The ideal of involuntary love serves society’s domination as its alibi.

Evidence

Either she stiffens in his arms and inflicts the insult of her frigidity on him; or she shows herself to be capricious and coquettish, imposing on him the attitude of suppliant; she flirts, she makes him jealous, she is unfaithful to him: in one way or another, she tries to humiliate him in his virility. While caution prevents her from pushing him too far, at least she preciously keeps in her heart the secret of her haughty coldness; she confides sometimes to her diary, more readily to her friends: many married women find it amusing to share “tricks” they use to feign pleasure they claim not to feel; and they laugh wildly at the vain naïveté of their dupes; these confidences are perhaps another form of playacting: between frigidity and willful frigidity, the boundaries are uncertain. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1304 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Judging by the discussion of sexuality in Being and Nothingness, a Sartrean love affair was an epic struggle over perspectives, and thus over freedom. If I love you, I don’t want to control your thoughts directly, but I want you to love and desire me and to freely give up your freedom to me. Moreover, I want you to see me, not as a contingent and flawed person like any other, but as a ‘necessary’ being in your world. That is, you are not to coolly assess my flaws and irritating habits, but to welcome every detail of me as though no jot or tittle could possibly be different. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 679 (#complicates, via linked claim)

In long-term expropriative relations structured with frequent one-onone contact across group lines (as in contemporary gender relations, and in race relations in America in the antebellum South and Jim Crow South), social distance mechanisms prevail and dominant group members exploit their close access to subordinates’ daily lives to establish a paternalistic regime ( Jackman, 1994). Dominants define the needs and interests of subordinates in relation to their position in the status hierarchy and division of labor, and then claim to supply those needs. Subordinates are praised and rewarded for manifesting the attributes that have been categorically assigned to them, and punished for lapsing into behaviors deemed inappropriate. The rewards and punishments are primarily social: compliant subordinates are rewarded with social inclusion, admiration, friendship, affection, or even love, while subordinates who flaunt the rules face social exclusion, ridicule, humiliation, or stigmatization. Human self-interest, sociability, and rationality ensure that most subordinates comply readily with expectations. The costs of noncompliance are bitter, while compliance offers individuals their best prospects for social success. Under these crushing constraints, the vast majority of subordinates take it upon themselves to meet or exceed the demands made by dominants, even competing with each other to excel in their designated duties and attributes. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 671 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Paternalistic domination uses conditional love, not force, to secure subordinate compliance. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 671; Advanced industrial society channels erotic and aggressive instincts into socially controlled outlets. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 61; Willing to be loved alienates the lover’s freedom into the body-for-others. (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Supposed frigidity in marriage functions as a covert weapon against male domination #complicates (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1304
• Paternalistic domination uses conditional love, not force, to secure subordinate compliance. #corroborates (0.75) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 671
• Romantic love is a struggle over who gets to define the other’s freedom. #complicates (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 679
• Willing to be loved alienates the lover’s freedom into the body-for-others. #expands (0.73)
• Advanced industrial society channels erotic and aggressive instincts into socially controlled outlets. #expands (0.72) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 61