“I Would Never Sleep with a Trump Supporter”: The Impact of Political Views on Hooking Up
I would never sleep with a Trump supporter, though I slept with a few Bush supporters.
A LIBERAL SINGLE WOMAN
I would not be able to marry a man who is a leftist, even if I found him very attractive—although most of the men I have slept with are leftists.
A CONSERVATIVE DIVORCED WOMAN
I sleep with a Trump supporter every night, but I am happy to have a lover who is different, as I love to talk a lot with my lover.
A LIBERAL MARRIED WOMAN
Political views seem to be these days essential in choosing spouses, but their role in hooking up is less clear. We may not want to live with our political enemy, but what’s wrong with having sex with him?
Relevant Factors
I can’t stop hooking up with Trump supporters.
KOREY LANE
Factors that are relevant to this issue are (a) the depth of the relationship, (b) the negativity seen in the political view, (c) the person’s support of this view, and (d) the person’s traits that are unrelated to the political view.
The depth of our relationship with someone determines the types of traits that are relevant for us. The deeper the relationship, the more traits of this person become relevant. Thus, in choosing a spouse, many more profound traits of the person are relevant than is the case in choosing a sexual partner. Hence, spouses, and romantic partners in general, show strong similarity in political and religious attitudes. Our conservative divorced woman makes clear that she would never marry a leftist, but most of her lovers have been leftists.
Are we to understand that leftists make better lovers? As I am not aware of any research supporting this claim, I tend to account for her feelings by noting that in the short term, opposites attract, but in the long term, similarity is more significant.
Of course, casual sexual relationships come in different flavors: one-night stands, booty calls, fuck buddies, and friends with benefits. While in the case of friends with benefits, political issues are likely to be relevant, one can have a one-night stand without a lot of talking, and especially not about political issues.
The depth of the negativity seen in a given political view, and its connection to moral issues, is another factor in deciding whether or not to sleep with your (political) enemy. Political attitudes are associated with moral ones, but the connection can be of various degrees. The negativity can refer to major issues, which are related to significant immoral, criminal deeds, and minor issues, which are more a question of taste. Let’s take the liberal single woman mentioned above: she does not consider her disagreement with Trump a matter of politics as much as a matter of good versus evil. Hence, although she would never sleep with a Trump supporter, she slept with a few Bush supporters; apparently, her opposition to Bush’s conservative policy was indeed a matter of politics rather than profound moral lines. She even mentioned in a nostalgic tone that the conservative president Ronald Reagan was the president who, more than any other president, enlarged American national parks.
The depth of the person’s support of the negative view is another relevant factor in deciding whether or not to hook up with someone supporting the “wrong” political view. There are, of course, various degrees of support. Thus, one can support the “wrong” view while criticizing some basic elements of this view but thinking that there is no better choice. Alternatively, one can show extreme and absolute support of the “wrong” view, and this will be evident even at the first meeting, and thus be a big sexual turnoff.
The person’s traits that are unrelated to the political view are also very significant in determining whether to pursue the sexual encounter. If the person is kind, sensitive, and considerate, it will be easier to initiate the sexual encounter despite his “wrong” political view. The problem here is somewhat similar to the problem of loving a criminal. In a song written by Martin, Shellback, and Amber, Britney Spears says, “He is a hustler, he’s no good at all, he is a loser, he’s a bum, he lies, he bluffs, he’s unreliable, he is a sucker with a gun,” but, Mama, I’m in love with him. She further explains that this love “isn’t rational, it’s physical,” but, she continues, he is okay for me. Loving a criminal may be sexually exciting in the short term, but for moral people, the immoral nature of the criminal will significantly hinder the establishment of a flourishing romantic relationship.
If the person is highly sexually satisfying, then even if your head says that he is the wrong person because of his appalling political views, it may be quite hard to stop hooking up with him. As Korey Lane nicely puts it concerning hooking up with a Trump supporter, this is probably not a sustainable relationship that she would want to have in the long run, but “for right now I can highly recommend hooking up with someone whose politics you hate. As long as you don’t forget to vote.”17
Polarized Political Views
When I was young, I certainly spent too much time with hustlers, bums, and suckers. However, these guys were not in favor of any radical political views, at least as far as I know. And if I do not know about their political views, it does not seem to have been important to me at that time.
A MARRIED WOMAN IN HER FIFTIES
If we begin to exclude Trump supporters and his ilk from our sexual interactions, soon we will have to abstain from sex altogether.
A MARRIED WOMAN
Our society seems more politically polarized than ever, and politics is a popular partner in the bedroom. Should we have the feeling of sleeping with the enemy while having sex with a person with different political views?
