Modern Romance (20 page)

In Buenos Aires the streets are filled with sexual energy: There is sensual tango dancing,
chamuyo
(flirtatious chitchat) and various sexual quips are heard left and right, and people make out publicly in parks, restaurants, and on buses.

In Japan a woman would be surprised to be directly approached, but in Buenos Aires the women we interviewed said that being the object of unsolicited male attention was a daily occurrence, and many men were reluctant to take no for an answer. “Guys here, they don’t care if you turn them down or deny them,” one woman told us. “They just keep talking to you.”

Talking is the least of it. Many of the women we interviewed told us that Argentine men can be uninhibited in their pursuit of sex. In one memorable focus group, a woman named Tamara reported that men she’d just met had kissed her, touched her leg, and tried to slip their hands up her skirt despite her clear lack of interest in them, and that when she told them to stop, they responded as if frustrated and asked, “Why?” As she told the story, every other woman in the group nodded to show their familiarity with this situation. “That’s normal,” one explained.

“When I go out and I get approached by a guy, no matter if I say I’m in a relationship and if I’m not interested, they still keep on going,” said another. “They’ll say, ‘Is your boyfriend here right now? Do you live with your boyfriend?’ It’s, like, totally acceptable. As much as you say, ‘no, no, no,’ they get closer and closer into your face.”

Rob, a twenty-eight-year-old expat from New York, tried to explain this behavior to us during a focus group. He said the attitudes in Argentina were much different from the “no means no” culture of the United States. “Here, if [women] say no, they’re interested. If they’re really not interested, they just don’t say anything to you. They just completely ignore you.” So now Rob only keeps clear if women literally turn their back to him. On his reading of courtship in Buenos Aires, “no” is usually just a prelude to “yes.”

You can see how much trouble this could generate. In our focus groups both men and women said it was common for a propositioned woman to play hard to get and then, only after the man had made a sufficient number of attempts, finally agree to a date. Many woman attributed this farce to a need to keep up appearances. If they responded too quickly, they might appear cheap.

“I have a friend who told me last week that she said no a few times to a guy she actually liked before saying yes just to play hard to get,” one woman explained. “It was just to make sure that he wanted something serious and to not be taken for an easy girl.” Sexually, too, women described a fear of appearing too eager. “We women know that if we have sex on the first date, then it’s over,” said another.

Argentine women have plenty of ways of signaling their interest to suitors, but as in the United States, men tend to initiate contact. Women sometimes approach men, but most of those we spoke with said they thought men found aggressive women a turnoff. “I think they love the chase,” said Sara. “Whenever you’re forward, it’s like,
Whoa—why is she after me?
”

The use of technology in Buenos Aires mirrors the street culture. There’s a level of aggression that Americans just don’t hit. Emilio, a twenty-eight-year-old from the United States, told us that he’d taken to friending hot friends of friends on Facebook just to ask them out. Eduardo, thirty-one, said he messaged about thirty women a week in hope of making something click. He’d hit them up on Facebook, Instagram, anywhere he could find them.

Despite all this, very few young people we spoke with actually used online dating sites like OkCupid, in part because online dating still carried a stigma of desperation. But, more important, it simply wasn’t necessary. As Eduardo put it, “If you’re an Argentine woman, you don’t need online dating to hook up with other people because men will be after you all your life.”

Texting, however, was huge. When we asked the single people in our focus groups in Buenos Aires how many partners they were currently texting, few had less than three. It wasn’t uncommon for people to be in multiple relationships of various levels of seriousness. One expat from the United States, a twenty-seven-year-old named Ajay, compared the dating scene in Buenos Aires to an
asado
—a barbecue.

“You get all these different cuts of meat cooking at once,” he said. “You’ve got your sausage, which cooks fast. You’ve got your big steak, which is your best cut, which takes some time, right? You got to talk to all these girls at once just like you take care of all the meat at once.”

After he made this analogy, I presented Ajay with a trophy that said “Most Sexist Food Analogy of All Time: Meat and BBQ Division.”

