Ansari Analysis - Needed: A #meFORfeminism

Being a brown skinned man hailing from the same city as Aziz's parents (assuming the flashbacks in Master of None got it right) who is egalitarian, I want add my 2 cents to the recent fiasco maligning the author of Modern Romance, Aziz Ansari. Now that the dust as settled and frenzied opinionizing has stopped it is time to pick up the pieces and makes some sense out of it. Commentators from Andrew Sullivan to Caitlin Flanagan have been mostly critical of Grace, judging her as over reacting to a bad date. I however want to show Grace, some grace! My grace to Grace is guided by Gabrielle Ulubay's more eloquent attempt at pointing out the paradoxical way in which the millennial hook up culture serves not-socially-incorrect cruelty to women who legitimately hope FOR enduring romantic stories.

I want to start with the question - Why did Grace not just leave when Aziz's erotic behavior made her uncomfortable? This is the key question many commentators have posed to Grace. Why is it that Aziz is the only one to have agency in this scenario? asks Bari Weiss before proceeding to give some good Monday night QB advice to Grace, "use a four-letter word, stand up on her two legs, and walk out his door.” Given that we do not know Grace's real identity we are but left to mind read ourselves.

I am going to mind read Grace using Gabrielle Ulubay as my guide. Gabrielle recently wrote on NYT's Modern Love column about her non-verbalized hopes for romance getting dashed by the rules of the hook up culture, "that night I hadn’t been looking for romance, but my two-time lover embedded himself in my consciousness when he told me I was the girl of his dreams, and I can’t help but think how cruel that was, considering how it all turned out." Gabrielle writes that she allowed herself to be more intimate with a Tinder-guy because his endearing talk created hopes for a romantic involvement deep in her consciousness. But of course, as it turned out, the dangling of the romantic enticement was merely the manipulative millennial rendition of age old strategy  to get easy favors. We call this quintessential millennial creation of non-committal erotic pleasure seeking: the hook up culture.

Grace, from her point of view, accused Aziz of not reading her non-verbal cues and stopping his erotic overtures. My mind reading says that not unlike Gabrielle, Grace's really deep desire was for a romantic engagement. Assuming that the truth behind Grace's non-verbal cues was her hopes for romance answers why she did not just stand up and walk out the door. The hope for romantic engagement is too deeply wired in the human brain to be able to, "use a four-letter word, stand up on her two legs, and walk out his door.” This hope can easily fuel delusions of wish fulfillment of the kind that J Gatsby engaged in. Of course a deep part of our consciousness finds even J Gatsby is relatable because it is a truth universally known that, deep within, all human beings are hopeful romantics (thank you Jane Austen!). Given the author of Modern Romance's empathic persona in his Master of None, it is rather easy for a Grace-like woman, in her early 20s, to hope FOR the one-on-one encounter to turn romantic.

Here is the disconnect created by the hook up culture. It seems that Aziz merely wanted mutual erotic pleasure. If my Gabrielle-guided mind reading is right, then Grace wanted an enduring story of romance instead of just erotic pleasure. The millenial hook up culture is the twilight zone between the two human desires - momentary erotic pleasure, and, enduring story of romance. The hook up culture erotizizes romance creating a paradox navigating through which seems to require a unique kind of inner strength. Often times, smooth operators like Aziz, who are at the top of the food chain in the hook up game, can easily rig the rules to serve their need for easy erotic gratification. Women with romantic hopes like Grace and Gabrielle can easily fall prey to this rigged game. They cannot verbalize their hopes for romance because it would be a violation of the rules of the hook up game is setup by the non-committal millennial mindset.

It is this hope to participate in an enduring romantic story that makes us human. It is this hope for romantic fantasy which the hook up culture dilutes, if not derails. Grace and Gabrielle are likely not alone in witnessing their romantic hopes be crushed by the hook up culture that is rigged by entitled non-committal men. In commenting on the hook up culture the Harvard trained Rebecca Traister notes, "male sexual needs take priority, with men presumed to take sex and women presumed to give it to them. They (millennial women) spoke of how men set the terms, host the parties, provide the alcohol, exert the influence." These men of this hook up culture are usually not predatory like Weinstien, these millennial men, merely know how to get their easy chemical thrills from women by using non-verbalized desire is for romance as bait. The Weinstiens of the world stand in the way of women's social progress. Hook up culture stands in the way of the non-verbalized hopes for enduring romance of women like Grace and Gabriella. Here is the key question why should these women feel a need to keep their romantic desires non-verbalized? If their deeper desire is for romantic involvement why would they not want to own up to that with these millennial men? What would true empowerment in this context look like?

The #metoo movement is great in standing in solidarity against moronic men. Grace's mistake is in thinking the #metoo movement will give her crushed soul its pound of flesh. One could say her attempt likely has backfired. The #metoo movement cannot empower women like Grace and Gabrielle who desire enduring stories. Their courage in sharing their personal pain seems to me to call for a kind of #meFOR empowerment which is not so much as standing against someone but a standing FOR one's own hope for pursuit of enduring stories. This #meFOR movement should stand FOR one's deep desire to be a drawn into an enduring story of romance. To make a stand FOR positive romantic desires is to be self-differentiated enough to NOT stand allowing ones true desires and hopes for enduring story to be subverted by someone else erotic gratification.

#meFOR should be about "making a stance FOR one's own dignity and value," as Victor Frankl calls it in Man's Search for Meaning. Brene Brown calls this "belonging to yourself," in her new book Braving the Wilderness. #meFOR needs to stand FOR one's personal truth guided by deep desires, one's hope for romance and one's pursuit of an enduring story. This triune self-differentiated stance requires a kind of inner strength because it necessitates that one has the courage to say "no" when the hook up culture attempts to subvert this personal stance. The #meFOR movement needs to cultivate this triune inner strength. Such a #meFOR movement can subvert the rigged rule-book of the hook up culture where the reckless pursuit of erotic pleasures have subsumed the mechanism to navigate towards one's desire for enduring stories of romance.

In this episode, most media commentators have largely stood beside Aziz because, within the rules of the hook up culture, Aziz's behavior not-socially-incorrect - his error is miss-reading  Grace's non-verbal cues (or not mind reading). Of course, some astute commentators have done well to use this opportunity to talk about the rules of consent. As important as conversation around rules of consent is, it is critical to note that this strategy of quibbling with the rules of the game does not address the larger cultural issue here. We need a culture where women like Grace and Gabrielle are empowered to stand for their own truth, hopes and stories and thus mitigating the romance-resisting cruelty of the non-committal erotic pleasure seeking ethos of the hook up culture. We need a #meFORfeminism to move beyond what is socially correct or incorrect in order to stand FOR a culture that empowers, in this context, enduring (romantic) stories.

The #metoo movement is commendable for castrating the likes of Weinstien. Grace's story is not so much as compromising of the #metoo movement as much as it is a plea for a new #meFOR empowerment.  #metoo stands against the predatory Weinstiens. My male brown-skinned egalitarian 2 cents is this: the real truth of Grace and Gabrielle's story is a call for a #meFORfeminism to subvert the rules of the hook up game created by the mellow manipulative millennial master-of-none versions of the moronic boomer generation Weinstiens. The #meFORmyfeminism should help one develop the Franklian inner strength to stand for one's truth with a reckless disregard for the non-committal rules of the hook up culture even if it means saying "no" and walking out the door, leaving behind the momentary pleasures, thus making space perhaps for something more enduring. #meFORmytruth  #meFORmyhope #meFORmyenduringstory #meFORmyfeminism