Note: this piece tackles some stuff about femininity, womanhood, and ‘worth’. I do not believe that any of the things I say about ‘good girl points’ are true and I don’t encourage you to believe or internalise them. But as with all weird notions, sometimes you have to state it to slate it, so I’m allowing myself to be a bit more open about the dark beliefs that power a lot of my decisions, especially in light of some Twitter discussion I’ve seen about why you shouldn’t just keep trying to be ‘good’ and ‘liked’ all the time. Rest assured I’m working on these things.
The other day, at about 11pm, a guy offered to walk me to the train station. We’d been having a lovely evening together – eating dinner that he’d cooked for me because he knows it’s one of my favourites, watching a weird film that we’d chosen together because he cares about my opinion, then enjoying a teasing blow job because when we started getting horny I specifically requested that he let me be ‘playful’ for a bit. It was fabulous. I felt very content. Very… what’s the word? Very heard. Valued. Appreciated. But when it came time for me to head home, he offered to walk me to the station, and this objectively kind gesture made me deeply uncomfortable.
I instinctively bristle at the idea of men doing nice things for me. Why is that? I’m in therapy at the moment, so I’m being encouraged to examine these ideas. Annoyingly, one of the things I usually discover when I dig a bit deeper is that I have a cocktail of extremely clichéd hangups about men, and relationships, and the ways in which those things might fit within my life. Fundamentally, just as I feel when men try to give me head without achieving any pleasure of their own, one of my top priorities is ensuring that I am never any trouble. I don’t want men to go out of their way for me. I’d prefer to just sort my own needs out myself, and otherwise do as I’m told, hopefully gaining approval for being a ‘good girl’ (which I can broadly define as ‘someone who does exactly as expected and demands nothing in return’). When it comes to expressing my needs or saying ‘yes’ when people offer to help me, I freak out. I don’t want anyone doing anything nice specifically for me, especially if that nice thing costs them effort, time or money.
In the case of the walk home, I laughed his offer away and told him not to bother. Made a joke about how I’d never been murdered walking home in the dark before. Concerned by the ‘murder’ joke, he started to put his shoes on as if he intended to come with me anyway, and I had to scramble to reassure him that I’d be fine.
At no point during any of this exchange did it occur to me to wonder whether it might be, you know, nice. To be walked to the station! To have company on a dark, cold night rather than just slam in my headphones and stomp down the pavement firing off ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibes, occasionally getting panicky if a stranger walked too closely behind me. Maybe it would be nice to have someone by my side? Nice to pretend, even if only briefly, that I’m the kind of woman for whom a guy is willing to put on shoes and step out into the cold.
How much love and care does one person deserve?
Why do I not believe that I deserve the kind of care that might cause a man to walk me to the station? I don’t think it’s that I don’t want it: I do want it. Desperately. I want to be the kind of person for whom someone is willing to go to a bit of trouble. I want to inspire the men who like me to do nice things for me. And yet as soon as it looks like they are willing to do it, I instinctively tell them no. I shoo the offer away like it’s a poisonous spider. I run off to the station on my own, headphones in, stomping down the pavement like a woman who is strong and independent and doesn’t need anyone else. I don’t even allow myself to entertain the notion that it might be nice, because that way lies wishing and wishing will always lead to disappointment.
If you catch me on a bad day I’ll tell you I don’t think I’m the sort of woman for whom men like doing nice things. And that’s broadly true. Even the nicest men do still have some residual societal-implanted hangups about women who enjoy sex/take it up the arse/will fuck on the first date/wear jeans and walking boots instead of skirts and heels – broadly these things disqualify me from the cute/caring gestures that other women earn by virtue of their… femininity? Beauty? Value?
I like who I am, and I could no more become more feminine than I could wake up tomorrow morning and run a marathon. It’s fine. But I do still long for similar levels of respect and care and kindness that I see men dispensing to other women. More than once a guy who I have dated/shagged has spoken to me about another woman he’s seeing and let slip that, with her, he’s paid for a taxi if she stays late at his house. Or he’s planned a romantic/sexy evening ‘just because’ without her prompting. Or stepped outside his comfort zone to do something wild because she asked him to. All things that this or that guy would never have dreamed of doing for me. And every time I hear this I think… hmm… what am I doing wrong? What could or should I have done (or become) to earn this?