When it comes down to the business of actually getting into a relationship, Argentines have a reputation for being
histérico
. The idea of
histérico
(
histérica
for women) came up frequently in our discussions. It’s one of those culturally specific words that’s kind of hard to define to someone who isn’t from that culture, but I understood it to mean that someone acts one way toward you initially and then completely reverses course. A woman who says, “no, no, no” and then, finally, “yes” is said to be
histérica
, as is a man who flirts madly, then suddenly disappears for weeks without contacting you again.

“When they are trying to pick you up, they really act like men,” said Sara. “They will talk to you and talk to you . . . until you hook up with them. And then they will act like girls. If you’re not interested in them, they will become obsessed with you. If you are interested in them, they will disappear. It’s like . . . it’s like math. It’s an equation.”

One common approach we heard about involved a man pursuing a woman by repeatedly professing his love for her and proving it in a distinctively Argentine manner: inviting her to meet his parents for a Sunday barbecue. “He’ll say, ‘I love you, you are the love of my life, I want to marry you, I want to have kids,’” said a twenty-seven-year-old Argentine woman named Sofia. “But then he never calls. In Spain they tell you, ‘I love you,’ because they really mean it. It’s not just a word. Here they don’t mean it.” Another woman told us about a popular Argentine phrase that means, “Lie to me because I like it.” It’s all part of the chase.

Even people in notionally committed relationships said they liked to keep a past lover or potential partner waiting in the wings, ready to swoop in if their current relationship fell through. Several people we spoke with had a backup plan in case their current relationship didn’t work out. Isabell, twenty-eight, reported flirting with several men over text, even when she was in a relationship. She called it
hacerte la linda
, which translates roughly as “to make yourself pretty” and refers to a kind of flirting. “Just because you’re on a diet, it doesn’t mean you cannot check out the menu,” she said. “I mean, just as long as you don’t pick up that particular plate.”

What’s up with these people and the food analogies?!

“Even when I had a boyfriend, if I went to a bar or something and I met a guy, I would give him my phone number just in case,” said Marilyn, twenty-five. “Like, I wouldn’t cheat, you know?”

“But you kept your options open,” interjected another woman.

“Yeah,” said Marilyn. “Because you never know, right?”

 • • • 

Casual sex was, predictably, everywhere.
In Argentina women in relationships often have a
chongo
, which literally means “strong man” or “muscleman,” but is also a catchall term for a casual sexual partner, one that can refer to a friend with benefits, a regular hookup, or someone whom you’re seeing on the side while in a serious relationship. Used in a sentence: “Nah, we’re not serious. He’s my
chongo.
”

One married woman at a focus group told us that during her previous relationship she’d had a
chongo
whom she saw regularly for several years. “It was just skin,” she explained, to make sure we understood that she wasn’t cheating on her relationship, only meeting a sexual need. “I didn’t even know his parents’ names.”

I hope I’m never in a casual relationship with someone in Argentina and catch feelings. Imagine how much it would suck to hear, “What? Relationship?! Are you serious? This is just for skin. Come on, I thought I was very clear: You’re my
chongo
, nothing more.”

Amazingly, the widespread interest in casual sex has shaped the buildings and neighborhoods of Buenos Aires as well as the culture. The city is teeming with
telos
, love hotels with no detectable stigma, where rooms are available by the hour.
Telos
, which exist at all price ranges and are available in the roughest as well as the most high-end neighborhoods, are designed for maximum privacy. The people we interviewed described a variety of techniques that ensure user discretion: In one
telo
guests drive into the parking lot, ask for a room, and then park in a spot numbered so that their open car doors are adjacent to the door to their room. In another there’s a small chamber between the front door and the room where hotel staff can deliver room-service items without seeing the patrons.

That said, at some hotels maintaining privacy during peak hours is impossible. In Buenos Aires most young single people live with their parents in relatively small apartments, as do children, of course. What that means is that nearly everyone who wants to have sex winds up using a
telo
on occasion, and late nights can be especially busy. Eduardo, the thirty-one-year-old who messages thirty women per week, told us that occasionally he’s had to sit in a waiting room when he arrives at three or four o’clock in the morning, along with everyone else who’s come in from bars and clubs. One expat who lived next door to a
telo
said that she’d noticed a lot of traffic during lunch hours, when, her host mother speculated, “bosses like to screw their secretaries.”

