Weekly Seeds | September 01, 2024 | Acts of Suffering

If you are also at Sex Down South this weekend- find me, and let’s geek out on stuff!

 This week’s newsletter touches on heteronormative narratives related to gender and dating. I have been writing and rewriting this newsletter repeatedly (hence, it’s a week late) and hope that what I write will be interesting for you to read. I send these emails with the awareness that my specific privileged experience impacts my perspective on these topics. I am inviting your perspective!

Weirdos.

Circling on the Weirdos question from last week. Those we responded seem to feel fine with keeping the phrasing as is for now. If you're going to HUMP! Part Two in Long Beach, LA, SF, or NY you should be able to snag a Plura sticker. 

Gender dynamics on dating apps

This past week, I gained deeper insights into gendered power dynamics in the dating app ecosystem. I was part of a Plura conversation that went something like this (simplified version):

Member A (identifies as a woman): I am tired of people swiping on me without reading my bio.

Member B (identifies as a man): I wish people wrote shorter bios! Given how many buds I send, I can’t invest the time required to read so many bios.

Member A (identifies as a woman): If you can’t take the time to read the bios, how do you expect to stand out of the dozen other invites in my inbox?

Me: 

What’s going on here?

Let’s start with some bud-behavior stats on Plura and try to understand the matching dynamics.

Data preface:

1. For this section, I will focus on gender identity without overlaying the impact of sexual orientation (i.e women & bisexual vs. women & heterosexual).
2. I will compare men's behavior vs. women's because that’s where the difference is most stark.
3. ~40% of Plura members identify as heterosexual or bisexual.

And now, the Budding data! 

On Plura, women-identifying members are overwhelmed with bud invitations and men-identifying members are overworked by sending invitations. Members identified as women receive 825% more bud invites and send 77% less bud invites than men.

What is the impact on how we interpret other peoples behavior?

Living such starkly different realities could lead many of us to come to errored conclusions about the other person’s experience and feel misunderstood in ours.

Back to the conversation above, when you look at the data and understand that:

• most women won’t see all bud invites (because there are too many of them to go through)
• most men will not receive many invites

It is logical that:

• men send as many bud invites as they can (expected low match rate)
• women should just look at their incoming invites and be critical about who to bud-back on (expected high match rate)

These mirror experiences lead to logical behavior in the opposite direction, which builds a misguided perspectives on the other’s behaviors. To be in connection, I think we need to start with empathy, and I’d love to create spaces where we are able to talk with people about their unique challenges. Related, I found this Ezra Klein podcast ‘Men - and Boys- Are not Alright’ insightful, vulnerable, and heartbreaking. What stood out to me is the data point that there is a stark decline in men-identified therapists, which makes me think about how difficult it can be for male identifying people to find someone who understands them.

Gender dynamics at events

Similar gender dynamics show up at our events. In the same way that “only men pay for dating apps” (80% of paying members are men according to this research) there’s a parallel narrative that “only men paid full price entry” to many OG sex positive events. Gendered tickets used to be common in many sex+ communities. To the best of my understanding, the thought process was: we’ll discount the price for the gender that is in high demand → we will increase the participation of that audience → everyone is happy. Win-Win, right? Wrong! The reality is that this is far from win-win, and is actually a lose-lose solution; it strengthens heteronormative, binary thinking, builds expectations, reduces agency, and introduces capitalistic frameworks into relating. I highly recommend listening Misha Bonaventura’s podcast interview on Sluts & Scholars: Should Women Get Free Tickets (to play parties) where she offers a fresh perspective on why organizers should move away from gendered pricing.

What are we doing here, anyway?

A  data point I just learned is that 86% of divorced couples marry again (PS- the whole interview with this influencer divorce lawyer was fascinating to me). My hypothesis is that we’re torn between the desire to be in deep relating, and the belief that we can expect not to feel pain. But that’s not how relationships between two human work. Related, I love this post from Devon Price.

So, what are we doing here again?

Speaking of signing up for pain.. Last week, an official surgeon general’s warning came out calling “raising children” a health hazard. According to the report, raising kids is so challenging that nearly half of parents can barely function due to a combination of loneliness, expenses, and stress.

The information in this report is already playing out in the real world and people are opting out of the experience, likely at a higher rate in the communities we’re part of (n=1 data point: in my personal community, less than half of my people have kids). Is anyone else feeling “I don’t know, this is really scary” about the long term impact?

If you are are interested or practice parenting, don't do it alone! If you're in the Bay- check out the Alt-Parenting community. 

Beyond the binaries- Happy Bisexual Month

Like I mentioned above heterosexuality is the minority or Plura members, yay for everyone loving whoever they love. And with that- Happy bisexual month to everyone who’s curious, experimental, actively engaged or not, in having sexual and romantic relationships with all genders. 

H/T to some of our fave bisexual content creators: Gabrielle Smith, bi_astrology, Kate Willett, Evita Lavitaloca Sawyers, Gab Alexa, Remodeled Love.

Also, check out Ask A Sub's episode this week: Fewer Bisexual Fucks to Give.

Beyond the binaries #2 - robot-sexual

According to a 2016 article that’s making the rounds again, women in 2025 will have more sex with robot than with men. The article didn’t mention anything about the future sex life of men, non-binary people and women who have sex with non-men, so I hope we will all continue to fuck who’s left. For a more updated estimate, Lelo gives us 25 years of human-first connection until mass adoption of robot relationships.

Beyond the binaries #3- more than two

Eve Rickert and Andrea Zanin just released the second edition of their book More Than Two, updated with the latest thinking on non-monogamy. Join the reading in SEATTLE and PORTLAND.

Note: This newsletter represents my personal opinions and thoughts. I understand I may have unexamined views and I appreciate when people point them out so that I am made aware and can start thinking about them. When I make mistakes I am committed to learning about my impact on others and repairing. 

Contact me anytime: noa@heyplura.com