I feel pathetic even admitting that I long for this kind of thing. Like a teenage girl hoping to be asked to dance at the school disco, I desperately want men to say ‘let me get you a taxi – it’s late/dark/cold’ or ‘I planned a surprise for your birthday, keep this date free’. Yet on the few occasions when men do offer to do this stuff I bat them away. These cute gestures are simultaneously deeply desirable yet also abhorrent and frightening.
That night, when this dude offered to walk me to the station, I was so taken aback that I immediately turned it down. I then worked pretty hard to put on a reassuring/jokey mask when he seemed determined to follow through, at no point stopping to consider what I actually wanted. It might have been nice to be walked to the station, but I was terrified of being any trouble. In that moment the potential for getting mugged seemed infinitely less frightening than the possibility that I might ask this man who cared about me to do something that would cost him effort and time.
It’s not the end of the world, I like walking to the station. I like being independent. I am extremely used to dealing with life on my own, and not having to rely on a man to keep me safe from potentially getting mugged in central London at 11pm. But do I genuinely enjoy these things? Or have I just convinced myself that I do because I don’t believe I’m the sort of person who will ever truly earn this kind of care?
I’m saving my good girl points, OK?
Having thrown this idea around in my head for a while, I think the reason I tend to reject offers like this is because I believe that the care and compassion that might flow from men towards me (specifically from men, and specifically to me) is not only finite but aggressively limited. I might earn a bit of praise occasionally, or a cosy night in where he listens to me talk about work for a while even though he finds that boring, or even maybe a meal out or an invite to a gig… but ultimately I have less inherent value than other, better (prettier, more feminine, less slutty, quieter, smaller) women.
There’s another guy who keeps offering to send me donuts when I’m sad. The offer always makes me feel happy and valued, and occasionally I let myself imagine what it might be like to say ‘yes’. I enjoy revelling in the brief burst of warmth that comes from picturing a world in which I ate a donut that a man had sent from miles away purely to cheer me up. And then, of course, I say ‘no.’ Because I don’t want him to spend money on me. Don’t want him to think me the sort of woman who expects someone to spend money on her. I physically cringe at the fucking audacity I apparently have to even dream of saying ‘yes’! I need this guy to understand that I know my place. I know who and what I am. It’s important that I acknowledge this and act accordingly because (so the logic seems to go), later down the line if I do ask him for something – “I’m sad and I need a hug” – he’ll see that I have all these good girl points in the bank to spend on buying his care when I desperately need it. Don’t want to waste my points on donuts now, when I might need a listening ear later!
There’s a strong idea sitting in my heart that if I say ‘no’ to enough offers then one day I’ll have saved up the points to ask for something that matters. If I avoid being any trouble to someone today then tomorrow, when I really need them, they’ll be there for me. If I watch the box sets he wants to watch, and stay in when I’d prefer to go out… if I do all the housework and try not to cry when he doesn’t ask me how I am at the end of the day… if I pay my own way for everything even though he earns much more than I do… if I am a good girl, a really good girl, a seriously fucking good girl… if I’ve been ‘no trouble’ nearly every single day… then eventually on the bad days when someone I love is in the hospital or work is collapsing or I’m having a mental health crisis… then I can cash in my good girl points and buy the love when I really need it. Say ‘please hold me and look after me. I haven’t asked for much until now, but now it’s really necessary.’
When I reject a man’s offer of a walk to the station, or donuts, or dinner and a show, or to lend me money or listen to my woes… it’s not that I don’t want him to do it, it’s that I believe I will only ever earn a limited amount of goodwill/kindness/care from men, and I don’t want to waste the small amount I’ve got on something as frivolous as being walked to the train station. It’s not that I don’t believe I am worthy of love, it’s that I believe men have a limited amount of love they are willing to give to someone like me. I would rather save it for when I need it most.
Unfortunately, this kind of thinking does not make a great foundation on which to build intimate relationships. Because life isn’t a Tesco Clubcard – you don’t get to store up your points. You just train the people who matter out of offering you nice things, because eventually even the loveliest person gets bored of hearing ‘no’.
Good girls don’t get prizes: they get partners who respond well to someone who is undemanding and quiet and ‘no trouble’. These partners aren’t usually adding up all the times you’ve said ‘no thank you’, just waiting for their moment to dispense a bigger reward. The people who respond well to this weirdly defensive behaviour are the ones who – when the big things roll around and you suddenly admit ‘I need you’ – will be shocked that the woman who usually asks for nothing has suddenly turned into such a demanding bitch.
