks will be looking to snag you. And if you're an even an only half-way decent looking woman, guys will be willing to spend all of their disposable income, even non-disposable income, trying to score you (obviously if you're a woman, the hotter you are, the more money guys'll spend on you and the more picky you can be about selecting a fella but that goes without saying).
And because looks and money rule in this town, the more you have of both, the greater the opportunities you have to cheat. In New York, so much temptation exists, its really hard to refrain. Of course some people are more easily tempted than others, and temptation is not equally distributed to everyone but still ... in NYC, the lure of "sexual variety" exists for everyone and everyone feels its pull sometime. Cheating is therefore inevitable.
So ladies: the better looking and richer the guy, believe you me, he ain't gonna settle for only one woman for the rest of his life. And guys: the hotter the lady, the more vicious the competition for her affections will be and the more likely she'll have no problem dumping you at a moment's notice when someone better comes a long.
New York may be the epitome of civilization but, when it comes to sex and love here, the laws of the jungle rule.
Love New York Style is like so much about life in this town -- a tough game of negotiation wherein some win and some lose.
And if you're an even an only half-way decent looking woman, guys will be willing to spend all of their disposable income, even non-disposable income, trying to score you
ReplyDeleteI wish I inhabited your NYC.