There is no golden rule for when to wed someone with opposing political views (though extreme opposition tends to be destructive) and when to keep the relation at the level of a hookup. There are many factors to consider, and each has various degrees. However, since we are dealing here with a combination of two emotions—namely, love and hate—I would guess that following the heart here would often be the way to go.
Concluding Remarks
I love going out to dinner with good-looking men, even though good-looking does not buy the meal; however, with an ugly man, I cannot eat at all.
A SINGLE WOMAN
The main reason for the complexity in choosing a long-term partner is the fact that a good match can hardly be determined by preexisting nonrelational traits; only ongoing interactions can reveal and establish a suitable match. The major issue here is not how good each partner is, but rather how suited they are to each other. In choosing a partner, the suitability scale is much more significant than the nonrelational scale. Accordingly, meritocracy, which is a system in which people are chosen for their nonrelational past achievements, is of limited value in choosing a romantic partner, whose main value is his suitability and not his performance.
When assessing methods of choosing a partner, it is important to consider which kinds of qualities are prioritized in each. While our minds tend to latch on to both positive and negative superficial qualities, these are less useful in ensuring profound love. Employing a checklist in an attempt to screen out a partner with superficial, negative qualities that one has deemed unacceptable is unreliable, as such qualities are of little value in predicting an enduring profound romantic relationship. Similarly, in the love-at-first-sight scenario, the passion and intense love that come from appreciating a partner’s superficial positive qualities in no way secures the development of a relationship with deeper meaning. It is the profound qualities, particularly the positive ones that should be one’s focus in choosing a partner. The ability to bring out the best in each other is one of the best predictors for the success of a romantic relationship. It is difficult, however, to identify this ability at the initial stage of a relationship.
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Romantic Relationships
How deep is your love? I really need to learn, ’cause we are living in a world of fools breaking us down.
BEE GEES
Having tr
aveled down the road of the nature of romantic love and romantic compromises, we now turn to consider how this view is expressed in actual romantic relationships, while focusing particularly on the issue of time in these relationships. Among the issues discussed in this chapter are unfinished romantic business; romantic curiosity; addiction to love; loving too much; the nature of the wish to be with the one you love; loving longer or loving more; and deciding on the best time to say, “I love you.”
Unfinished Romantic Business
Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Maria Elena used to say that only unfulfilled love can be romantic.
JUAN ANTONIO, in the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Unlike enduring, profound romantic experiences, intense, brief romantic experiences tend to be incomplete, a kind of unfinished business. And we are usually excited by anything that is incomplete, unusual, unfinished, unfulfilled, unsettled, unexplained, or uncertain. Although such experiences are often associated with sadness and frustration, we continue to seek them out. People desire much more than they have or are ever likely to have. We have limited capacities and finite resources, but our desires are almost infinite. Consequently, many human desires are doomed to remain unfulfilled, even though we try our best to fulfill them.
An incomplete romantic experience is a kind of unfinished business; it is an experience in which love is present, but not entirely fulfilled. Incomplete romantic experiences are emotionally loaded. In such experiences, love has been partially attained, and there is yearning for its completion. The absent part is like a hole in the lover’s heart that can be neither filled nor ignored; hence, the strong feeling of frustration. It seems that like dissatisfaction, a moderate measure of frustration can beneficial in some circumstances.
In characterizing the perfect seducer, Robert Greene writes of elements that maintain the incomplete nature of the romantic interaction. These include increasing ambiguity, sending mixed signals, mastering the art of insinuation, confusing desire and reality, mixing pleasure and pain, stirring desire and confusion, toning down the sexual element without getting rid of it outright, refusing to conform to any standard, being able to delay satisfaction, and not offering total satisfaction.1
Incomplete and intense romantic relationships are the stuff of endless books and movies. There, lovers spend most of their time without the beloved, and the inability to overcome this incompleteness is a significant compromise for them. Despite lacking the essential features of profound love that are present in normal circumstances, incomplete romantic experiences have their own advantages, in particular that of maintaining high romantic intensity for a long time.