It might be nice to be with someone who wants to put the effort in, though, right? To date a man who doesn’t think that my needs are unreasonable and demanding. Maybe in order to find this man, first I need to pay attention to the guys who believe I’m worth putting shoes on for at 11pm on a cold winter night.
It might be nice to be walked to the station. And one day perhaps I’ll say ‘yes.’
Not yet though! Hahahahaha! If you’re dating me, please don’t worry: I will still continue to say ‘no’ for at least a couple of years, so feel free to offer because the offer in itself is nice and makes me happy. And even if I do say ‘yes’, you’re always welcome to change your mind if you realise it’s raining.
Also, there’s a fun addendum to this story: this same guy was at my place a couple of weeks after, and I offered to walk him to the bus stop. He just went ‘yeah that’d be great’ without any of this bullshit, and I got to snog him while we waited for the bus to come and it was lovely. As I say, nothing I say about ‘good girl points’ is factually true or reflective of the things men I care about believe, it’s just something that sits in my own brain, spoiling fun I might otherwise have. It’s embarrassing to admit that I feel this way, especially because my rational brain can recognise the flaws even if my emotional core can’t shake them off. But I’ve been doing this sex blogging thing for so many years that the fucky stuff no longer seems taboo – the things I am actually ashamed of have nothing to do with anal or kink, and far more to do with this.
23 Comments
This was beautifully written and a little heartbreaking but also kinda hopeful. I really appreciated it.
Thank you!
It’s a bloody difficult equation, isn’t it! Do i need it? No. Do i deserve it? Yes. Do i WANT it? Do i CHOOSE it? augh i don’t know. What if i chose it and then it went away. I’d have to get used to not having it again. lmao does your therapist have room on her books
“What if I chose it and then it went away” fuck yeah that one’s really hard. It’s all really hard and it’s so annoying to have no answers other than ‘I should be better at this.’ At the moment I’m a bit stuck in therapy cos I know what the problems are (like this) but I’ve no idea how to actually deal with them.
Scary how relatable I found this, in some ways! One of the hardest sorts of things to unlearn, that “saving my kindness points” – whatever the association that drives it (in my case, less about femininity and more worry about becoming/seeming toxic-ly masculine).
Was wondering whether them vocalising e.g. “walking you home = more time with you” type logic would help, or just feed the complex? That sort of consciously reassessing the framing did help me be more able to say yes.
That and the thing about “Instead of saying sorry, say thank you.” Another hard thing to learn, perhaps, but a reframing that I found helpful.
Anyway, that’s enough unsolicited advice, thank you for writing so eloquently about the hang-ups and traps our minds can set for us!
The ‘more time with you’ thing is definitely interesting- a guy walked me to the bus stop last year on the grounds that he ‘just thought it would be nice’ (a response to me doing the ‘lol don’t worry you don’t have to’ thing) so I can confirm that if people think it’d be nice, and they actively want to, I can accept the things. We had fun and snogged on a bench at the bus stop and generally had a lovely time. But I think I would only accept that stuff if someone genuinely wants to do it. I have a mortal terror of ‘making’ men do things for me. I want men to do what they want at all times, because I never want to make anyone do stuff they don’t want to do – especially if that stuff involves doing romantic/nice/sexual things with me.
I know the ‘thank you’ rather than ‘sorry’ thing and I do try to apply that. I think I find these things easier to tackle when they’re about my individual needs as a person rather than my needs in a relationship context. It’s not about needs per se, it’s about value and worth in the eyes of men.
Thank you so much for joining in! And I’m sorry this resonated. I find myself in a weird position of hoping this stuff strikes a chord with people but also not wanting other people to have to deal with the sadness that comes from it!
This is such a lovely piece. I think what makes your work so amazing is your willingness to show the vulnerable, messy, complicated side of being a human being, that goes along side being the supreme-filth sex goddess you so obviously are.
That is very kind of you <3 I am definitely not a goddess, but I’m delighted that you like me being a fuckup cos that feels eminently more me =) x
You kinda beat me to the chase in the addendum. Throughout I was thinking, well, is that not just people being nice to each other?