If, on the one hand, the whole
telo
and casual-sex scene sounds fun and liberated, on the other hand, for at least half the population Buenos Aires can be pretty tough. In our focus groups people reported that they’d often see young women crying hysterically in public places, like park benches and bus stops. When Eric asked why it was so common, the response was always the same: men.

The dating culture in Buenos Aires is extremely exciting and sensual, full of flirtation, pursuit, and casual sex. There is also an undeniably darker side, though, with unwanted aggression, manipulation, and infidelity. Everyone suffers the pain of love in Buenos Aires, but I couldn’t help but conclude that things were a lot rougher for women than they were for
chongos
.

T
he advent of smartphones and the Internet means that our romantic lives now inhabit two worlds: the real world and our phone world. In the phone world we have an unprecedented, highly private forum for communication that forces us to deal with age-old issues like jealousy, infidelity, and sexual intimacy in new formats that we’re still trying to figure out.

SEXTING

Of all the changes in modern romance brought
on by the phone world, the most radical has come
in the form of sexting: the sharing of explicit sexual
images through digital media.

Conceptually, sexting is a timeless phenomenon. Nude photos, erotic letters, and the like have been documented throughout civilization. While something like the Anthony Weiner scandal seems unique to our time, there are precursors, such as the salacious love letters written by U.S. president Warren G. Harding to his neighbor’s wife, in which he nicknamed his penis Jerry and her vagina Mrs. Pouterson.

I wish I had been there when the historian analyzing the letters had the eureka moment: “Hey, wait a second. Whenever he says ‘Mrs. Pouterson,’ I think he means . . . his neighbor’s wife’s vagina??”

Most strange to me is that, whereas “Mrs. Pouterson” is a horrible nickname for a vagina, “Warren G. Harding” is actually a great nickname for a penis.

When it comes to photographs and video, our ability to capture ourselves has evolved with the technologies. Consumer film cameras were great for capturing high-quality images, but they had their disadvantages. Unless you had your own darkroom, you had to drop off the film to get developed, so your privacy would be compromised.

Between the 1970s and the mid-1990s, Polaroids and low-cost video cameras allowed people to produce sexual content on their own and keep it private, but sometimes a kid would open up a box labeled “DON’T OPEN” and get scarred for life.

Digital media, the Internet, and—most important—the rise of smartphones, changed all that. Today almost everybody has a remarkably high-quality camera and video recorder within arm’s reach at every waking moment. In addition to having a high-tech way to capture the imagery, you also have a seemingly private place to store the images for yourself and your partner, but, like the box that says “DON’T OPEN,” sometimes it falls into the wrong hands.

The key difference, though, is the ease of use and distribution. In the past, we can safely assume, most men weren’t mailing Polaroids of their penises to girls they met at bars. It would have been creepy and also a bit of a hassle. However, when a high-res camera is literally a few inches from your penis at all times—and you can instantly share the glorious photo—it’s a game changer.

We don’t have any numbers on the rates at which sexual images were shared prior to the smartphone era, but the numbers now are staggering. Sexting, especially among young people, isn’t quite yet the norm, but it’s quickly getting there.

Here are some of the best stats on sexting that we could find:

•
Half of eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds have received sexts.

•
One third of older teens have sent a sext.

•
Sexting is increasing among all age groups—except fifty-five and older.

•
You’re more likely to sext if you own a smartphone.

•
People who own iPhones are twice as likely to sext as people who use Androids.

•
The most popular time to sext is Tuesday between 10:00
A.M.
and noon. Yes, we looked this up twice. Strange!

•
People who are married or in committed relationships are just as likely to have sent sexts as their unattached peers.
1

Why do people sext? The main reasons we discovered are to share intimacy with a partner, to build sexual attraction, to appease a partner, and, in some cases, to maintain intimacy over long distances.