Another kind of incomplete romantic relationship involves close emotional ties but no sexual intercourse. In this case, the intensity of the romantic relationship is due to, among other things, its incomplete nature—to the unfulfilled desire to include another aspect in the relationship. Unfinished business does not carry with it merely thrills, but suffering too, since the element of frustration at not achieving what we fully desire, and believe to deserve, is central here as well. Once such a relationship becomes complete, for instance, after the sexual component is added, the great romantic intensity tends to dissipate, and the relationship is terminated. This is the incomplete courtly love of twelfth-century troubadours. The troubadours sang about “a new kind of tender, extramarital flirtation which (ideally) was sexually unconsummated and which, therefore, made the chaste lovers more noble and virtuous.”2
Online relationships usually have the characteristic of “unfinished business,” since so long as they are not transformed into offline relationships, there is something missing from them. In this sense, they are similar to an extended period of courtship. Accordingly, emotional intensity remains high—in the words of one woman, “passion at an unbelievable peak”—even for a long period. A paradoxical aspect in this regard is that although online relationships are intense because of, among other factors, their incompleteness, such incompleteness involves the wish to transform the relationship into a more complete one—something that usually decreases the intensity and can lead to terminating the relationship.3 Cyberspace lacks a closed and unitary structure. Being in cyberspace involves a perpetual state of searching, an endless chase that will rarely settle into a stable form of life. Online events often lack a stable narrative, with an expected beginning and end. Such never-ending events, which are analogous to unfinished business, increase uncertainty and frustration, and hence, emotional intensity.
Romantic Curiosity
I want to know what love is, I want you to show me, I want to feel what love is, I know you can show me.
FOREIGNER
One who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.
ALEXANDER POPE
There is a long philosophical tradition, from Plato and Aristotle to Spinoza and Kant that views knowledge as a necessary part of moral behavior and the key to a good moral life. Accordingly, profound happiness is seen as dependent upon having enough knowledge. There is also a long cultural tradition that considers knowledge to be a stumbling block to happiness: Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden because they ate from the Tree of Knowledge. The myth of Pandora carries a similar warning: all of the world’s sufferings were released because Pandora had to know what was inside the box that the gods gave her.
Knowledge in romantic love is also a mixed bag. Popular songs indicate the close connection between knowledge and romantic love—for example, “The more I know you, the more I love you.” A different view emphasizes the advantages of lack of knowledge, the role of mystery in romantic love, and particularly in sexual desire. As Rabindranath Tagore said, “Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it.” These opposing traditions express the complex nature of the relationship between knowledge and love. In my view, knowledge in love is usually good, but positive illusions, ignorance, and limited curiosity can also be beneficial.
Does Knowing Him Mean Loving Him? Certainly Not Always
A bride at her second marriage does not wear a veil. She wants to see what she is getting.
HELEN ROWLAND
Some people think having large breasts makes a woman stupid. Actually, it’s quite the opposite: a woman having large breasts makes men stupid.
RITA RUDNER
A former student of mine told me (while walking together at a funeral) how much she enjoyed my course on emotions, which she took quite a few years ago. “I frequently recall,” she said, “that in the class you played the song ‘To know him is to love him’ and commented, ‘This is a wonderful song, but with a minor problem—its main claim is often wrong.’ In the years that have elapsed since the course, living with my spouse, I have realized how true your claim is.” I told her that nowadays I believe that the situation is more complex; the claim is indeed often wrong, but there are many circumstances in which it might turn out to be at least partially true.
Knowledge certainly does not solve all problems. Yet, it puts us in a better position to address complex circumstances in the romantic realm. Knowledge can increase our ability to adapt and help us recognize our capacities and limitations. Of course, knowledge can make us sad, but that doesn’t mean that overall ignorance is the way to go. Although in specific circumstances, ignorance, illusions, and limited curiosity can have a local value, as a way of life they tend to trip us up badly.
The more we know about our beloved and our own romantic attitudes, the more able we are to bring out the best in both partners. This does not mean that we should dwell, day and night, on our problems and our beloved’s flaws. Quite the contrary. While being aware of such difficulties and doing our best to reduce their painful impact, we should focus on the positive aspects of our lives together. Ruminating about things we cannot change
merely increases their centrality in our lives, and hence their impact. Romantic intelligence is information-based wisdom that enables us to give greater weight to positive qualities and lesser weight to negative ones.
Realizing that each quality of the partner can be weighted differently and that the significance of a single quality might shift over time can even help to rekindle the flames of romance and increase the depth of love. In Fisher’s survey of people in love, about 60 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that they love everything about their beloved and that although the beloved has some faults, those do not really bother them.4 Attaching different weights to different qualities is different from the approach of “expecting less from marriage.” Lowering our level of expectation can reduce the risk of disappointment and temper our excitement, yet it does not offer a solution to long-term difficulties; it merely indicates one way of escaping from them. Giving greater weight to certain qualities and less to others is more constructive.
Granting different weights to various qualities is basically a subjective task, yet it is not entirely in our control, as it is influenced by various biological, sociological, and psychological factors. The subjective allocation can help increase the perceived value of our partner, but certain constraints cannot be ignored, even while we retain positive illusions.
The Arc of Love Page 20