If I drop off a partner who is going on night out, I’ll wait in the car until I know her friend’s answered the door. But similarly I’d hope for the same, that if I was going to a mate’s then she’d wait until the door was answered before fucking off into the ether with my phone in the footwell.
Perhaps they want to walk with you to the station because you enjoy each other’s company and they don’t want the night to end quite yet? Maybe they’re hoping for a last sticky fumble before the train arrives, maybe it’s just an excuse to go out so they can get a bag of chips on the way home. (-:
Is there a difference perhaps between “do you want me to walk you to the station” and “I want to walk you to the station”?
Or I could be talking bollocks at 1am. I’m poorly and really tired and finding this hard to articulate but it feels like you’re seeing it as a one-way exchange when it perhaps isn’t?
Oh yeah definitely. The bottom line is that I can only see it as a one-way exchange, because while I’m comfortable doing things for other people, I am extremely uncomfortable when other people do things for me. There’s something really fundamental that sits beneath that which is probably not appropriate for me to discuss on the blog, but yeah this is one of the things I’m trying to smash to bits in therapy. It’s proving well hard though.
‘Is there a difference perhaps between “do you want me to walk you to the station” and “I want to walk you to the station”?’ – oh yes, definitely. Like… if someone wanted to walk me to the station then I would let them because it’s a thing they wanted. If they asked me if I wanted them to walk me, I would say no because I don’t know what I want. Basically the start of the blog post here: I don’t want to be any trouble, and it doesn’t occur to me in the moment to wonder whether it might be *nice*. This isn’t rational at all, I know.
So much to unpack in that post….. I can appreciate not wanting to have people do things for you as this avoids feeling like you may owe them anything. Leading a life that is not a drag on others (I think) is a fine goal. Guys sharing with you the nice things they did for other woman but not you should tell you something about their character. That’s just shitty. “Even the nicest men do still have some residual societal-implanted hangups about women who enjoy sex/take it up the arse/will fuck on the first date/wear jeans and walking boots instead of skirts and heels –”….. I know this exists and its awful. We had a fuck buddy once tell my wife after a very satisfying mfm how awesome she was…..but that he could never be married to someone “like her”. I understood what he meant and I’m sure he was right- he could not handle being married to someone like her. What a dope.
People will treat you as well (or as poorly) as you allow them to….at the end of the day its your choice who you spend your time with. I’m going to go count my good guy points and check in with my wife and see if they have earned me anything….I’m guessing they are of about the same value as your good girl points. Last random thought- Jim Carey made a movie where the plot was that he had to say yes to everything- Yes Man. Perhaps you should give that a try and just say yes every ime someone offers to do something nice for you and see what happens.
Ohhh I have so much grumpy rage for that fuckbuddy. I understand what he means, and I think you’re right to interpret it that way, but it absolutely boils my piss that men think it’s OK to say this stuff *to women directly*?!? Like we don’t have feelings, we’re just objects there for use and we can be discussed without people caring about how their comments will land. Fully agree that he’s a dope.
This is really interesting too, because although I have heard it a lot and I am trying very hard to internalise it, I actually really don’t like it *at all*: “People will treat you as well (or as poorly) as you allow them to”. You’re right that it’s my choice who I spend time with, but the logical extension of this is that there are very very very very few men (I could count them on one hand) with whom I’d be able to spend time if I acted as this mantra instructs. I get what it means, but also it’s not always as easy as that. Especially when you’re a horny girl who wants to get shagged, and all (or most of) the men who are willing to shag you are only willing to shag you because you *don’t* demand any more from them than the absolute basics. And yeah, you can say ‘I don’t want to be treated that way’, and I definitely do – I am getting better at that as time goes on. But the truth is that saying that has often made me quite unhappy in the short term, as I find myself unable to have the sex I want because I am demanding that it comes with a certain level of basic respect as well. And then if you demand better and get into a full-on relationship with someone, and then later they start treating you badly, well then you’re already sucked in to that relationship and it might prove difficult to leave. Sorry, mini rant there. I don’t mean to imply that no man ever treats me nicely, more just that particular motto is far easier said than done.
This is a fucking great idea though, and I’m going to ponder it… “Jim Carey made a movie where the plot was that he had to say yes to everything- Yes Man. Perhaps you should give that a try and just say yes every ime someone offers to do something nice for you and see what happens.” It’d definitely be interesting, and the fact that it also seemed impossible when I first read your comment means I should maybe have a go at it sometime ;-) Thank you so much for your input, tonnes of food for thought!