The technology journalist Jenna Wortham did a piece on sexting where the subjects each forwarded Wortham a sext they’d sent and then let her interview them about it. “What I discovered,” Wortham wrote, “is that sexting—like anything else done on our phones—was mostly just meant to be fun, for fun, grown folks doing what grown folks do.”
2

People she interviewed had all kinds of good reasons for sexting, and their comments, seen together, actually make it seem like a healthy and compelling way to sustain a modern erotic relationship.

One twenty-seven-year-old editor sexted her hookup because it gave her a feeling of power. “It’s kind of a control thing,” she explained. “I wanted to make him want me.” D, a thirty-year-old artist, said she sexted with her fiancé to spice things up.

“We have already seen each other’s bodies a lot, and we will be seeing them a whole lot more,” she said. “So sometimes eroticism can come from what is unseen, or presenting something in a different way.”

M, a brand marketer, sent her boyfriend a picture of her breasts to help him cope with a case of nerves before a presentation at work.

This is my favorite. I just love the idea of the guy opening up his phone, seeing the boobs, and thinking, “Ahhhh. Okay, you got this, Phil! Let’s nail this PowerPoint presentation.”

On our subreddit one woman gave a whole slew of reasons for why she’d sent sexts in the past: “Because it feels good to know someone wants you from far away. because it’s something to think about. because it boosts confidence. because i’d never done it before. because i liked them. because i’d just broken up with someone . . .”

 • • • 

For some the privacy and distance provided by the phone world allowed them to be more honest about their sexuality.
“I started because I’m a very sexual person and sexting was an easier way for me to discuss intimate things with my partners,” said one female user on our subreddit. “I found it hard to ask for what I wanted or needed in the bedroom in person so this way was easier for me to discuss my needs and fantasies. Now it’s become something I enjoy, like a form of foreplay. I like to send something sexy to my mate before we’re going to see each other.” Another woman wrote: “A guy I hooked up with a few years ago used to ask me for pics all the time. Finally, because I felt like I might lose him (. . . it was not a healthy hook-up relationship), I got into it. I LOVED it. I just felt super sexy taking them, and I still feel good looking at them now. Plus, one day, my boobs will be down around my waist and it will be nice to remember.”

Many of our subreddit users said sexting provided a forum to maintain intimacy over long distances.

One woman wrote:

I’m a girl who lives in the U.S. and my boyfriend lives in Wales. I would say we sext at least once a week. When it’s a long distance relationship like that, and we have to go 2-3 months without seeing one another, I think it’s almost a necessity. I want to keep him interested and excited. Since we had only been together a short time before he went to Wales, we hadn’t really discussed our likes/dislikes in the bedroom. But through sexting we were able to express that and get it all out in the open. So the next time we see each other we will already know the others’ desires. If you asked me a year ago, I would’ve felt “dirty” if I was sexting, but now I’m totally for it in a relationship.

Another user explained:

I think in general it would be much harder to maintain an exclusive long distance relationship without the technology in general. Just being able to communicate on gchat or via text during the day and actually see each others faces while we talk every night is a pretty necessary part to maintaining our intimacy and our relationship. The sexting is just a nice way to spice things up without actually being present.

The conclusion was clear: Without sexting, these relationships would be much harder to maintain and might not even last. Sexting provided an effective way of coping with a well-established and often heartbreaking dilemma: how to love someone when they are very far away.

 • • • 

The same technology that affords us the luxury and privacy to share these intimate moments is also, sadly, what allows us to betray our partner’s trust on a massive scale.

The main reason people give for why they don’t sext is that they’re afraid of being exposed. One woman reported, “I’ve never sexted and I don’t think I ever will. The thought of it seems hot and exciting, but the possible consequences are terrifying. If the relationship goes south and he’s still in possession of the pictures, then who knows where they’d end up. It just looks like an avoidable, unnecessary situation.”