This is the best piece of yours that I’;ve read in a while – and we’ve known each pther long enough that I hope you’ll take that as the compliment it’s intended to be! Reading it was a bit of an emotional slalom, in that each paragraph was a subtle change of direction, even if the overall path of what you were saying was apparent.
What particularly impressed me the most was the degree of self-insight you have, and the degree of charity that you’re extending to everyone involved, including, importantly, yourself. I felt both bad on your behalf about the angst that the stuff sitting in your head was causing you, but also reassured that you’ll work it out, and get to where you want to be. Thank you for sharing it with the world. It’s clear from other comments that what you said, has resonated with many.
Hmm, that brought me to tears a little. I relate to it so much. I’m terrified of being seen as demanding or needy or basically causing any bother to someone else. It’s not just with men, though as my most significant relationships are with men then it plays out more there I think. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to bother with me, and so I just presume it’s because I am so amenable and undemanding (side note, I am now anxious that someone I know will read this and think I’m deluded to be thinking I’m undemanding). So I’m worried about rejection if I take too much, even if it’s being offered to me. That has repercussions on people who want to do stuff for me, and then are being rejected themselves by me saying no, so I am trying to work on it.
For me this also intersects with the poly thing. There’s a bad part of me that is kinda proud of being the woman that doesn’t cause trouble, or demand much, or will go along with most things. I’m really ashamed of that part of me, though I know it comes from a place of insecurity in comparing myself to other women.
And it also intersects with the BDSM/kink side of things for me. If I’m minimal trouble that will make up for the fact that I will wear my jeans instead of a skirt, and i don’t always shave my legs or my pussy or my armpits, and I don’t like rope/bondage, and I can be a bit harsh/blunt/disinhibited at times, and I don’t like being played with in public, and I don’t like being told what to eat/wear by my dom, and all the other things that if I was a good sub girl I would do. (Side note, I know that these things aren’t the definition of a sub girl, but I’ve been around enough sub women to pick up some patterns that I don’t fit into)
It all feels like constantly managing a balance sheet doesn’t it? I just have to make sure I’m well into the black at all times, because as soon as I tip into the red I am pretty convinced it will be bye bye Tempe. And it’s hard when you feel that you’re already more in debt than most.
“If I’m minimal trouble that will make up for the fact that I will wear my jeans instead of a skirt, and i don’t always shave my legs or my pussy or my armpits” Ohhhh! You’ve put this so well, I don’t think I’ve ever really articulated this before. I definitely feel the same, though I think I frame it slightly differently (“It’s unfair if partners ask me to shave my pits/not wear jeans all the time because I work so hard to do all this OTHER stuff for them, I should have earned myself a pass from those things.”). Thank you, I don’t think I’d actually examined this from that angle but yeah I definitely see this the same way. And I know it’s not a healthy way to see it, obviously, but it’s a really useful thing to be able to put my finger on.
The comparing oneself to other women too… yeah that’s tricky. I think I always try to avoid going ‘well I am not demanding like that OTHER WOMAN is’ or whatever, but I definitely do find myself baffled and hurt when men won’t do small things for me but will move mountains for others. I wish this was something that I could fix just by working on it internally, but I’m resistant to the idea that this is purely my problem: I’ve had men say this (or similar things) directly to me before, that other women are just more compelling than me or they just feel more like doing that sort of thing for them. I’ve also had men tell me that they just assume I don’t *want* nice stuff, which is definitely in part because of my defensive attitude (if I never tell anyone it’d be nice to receive flowers, then I won’t be sad about the fact that men never buy me flowers [sidenote: I hate how gendered the examples are that I pull out but I’m going with my gut]), but there’s a chicken/egg thing going on there I think. I remember many times in my life (especially with new relationships) where I’ll let myself be a bit vulnerable and start trusting someone enough to say ‘OK here’s a thing I need/would like’ and get shut down/denied/ignored in ways that are quite painful, so I go back to being defensive/independent because it feels much more comfortable. In relationships, an absence of pain is always preferable to taking a risk, especially if that risk has like a 10% success rate, but a 90% ‘this dude will disappoint you and might even make you feel stupid for thinking he wouldn’t’ rate.
Thank you so much for joining in Tempe – I’m so sorry that you feel this way too, but I hope that by sharing our respective mountains of baggage we can at least start to understand the shape of it in ways that will be helpful for our future selves. You know, the ones who will have cast all this to the side and stamp through life with power and confidence <3 xxx
I tend to internalise things to a significant degree, which means I don’t often examine the influence of external factors, such as society and other people, so it’s helpful for you to highlight that too. I’m fortunate in being in a long term relationship with a person who has so rarely declined to meet my needs, and is constantly asking me to state them. I feel incredibly lucky, especially when I hear about less than positive experiences from my friends (or yourself here). But even in that context I still have the rule of “don’t ask for anything”. It’s a strong one! I’ve found it really helpful having open conversations with my partner about it. My other technique is to reason it out loud to myself, when I am struggling with these kinds of thoughts. But as you point out, this is an interaction effect, and it’s understandable to learn to protect oneself following difficult past experiences.
And it’s helpful to remember our current selves are the future selves for our past selves, and we’ve made progress already! Just being aware of the patterns is hugely important. We just need to put changes into practice now!
Ok ouch, I’m feeling very called out here. You’ve done such an incredible job of describing this feeling. The one that has me practically in tears in my therapists office as I tell her I’m so tired of trying to do everything and all I need is someone on mg side- only to turn around and ignore texts from people who reach out to me or dismiss offers of help with a laugh and “no thanks, I’ve got it”
I want to give you a huge hug right now. I really hope you manage to process and move past this one day. Letting people who want to do nice things for you actually do those things is a rather lovely feeling, I promise. Definitely check in with yourself every time to try and work out “would I *like* this thing?” You deserve nice things x
I definitely carry round a lot of “I have no idea why people would like me, so I’d better not be too much trouble or I’ll use up their goodwill”. Add in a fear that getting too dependent on someone/something might lead me to get stuck if it goes away, and a whole ton of other baggage, and I definitely resonate with this post. This stuff is complicated!
What a fascinating piece, Ms Net, and so very believably “you”. I always admire how you can open your heart so eloquently.
I would love to have a text on the topic of “I want sex and some basic respect” and how this is not about climbing the whole relationship ladder. However in current dating there are the two extremes of “casual just fuck” and “relationship dating” but so little about the zone in between hides so so so many valuable options.
Like sharing good sex and still being able to express your wishes and being cared for. So yes please turn that comment discussion into a blog post if ever possible.
I’d also like to dig into what guys are seeking who don’t want “full blown relationship escalation” but something different including loads of horny sex. ‘cause I can relate, really
Ohhhh do you know what? I think I have a post in the works that speaks to that first thing ‘I want sex and some basic respect’ – it’s in the bank ready for illustration so it’ll be up soon. But yeah. I also REALLY want to start a discussion about the ‘relationship ladder’ thing, and different types of escalation. I realised recently that although I say I don’t like the relationship escalator (and right now I am not up for it), there are some kinds of escalation that I really crave: escalating intimacy and connection. By which I mean, shared jokes and experiences, shared stories, escalating openness and honesty and vulnerability. Being willing (and keen) to have conversations about needs and desires, all that stuff. And I think often those things are seen within a relationship escalator framework. Like ‘as soon as I start talking about my feelings with this woman, she’s going to want to call herself my girlfriend or move in with me’ or whatever. And I don’t want that – I want the intimacy. The other thing is an entirely separate conversation.
And yeah, it’d be really good to get some input from men who want these kinds of relationships too! I’ve just ditched one of my dating site profiles because I got so bored of men saying they were ‘not looking for casual connection’ but then coming to me with a real ‘casual connection’ energy. I don’t understand how they are hoping to get more than a casual connection without being open, vulnerable or willing to genuinely connect.
Great. Looking forward to the article. As for the guys perspective I’d be tempted to look for a dialogue text or interview a guy. I am bored if I don’t connect with the person in communicating. That doesn’t mean I would opt for “girlfriend- live together- daily texts- Friday tv on sofa stuff”
And I really think that space in between is – for lack of better word – underdiscussed. There’s diversity out there so this is exciting and we should look into it.
Additionally there’s a hugely gendered narrative about women asking for more and guys wanting less and that underlying narrative might poison the debate