We did hear some nightmare stories that would confirm this view of sexting. One woman who was initially reluctant to sext tells us what happened when she gave in:

My boyfriend wanted to, I was uncomfortable with the idea but he begged and dropped the “if you love me you will” line. Said some stuff back and forth. I wasn’t really sure what to say. He asked for a picture of me fingering myself. I obliged, then started getting texts from random numbers calling me things like “nasty slut.” Turns out he was at a party, passing his phone around and showing people what I sent. Utterly humiliating. That was years ago, and I haven’t sent another sext since.

Sending a photo to someone who could turn around and be pure human garbage, like the person above, is a widespread fear. And, although in theory everyone could be exposed this way, in reality the risks affect women in a very different way from men.

 • • • 

In 2014 private nude photos of various female celebrities leaked onto the Internet after hackers posted them on the 4chan website.
*
The images were clearly meant for these women’s partners and were never to be shared. While the hackers who stole the photos were condemned, the women who had their photos stolen were scolded too, for being reckless. “Don’t want your nude photos leaked? Don’t take any!” went a typical response. Taking naked photos of yourself with your iPhone, the argument went, was indulgent, vain, and immature. The implication was that regular, sexually healthy people do not sext, despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary. Of course, not everyone agreed with this narrative, but it was still a popular argument.

The fear of this kind of condemnation was another reason people gave for not sexting, but many of the younger women we heard from believe that the prevalence of sexting is already changing the perceptions of these risks. One twenty-four-year-old told us that she sees something empowering in her sexting and has decided that, if her nudes were leaked, she wouldn’t be judged for it.

The warnings about sexting (mainly directed toward women) center around the worst-case scenario—your nudes being posted publicly, like on a revenge porn site. This is presented as something that will follow you for the rest of your life and haunt your career and future relationships. I don’t think that will happen to me, but if it does, I like to think the viewers will draw the obvious conclusion—that I am a sexually confident woman who made a video for someone she cared about. If someone I knew saw the images and judged me negatively for making them, I feel confident that the problem is with them, not with me . . . So when I sext with my boyfriend, the main goal is to get us off. But it’s also my little way of reassuring myself that I decide what to do with my body, and I get to decide which risky behaviors are worth taking.

This view is becoming quite common among young people, particularly teens. For the generation that grew up in a smartphone culture, sexting has become a common step in the journey toward becoming sexually active. Along with a first kiss, now, at some point, there is often a first sext.

When the journalist Hanna Rosin examined a high school in central Virginia where rampant sexting and promiscuous image sharing sparked a police investigation, a surprising number of the kids she met expressed confidence that the situation was no big deal.
3

When an officer questioned some girls about their concerns about the photos being disseminated online, he was shocked when one insisted, “This is my life and my body and I can do whatever I want with it,” while another said, “I don’t see any problem with it. I’m proud of my body.” Some girls, he discovered, had taken naked photos of themselves specifically for sharing on Instagram. The idea that this should be treated with shame or that it would come back to haunt them seemed absurd.

Regardless of how you or any officer sees the risks and rewards of sexting, it’s becoming more and more of a common practice. And, as we’ve seen with other aspects of modern romance, what seems insane to one generation often ends up being the norm of the next.

CHEATING

Of course, sending naked photos is not the only sexually
charged behavior that smartphones enable or make easier.
Consider infidelity. In the past, men and women who were cheating could flirt only in person or over a landline. People would have codes: “I’ll let the phone ring twice, then hang up. That’ll be your signal to go to the window, and there you’ll see a zip line. Take the zip line down to the tree house and I’ll meet you there at 10:30
P
.
M
.
”

Now you can be in bed with your spouse and ask, “Hey, honey, what are you looking at on your phone?” She could reply, “Oh, just reading this op-ed in the
Times
,” when she’s actually sending your neighbor a photo of her Mrs. Pouterson.

Have all the increased romantic options and the technology to access them led to more people straying? I remember reading the Anthony Weiner Facebook messages. Seeing the way he was just messaging random women all over the country and watching the messages quickly escalate from innocuous to very sexual was unbelievable.

This is a transcript of a chat session he had with one of these women, a lady named Lisa from Las Vegas.
4
Weiner and Lisa, sorry to bring this back, guys, but it is fascinating: