In the transformations of intimacy and subjectivity that characterize contemporary culture, discourses of work, management and entrepreneurialism increasingly shape the way we talk about sex and relationships. ‘Great sex’ is seen to require training, planning and upskilling, and is represented across a range of media as a pedagogic project in which people must invest time, money, and dedication. As Melissa Tyler (2004, p. 99) has argued ‘sexuality has become yet another aspect of the lifeworld in which the work ethic reigns supreme’ and we are seeing the ‘managerial colonization of sexual relations’. Nearly everyone has heard (or perhaps even used) the cliché that ‘relationships require work’, but this emphasis suggests something far more significant than that: it highlights the way in which intimate life is being reconfigured in terms of labour and self-management. We are being invited – perhaps even incited – to become ‘intimate entrepreneurs’, and to think about our closest personal relationships through the lens of market logics, consumerism, investment and enterprise. Have we moved into an era of neoliberal sex?
In this chapter we consider this emphasis on work, examining the way it operates across a variety of media texts, from magazine sex advice to television sex and dating shows, to smartphone apps. As we will demonstrate, the seemingly straightforward focus upon work conceals a number of different themes and emphases – on performance, on efficiency, and on shopping, for example. We also aim to show how the injunction to view our intimate relationships in terms of work operates unevenly across cultural life, with one key difference being the way that different genders are interpellated by it. As Hannah Frith (2015b, p. 314) has argued, although both ‘[m]en and women are impelled to “invest” in themselves as skilled sexual actors’, the neoliberal ‘performance imperative’ (Tyler, 2004) is situated in a context in which there remain profound asymmetries of power which ‘serve to privilege masculinity and heterosexuality’ (Frith, 2015b, p. 311, own emphasis). Our analysis here treads a fine line in attending to these gendered inequalities in heterosexual relations, while also seeking to be attentive to other axes of difference. Above all, we want to push at the broad idea of intimate entrepreneurship to open up some ways of thinking about the variety of forms of labour at issue. Deconstructing the idea of ‘work’ or ‘self-management’, we want to unpick the diverse kinds of aesthetic, emotional and practical labour that contemporary media call forth, showing how they go way beyond ‘tips’ and ‘techniques’, and instead calling for us to radically reformulate our sense of sexual subjectivity.
The chapter is divided into five main sections that reflect this interest. We start by considering the focus on work, labour and entrepreneurialism in contemporary sociological writing, looking at intimate entrepreneurship in relation to dating texts. We draw on existing studies of dating advice (including our own), and we also undertake a new analysis of mainstream online dating advice for men. In the next section we look specifically at aesthetic labour – the work on the self that is advised by dating advice. Much of this centres on appearance and embodied work, organized around presenting oneself in the best light, and, again, there is a profound asymmetry in the kinds of work required for men and women. Section three of the chapter turns explicitly to sexual instruction and we introduce the notions of ‘technologies of sexiness’ and ‘sexual entrepreneurship’, reporting on our study of the ‘reality’ TV show The Sex Inspectors, and also examining the proliferation of new apps that offer us ways to monitor, track and evaluate our sex lives. We suggest that ‘entrepreneurship’ now extends to the requirement to self-surveil and relentlessly judge our own and others' sexual performance, arguing, following Lupton (2016), that there is a new ‘quantified self of sex’ emerging. The fourth section looks at a contrasting form of work – emotional labour – documenting the uneven distribution of this in advice targeted at women and men in heterosexual relationships. Finally, we introduce the idea of ‘psychic labour’ as a way of exploring how sex and relationship advice calls upon people to transform their self or makeover their subjectivity. Here, then, sex emerges as an intense object of different kinds of work: to be planned, practised, monitored, evaluated and which also requires work on attitudes and dispositions, e.g. to be ‘confident enough’ or to have the ‘right mindset’ for a hook-up. A brief conclusion draws together some of the different forms of labour involved in the activity of finding and maintaining an intimate relationship.
A growing number of scholars have documented the way that discourses of work, management and entrepreneurialism increasingly shape our language for talking about sex (Hawkes, 1996; Tyler, 2004; O'Neill, 2018). Jackson and Scott (1997) discuss the manner that intimate life is framed in terms of ‘scientific management’, with the ‘Taylorization’ of sex. This involves sexual activity being broken down into separate component elements or operations to be organized in a rational and linear process, rather like a factory production line.
A whole range of media now help us in this task: breaking down the constituent parts of intimate relationships, offering guidance on a multiplicity of topics from ‘10 things never to say on a first date’ to ‘The new oral: we show you everything you need to know’. Much of the advice is constructed in small chunks of information, with the list-article (now commonly known as a listicle) a popular format, either formulated in terms of carefully distilled ‘need-to-know’ facts (‘The 5 key facts that will change the way you use Tinder’), or exhaustive compendia of tips and tricks (‘53 things porn stars can teach women about sex’). In the speeded up world of contemporary ‘fast capitalism’ (Thrift, 2005) it is striking to note how sex and relationships are not just framed in terms of work, but, increasingly, in terms of efficiency – whether that involves meeting someone, dating, or getting to orgasm more quickly. Indeed, the very focus on speed – fast track orgasms, quickie divorces, avoiding ‘time wasters’ on dating sites – further accentuates the feeling that our intimate relationships are an arena less for pleasure and exploration than for careful strategizing and meticulous time management.
An emphasis upon work pervades relationship advice targeted at heterosexual women (Farvid & Braun, 2006; Moran & Lee, 2011; Ménard & Kleinplatz, 2008). In a study of Glamour, the UK's bestselling magazine targeted at heterosexual women in the 18 to 34 age group, we found that work is a dominant framing for discussions of sex and relationships, using a variety of analogies from finance, management, marketing, science and even military campaigns. Interestingly, although an assumption of heterosexual ‘true love’ underpins many articles, based on the idea that for every straight woman there is an ideal male match somewhere out there (The One, Mr Perfect or Mr Right), the idea of love striking unexpectedly is treated with derision, particularly in an age of Internet dating and meet-up apps. ‘Face it’, says one article, ‘the man of your dreams is not about to appear in your living room brandishing a Tiffany box while you're watching EastEnders. You've got to go out and find him first – and that requires a plan.’ Articles on ‘the art of tactical dating’ spell this out as readers are exhorted to ‘think about what you want and make it happen’. Women report on successes garnered by putting significant effort into a dating profile or treating ‘every date like a job interview’, with extensive research online beforehand. Discourses of finance and consumerism proliferate, with talk of investments and deals. Women are enjoined to build detailed checklists of what they want in a partner, including enough flexibility yet also being clear on ‘deal breakers’.
Self-promotion and marketing skills are also needed. As one expert quoted in the magazine put it: ‘If you want to meet someone you have to think of yourself as a product that needs to be marketed. You have to write your profile as you would your CV, shortlist the responses, then systematically work through men you like the sound of. I know one woman who did this and by date seven she'd met her husband.’
A sense of agency and urgency pervades many articles. Women do not have ‘time to waste’, they believe it is ‘time to stop coasting’, and are ‘working to a schedule’, with extraordinary determination and efficiency it appears. Oddly there is little space for feelings in this – no sense of the loneliness, vulnerability or hurt that might be experienced. Even a woman who had ‘seventy dates in as many nights’ and still did not meet anyone she liked is apparently not disappointed: ‘I'm never upset by a date that doesn't work out as I have always got more men in the pipeline’, she reports. As Gill (2009, p. 353) argues, reflecting on this magazine dating advice:
Finding and building a relationship is cast as a professional, rational, quasi scientific affair, described as a ‘numbers game’ or ‘only a matter of time’ or of following Glamour's ‘rules’. It is as if love is the outcome of meritocracy; if you work hard enough you will find it.
Much dating advice targeted at heterosexual men is similar. To examine this, we Googled using the search term ‘dating advice for men’. We downloaded and analysed all the data from the first ten hits, which generated more than 150 pages of dating instructions and tips – plus many more from embedded links. The top hits came largely from dating apps, men's magazines, and commercially supported blogs. They included the Soulmates Blog, The Huffington Post, GQ and Men's Fitness magazines, Match.com, E-Harmony, Cosmopolitan (‘Dating advice we want men to know’), Men's Health and Ask Men. It is worth noting that although we did not use any terms that referred to sexuality, the returned results exclusively focused on men who want to date women. This highlights the heteronormative assumptions built into the search engine, in which ‘cis as norm’ and ‘heterosexual as norm’ are encoded into search algorithms, unless other words (e.g. gay, bi, trans) are explicitly entered. Our research thus supports emerging campaigns for ‘algorithmic justice’. Activist groups have recently highlighted the racial assumptions at work in search engine algorithms such that asking for images of ‘babies’ or ‘hands’ brings up almost exclusively white selections of images – and with other assumptions about disability, age and, of course location, also ‘built in’. In a 2017 campaign directed at YouTube, LGBT activist Rowan Ellis also highlighted how much of the LGBT content on the site is coded as ‘restricted’, constructing the idea that this material is somehow inherently ‘more sexual’ than similar material designed for cisgender and heterosexual audiences and should not be available freely. Ellis argued that LGBT people are considered as always already sexualized by YouTube, which results in huge amounts of valuable educative and supportive material being unavailable to young people. Our straightforward attempt at data collection for this book supports this finding, underscoring the extra difficulty of accessing sex and dating advice targeted at a more diverse readership.
Some of the ‘dating advice for men’ is similar to that targeted at women, focusing on how you should approach a woman in a ‘real life’ situation, how to construct an appealing dating profile, and good and bad things to say or do when trying to get a woman to fancy you. Nevertheless some differences stood out. First, it was noticeable how the sites aimed at straight men assumed a much less knowledgeable audience than similar advice aimed at women. We were struck by how often things that would be taken for granted in addressing women had to be pointed out or even laboured – ideas such as, ‘turn up on time’, ‘don't say you'll text her unless you are actually going to’ and ‘don't forget to smile and be friendly as this will help put your date at ease’. These instructions, taken together, construct an image of a somewhat naïve and unskilled subject, quite unlike the female figure depicted in women's magazines. Match.com's (2017) advice on ‘How to impress a girl at the gym’, for example, turns out to involve little more than noting the typical time she is there so you can align your timing, making eye contact, and, when the time seems right, going over to chat to her. What not to do was to bore on about your weights or reps or to stare at her body: the idea is to ‘come across more buff Brad than leering Arnie’. Indeed, keeping the leering under control is a constant emphasis throughout the dating advice, as is the radical idea that men should ‘listen’, ‘ask questions’ and ‘show interest’ in the woman they want to date. Men's Health (2014) adds to the list of injunctions with its helpful advice ‘don't swear’, ‘don't drink too much’ and ‘don't keep looking at your phone’.
Another significant feature of the dating advice targeted at men is its construction of an intimate universe that is deeply confusing and in which none of the old rules apply. YourTango.com (2015) captures the tone:
Times are changing. Be sure YOU know the latest dating dos and don'ts. Back in the day – before women became more independent (thanks, women's rights movement!) – gender roles were clear and well defined. For the most part, dating was easier: A man courted a woman and both of them knew the end goal if courtship went well … marriage.
Now that both genders are evolving socially, dating is far more complicated …
Fortunately, Men's Fitness (2017) is on hand to offer ‘the new rules of dating’ informing men that although the rules have changed ‘the good news is that it's to your advantage – if you know how to play’. And what a complex game it is! Much of the anxiety evinced across this data set seems to circle around questions of ‘manners’, ‘etiquette’ and ‘chivalry’, with feminism blamed for generating the fiendishly cunning political question – experienced it would seem as a test – of ‘whether it is sexist to hold the door open’. Who knew that decades of activism around work, childcare, violence, and bodily and sexual justice, would be so frequently condensed down to who opens the door. Cosmo's (2012) advice to men tackles this knotty issue in its characteristically direct and flirtatious way: ‘Yes I expect you to open the door. That means the car door, the door to the restaurant, and the door to the bedroom.’ GQ (2017) also goes with ‘good manners’. Indeed, for all the apparent confusion depicted among men it seems that there is a pretty clear consensus that holding the door for another human being is a polite and civil thing to do.
But just when we think the door question is sorted along comes the other number one troubling issue: ‘Paying for your date’. Dear, oh dear. What is a man to do? There are so many new and confusing scenarios (thanks women's movement). Yet here again the advice offered would suggest that the depiction of maelstrom and angst is somewhat overstated. You may ‘offer to pay’ the advice suggests, but most women will assume that the bill will be split equally. If you want to insist on paying ‘don't be too forceful’ advises Soulmates (2014), and you could even tell her that she can pay next time – if the date is going well. This is also a neat way of ‘planning your follow-up’.
Interestingly the somewhat ‘hapless’, uncertain and unworldly man depicted in a lot of dating advice also has a less vulnerable, harder and meaner brother, who needs to be told to keep not just his ‘leching’ but also his anger and bitterness under control. AskMen.com's (2017) ‘Definitive guide to getting all the tinder matches’ for example spends considerable time advising on the tone to avoid in a profile:
There's an unattractive tendency for some men to use their bios as an opportunity to gripe about women, including long tirades about the type of women they're not looking for (‘swipe left if you take duck face selfies, wear wedges, use emojis or eat kale’). Remember that you control who can match with you, so there's no need to list what you don't want …
Just in case readers have not got the point, the article is illustrated with a screen grab which says ‘swipe left if you believe you are the centre of the universe, if you are not funny, if you never read a book, or if the only thing on your brain is lipsticks’.
In this article the author is advising against such negative and hostile characterizations of women. In some others though an aggressive and predatory approach is recommended, centred on themes such as how to exploit a woman's vulnerability or ‘5 reasons no woman is ′out of your league” ’ (Huffington Post, 2014). A Huffington Post (2011) blog titled ‘First date facts’ shares some ‘information’ about your likelihood of being able to ‘score’:
The three traits of women most likely to put out on a first date are being overweight, being recently separated, or being ‘large’ (putting overweight nicely, basically). With the minimum of offence intended, most men could have guessed that larger ladies would be more game for a laugh on the first date, or that women on the rebound will jump into bed with anything …
This type of content (and there is plenty of it) owes much to wider lad culture, with its hostile objectification of women, its virulent racism (this article also says that ethnic minority women are less likely to ‘put out’), aggressive homophobia, and its focus on sexual coercion – often figured in terms of getting a woman to do something she does not want to do – whether this is to go on a date, to have sex, or to engage in a particular sexual act (Gill, 2007b). Although many of the ‘lad mags’, such as Zoo, Nuts and Loaded, closed in 2015 (partly in response to feminist activism), a laddish culture is far more enduring, and has been well documented in a range of contexts, including universities (Phipps & Young 2015). Laura Favaro and Rosalind Gill (2016) analysed more than 5,000 comments about lad magazines on moderated news outlets including The Huffington Post and the BBC, and discussed their vicious misogyny, arguing that the predatory attitudes towards women, the attacks on feminism, and the strong emphasis upon male victimization – all characteristic of laddism as a discursive formation – have not disappeared but have in fact been mainstreamed. Laura Thompson's (2017) research examines sexist harassment on dating apps, finding a dominant form of attack is organized around what she dubbed the ‘not hot enough’ repertoire. In this, not responding fast enough or enthusiastically enough to a man's message routinely led to vicious abuse about the woman's putative ugliness or fatness. This resonates with a wider concern about misogynist hate speech, variously known as e-bile (Jane, 2014) and gendertrolling. A growing body of research points to the disproportionate attacks on women in online space and the violent sexual imagery used, while also noting the importance of understanding this in intersectional terms (Vickery & Everbach, 2017).
The focus on aggression and coercion must also be understood in relation to the growing spread and visibility of ‘pick up’ in contemporary culture. Widespread revulsion greets the tactics of some ‘celebrity pickup artists’ – as evidenced by the attempts in 2014 to deny Julien Blanc access to various countries to teach his ‘seduction’ seminars. However, the arguments of this individual, dubbed by Time magazine (2014) as possibly ‘the most hated man in the world’, are in keeping with much other dating and sexual advice to men. In a brilliant and original analysis, based on in-depth ethnographic research in London's ‘seduction community-industry’, Rachel O'Neill (2015) argues that pickup is ‘less a deviation or departure from current social conventions surrounding sex and relationships than an extension and acceleration of existing cultural norms’ (emphasis in original). She suggests that pickup or ‘game’ as it is sometimes known, after the book of the same title by pickup artist Neil Strauss, is ‘a set of techniques and knowledge practices for the governance of self and intimate relations’ that ‘draws on more widely available cultural logics to promote a marketized and consumerist orientation to sexual relationships among heterosexual men’. It is taught in seminars, workshops, ‘boot camps’ and residential courses, but also disseminated across a multiplicity of media spaces from YouTube videos, to blogs, to books. The Game is one of the bestselling and most widely read pieces of sex advice literature ever produced, its sales far exceeding most popular texts aimed at women (Farvid & Braun, 2013). Moreover, the seduction community-industry is highly porous, so that many of its protagonists work as dating coaches or lifestyle experts in mainstream media, with ideas spreading out across diverse cultural sites from the online sex advice texts we have been looking at to television shows such as The Pickup Artist (VH1) and Dapper Laughs: On the Pull (ITV 2) which promise to transform ‘losers’ and ‘chumps’ into ‘players’.
An emphasis upon working, training, planning, practising, analysing pervades ‘educational’ iterations of pickup. Success with women is cast as a matter of ‘labour and investment’, using a meritocratic discourse of ‘accessibility to all’ (O'Neill, 2015). The ‘mystique’ of this success is unpacked as ‘game’, presented as something that anybody can learn. Men are invited to acquire the skills that will enable them to have more opportunities with women and opportunities with ‘hotter’ women, as well as to gain ‘leverage’ within heterosexual relationships. A language of competitive individualism predominates, alongside the normalization of crude and reductive ways of talking about women, with numerical scores being ubiquitous:
The reason why some guys – why a lot of guys – want to do game, is so that they can attract higher value women. So they might be dating fives or sixes, and they actually want to have a girl who is a ten … They have to work on themselves and learn game.
Men are taught to approach women, to work ‘sets’ and to ‘close’, using specific psychological techniques designed to push women in various ways, for example by ‘negging’ or by overcoming ‘last-minute resistance’ (LMR). It is abundantly clear, as O'Neill demonstrates compellingly, that ‘game’ is more like ‘work’ and is a form of mediated intimacy that has significant continuities with wider sex and relationship advice, not least in its focus upon entrepreneurialism and market logics.
Another difference between advice targeted at heterosexual men and women is in the ‘preparation’ required for a sexual encounter. Besides the actual activity of sex itself, there is a slew of anticipatory labour (Gregg, 2013) that is deemed essential for women. As Rachel Wood (2017a) notes in her analysis of Cosmopolitan magazine sex advice, the ‘body work’ required ‘can appear onerous’. ‘28 hot little sex life ideas’ is typical in suggesting a manicure, pedicure, full bikini wax, the purchase of new lingerie and – if you are adventurous enough – how about dyeing what is left of your pubic hair a new colour, or even getting a crystal tattoo or vajazzle. The sheer range and volume of different forms of work on the body called forth by contemporary sex advice is sobering. In an era in which patriarchal values have become ‘reterritoralized in the fashion-beauty complex’ (McRobbie, 2009) women are subjected to intensified pressures in relation to their appearance. Articles that are ostensibly about sex routinely suggest that women should attend to their weight, their muscle tone, the smoothness and moisture of their skin, their pubic and bodily hair, make-up, lingerie, clothes, hair style. This extraordinary litany of aesthetic labour has no equivalent for men. Notwithstanding decades of discussion about the appearance focus of the ‘new man’, the ‘metrosexual’ and now the ‘spornosexual’ (Hakim, 2016), ‘being presentable’ or ‘dressing to impress’ mostly seems to involve having a shower and putting on clean clothes. To be sure, there are many ‘style guides’ for men on how to cut a swagger while dating, but these are targeted to particularly fashion-forward audiences. In the mainstream the basics have it: in ‘The New Rules of Dating’ by Men's Fitness, for example, men are advised to keep deodorizing wipes and mouthwash at work in case of an impromptu sexual opportunity, while the Soulmates blog (the no.1 result on Google for the search term ‘dating advice for men’) spells out how little is really involved here:
First impressions are always important … Your ripped jeans may be lucky, but remember, this will be the first impression your date gets of you. Yes, you should never pretend to be someone that you're not, but a girl might like to see that you take pride in your appearance. Don't worry, this doesn't mean you need to wear a full tuxedo, but having a shower, shave, using aftershave and putting on something suitable will help you impress your date and get you off to a good start. Now all you have to worry about is turning up on time.
To say this is different from the level of body work demanded of women would be an understatement! Moreover, aesthetic labour for women does not stop when women enter the bedroom. Cosmo recommends readers should ‘dress for sex’, perhaps donning a sexy slip to ‘cover the bits you're concerned about’, high heels to ‘make your legs look longer and slimmer’ and a corset to ‘flatten your tummy and lift your boobs’ (quoted in Wood, 2017a, p. 320. Preparing the right environment is also important. This might involve candles, scents and cushions that will allow you to vary your sexual positions. Crucially, it must feature lighting and positions that ‘make you look and feel amazing’. Certain times of the day may be better than others as (hint hint) your stomach may look flatter and tauter before you have eaten. Moreover, women should be attentive to how they look in particular positions even while they are having sex. Cosmo encourages women to lean back when on top in order to ‘make your stomach look flatter’, and to adopt positions that make ‘your waist look tiny and your thighs slim and taut’ (Tracey Cox, quoted in Wood, 2017a, p. 320). The missionary position, though dull and therefore not fitting Cosmo's promotion of appropriately ‘fun fearless’ sex does have the advantage that ‘the flab spreads out and we look extra thin’ (Cox, quoted in Wood, 2017a, p. 321).
The level of labour and self-surveillance is striking – and hardly seems compatible with a relaxed and enjoyable sexual experience. Not only would following such advice be intensely time-consuming and incredibly expensive, but it also requires a degree of planning and forensic self-monitoring that would surely exhaust all but the most energetic individual. No area of life seems outside the requirement for forensic vigilance and self-optimization. An article in Glamour magazine captures this vividly. ‘Forget spontaneity’, it starts, ‘if it's passion you're after you need to plan for it. Here we tell you what to eat, the exercises to boost your libido, and the tricks that will guarantee sex worth waiting for’ (quoted in Gill, 2009, p. 352). The preparation involves not only the tried and tested favourites of women's lifestyle media (shopping for lingerie, writing down your fantasies, sending sexy texts), but also features advice on cleaning and preparing the home (‘setting the scene’), a detailed itemization of libido-enhancing foods (e.g. ‘eggs contain steroid substances that boost mood and libido’), and an itinerary that includes a visit to the gym, shopping for (yet more) lingerie and a ‘new sex toy’, flirting over champagne, dinner in a restaurant (but remember to ‘eat light’) and a cinema trip to see a ‘scary movie’ (the shock will both wake you up and make you move closer). All of this takes place after a full day's work, and, like most advice, is characterized by its ‘lifted out’ quality – offering no sense of issues like long working hours, tiredness, health issues or the need to care for others (including children). Just reading about the effort involved made us feel like having a long lie-down!
As well as the striking asymmetry in the gendered work required, it is worth reflecting on the classed dimensions of this advice. On one hand it is clear that this ‘sexy night’ comes with an eye watering price tag. The gym membership, new underwear and purchase of a sex toy, together with dinner, drinks and cinema tickets puts this in a category of spending that is outside the reach of all but a tiny minority of women – and that is without all the body and beauty work discussed above. The air of exclusivity is further reinforced by the details of locations and activities – a home you occupy alone or as a couple, ‘champagne’ rather than just drinks, and an attentiveness to light and clean eating. Rather than simply reflecting class, then, the article (and many like it) constructs a desirable affluent lifestyle, and renders sexual activity as part of a strategy of class distinction (Bourdieu, 1984). The article depicts an aspirational upper-middle-class lifestyle in which ‘sophisticated’, ‘glamorous’ and ‘varied’ sex plays a key part.
We coined the term ‘sexual entrepreneurs’ to capture the way in which people are called upon to work at, invest in and manage their sexual lives. ‘Great sex’, contemporary media tell us, is not a ‘luxury’: it is the truth of our selves and the glue of our relationships (see chapter 4). It has never been more important. But it requires work. And this work is uneven. While both women and men are called upon to become enterprising sexual subjects, discourses of management, self-promotion and sexual success are differentiated by gender. In this new, modernized version of sex, women's value in the heteronormative economy is seen to come not from their virginity but from what have been dubbed ‘technologies of sexiness’ (Evans et al., 2010; Gill, 2009; Radner, 1993; Radner & Luckett, 1999). Heterosexual women are exhorted to become ‘appropriately’ desirable (through intense labour as we have just seen) and desiring sexual subjects willing to perform a number of sexual practices to keep their men happy and turned on. Men, by contrast are urged to learn the ‘science’ of ‘efficient’ sex to ‘master’ and ‘maximize’ performance. These gendered performances are presented simultaneously as moments of freedom, choice, empowerment and pleasure, yet also as hard work that is normatively demanded and essential to the success of heterosexual relationships.
Tyler (2004) argues that it is ‘no longer enough to be “doing it”, we should be “managing it”, “working at it”, “improving it” ’ (2004, p. 101), and so on. We are incited to have ‘world class sex’ to ‘take your sexual skills to the next level’, and told that our sex lives will be improved with the requisite work and ambition. We may have more orgasms, better orgasms or even achieve distinctly new orgasmic experiences – for example ‘blended orgasms’ that bring together clitoral and G-spot stimulation (see Frith, 2015b). But all this needs considerable labour. For example, Men's Health (2017) magazine starts the year with a question: ‘You've probably already made some resolutions for this year – but did having better sex make your list? If not, it might already be time to re-evaluate your goals for 2017.’ The reason is that ‘sex makes you happier’ but ‘like getting fit or climbing the ladder at work, a better sex life does actually take some work.’ So ‘add these twelve new sex positions to your to-do list for 2017’ (and if you ‘really want to blow her mind’, download the ‘complete guide to becoming a master lover’).
The particular work and dedication involved in a normative sex life became very clear in our analysis of the reality TV show The Sex Inspectors, which ran for three seasons in the 2000s (Harvey & Gill, 2011a; 2011b), presented by celebrity sexperts Tracey Cox and Michael Alvear – the latter a gay agony uncle – apparently chosen because his sexuality would make him less threatening to heterosexual men (both those on the show and those watching it). The show combined the genres of sex self-help and makeover television, borrowing from a variety of other genres to create a uniform narrative of intervention and transformation (see chapter 1). Each episode ‘investigated’ the lives of a heterosexual couple in a long-term monogamous relationship. The couple were observed for a week in their homes using CCTV, night vision cameras, and confessional video diaries and interviews. The ‘sex inspectors’ were filmed watching and commenting on the footage, interviewing the couple and diagnosing the ‘problem’. They were then shown working with the couple to teach them ‘tips tasks and techniques’ to make over their sex lives. The surveillance cameras and video diaries were subsequently returned to the couple's home, and the ‘sex inspectors’ evaluated the success of the intervention.
Sexuality on the show is presented as something that is simple to understand and ‘fix’ with the correct expertise. The sexperts offered a number of different ‘techniques’ with names like ‘the coital alignment technique’, ‘the prop and flop’ or ‘the spiralling stalk’. For example, the ‘coital alignment technique’ is something that the sexperts claim will increase couples’ ‘chances of climaxing together’ by ‘at least a third’. It ‘takes patience to master but is well worth the effort’. A language of ‘excellent performance’ structures the show. ‘We’ are encouraged to move from being ‘bored in the bedroom’ to having ‘red hot’ sex that is ‘sensational between the sheets’. For women, this often involved a ‘mental makeover’ as well as considerable emotional labour as we discuss later in the chapter, but for men a key focus was on ‘lasting’ during intercourse, with advice echoing magazine cover catchphrases, such as going from being a ‘two pump chump’ to a ‘long-time champ’ or having sex that is ‘turbo charged’. In addition to this, men were advised to become better lovers by mastering certain ‘techniques’, such as get better at oral sex by imagining a woman's genitalia as a clock face on which you apply particular strokes to particular hours.
As we saw in the previous chapter, assumptions of ‘natural’ sexual difference imbue sex advice, reflecting what Annie Potts (1998) identified as ‘Mars and Venus’ accounting: a ‘normal’ ‘male sex drive’ is depicted in contrast and potential conflict with a female ‘have and hold’ (Hollway, 1989) or ‘trust to love’ (Holland et al., 2004) discourse centred on needing ‘intimacy’. In The Sex Inspectors men are advised to ‘streamline’ and make their sex more ‘productive’ in order to be at their ‘peak’, while women's sexuality is constructed as responsive to a male's, and the acquisition of new sexual skills must never be allowed to threaten the lead of the male partner (Gavey et al., 1999). Interestingly this binary construction of sexuality is upheld even when the ‘cases’ that the ‘sex inspectors’ are dealing with fundamentally call it into question – e.g. when the ‘problem’ is a mismatched sex drive in which the woman wants more sex than the man. The ideological force of this gendered and heteronormative construction is so powerful that it seems to remain intact even in the face of strong counter evidence.
Both men and women are interpellated by discourses stressing the need for ‘variety’ as the ‘spice of life’. Innovation, creativity and adventurousness have become key terms associated with mediated sex advice. Trying something new and pushing boundaries are mandated. ‘Get out of your comfort zone’, media experts cajole; whatever happens don't ‘get stuck in a sexual rut’. An article in Glamour admonishes readers lest they only have sex in two or three positions with which they have grown comfortable. ‘Remember’, advises Tracey Cox, ‘variety is the key. There are over 600 possible sexual positions … I suggest a rule: 30 thrusts in each position, then add another and another’ (quoted in Gill, 2009, p. 354).
What we might call the ‘variety imperative’ joins the ‘sex imperative’ and ‘orgasm imperative’ discussed elsewhere in this book – even though, as we saw in the previous chapter, it is striking how ‘variety’ still seems focused on PIV intercourse – with oral, anal and manual stimulation of various kinds figured as an ‘extra’ or as foreplay before the main event (Tiefer, 1995; McPhillips et al., 2001) – at least in advice targeted at heterosexuals. Guidance for LGBT people is at times quite different, with a welcome emphasis upon openness, communication and consent, such as in Pride's (2015) excellent advice to women having sex with a woman for the first time:
There are no rules about what good sex is or includes – nobody says it has to include penetration, or climax, or multiple positions, or dildos, or, y'know, anything other than what feels right to the people concerned at the time. (Which will vary vastly from person to person, and also from one time to another with a particular partner, so going with the flow of the moment is always good.) … [E]verybody should be responding to what's going on with their partners rather than plugging away at what they THINK will work because they're trying to meet some imagined idea of what good sex should look like.
Nevertheless, across most advice it is assumed that a major problem pretty much everyone regardless of their gender or sexuality will encounter is boredom – with inspiration and guidance needed to ‘spice it up’. As with the sex advice covered in the previous chapter, The Sex Inspectors works with a very particular understanding of kink and spice which includes spanking, handcuffs and taking ‘saucy’ photographs. Yet these activities are presented strictly as experimentation and ‘spice’ and are not to be mistaken for the ‘main meal’ of sex itself. Indeed the show's participants are warned off using practices such as dressing up every time, since this may result in them becoming dependent on specific props or activities to become aroused.
One growing area of media where an emphasis upon work and self-management is especially prominent is in the rapidly increasing number of smartphone apps concerned with sex. Of course there are many dating and hook-up apps, but what we are interested in here are other types of sex apps, less concerned with meeting someone than with monitoring, analysing, tracking and ‘spicing up’ people's sex lives. These apps join a large number of more familiar smartphone programmes such as those organized around counting how many steps you take, monitoring your sleep, or keeping account of alcohol or food consumption. They form part of a wider trend towards self-tracking and self-monitoring (Neff and Nafus, 2016; Lupton, 2016) that has been understood as giving rise to a ‘quantified self’ (QS). For Deborah Lupton the QS is best conceptualized as a ‘self-tracking’ or ‘reflexive monitoring’ self who uses the affordances of digital technology to collect, monitor, record and share a range of – quantified and non-quantifiable – information about her/himself while engaging in ‘the process of making sense of this information as part of the ethical project of selfhood’ (2016). Her conceptualization valuably foregrounds the links between the QS and neoliberalism's emphasis upon work: ‘the very act of self-tracking, or positioning oneself as a self-tracker, is already a performance of a certain type of subject: the entrepreneurial, self-optimizing subject’ (ibid).
At the time of writing we have been able to identity at least four main types or genres of sex apps (besides the more familiar ones that facilitate casual sex), which we have called sex tracking calendar apps, spice-advice apps, gameplay apps, sex analysis apps, and masturbation tools. By far the largest category seems to be what we might call ‘calendar’ apps which allow users to record and keep track of their sex lives, and will generate data (much like exercise trackers) to show the numbers, averages and types of sex they have had in a given period, offering daily, weekly, monthly or annual stats. A typical example is MySexualator.com which ‘tracks and calculates your sexual activities’ and tells you ‘how much you are having and where improvements can be made’, according to the app's developer Michelle Ehlberg. The app is described as ‘the new virtual personal sexual assistant’ that ‘keeps track in the sack’. It entrenches the idea of work and entrepreneurship, along with the ‘responsibility’ to keep track. The app's creator says that it works like a database to resolve couple's disagreements about how much sex they are having, as well as a warning to let them know if they are ‘letting the fire go out’. It is also used to track sexual encounters in the event of pregnancy or infection, and is also a ‘pill assistant’ – whether contraceptives or Viagra. Sex tracker by Naughty is a similar app allowing users to record when, where, with whom, how long, what protection used, and various other data, including customizable features.
Debates about gender have been a persistent feature of the development of these new apps. A storm greeted Apple's decision to include its sex tracker not just in its generic Health section, but under the ‘reproductive health’ tab in the iPhone 5. Other features under this tab include ovulation and menstruation trackers. The location of sex in this zone angered many who argued it reinforced the idea that both sex and contraception were women's responsibilities – as well as excluding same-sex encounters and – implicitly – sex unrelated to reproduction (i.e. most sex!). Here, then, sex tracking was constructed as female and heterosexual. By contrast some other sex tracking apps have a distinctly laddish or playerish feel. BlackBookDidIt offers itself as a way to record info and photos ‘from each notch on your bedpost’ and helpfully allows recording of other data such as ‘how trashed you were during the encounter’.
A second genre of sex apps is the spice-advice type. These apps send you regular push-notifications with hints and tips about how you might improve and spice up your sex life. Similar to magazine content, but designed for a phone, such apps include Cosmo's Sex Position of the Day, and Love-Sparks which ‘gamifies’ your sex life. ‘Turning your sex life into a to-do list may not sound sexy’ the app summary concedes, ‘but if gamification has upped your fitness levels, imagine what it can do for your relationship!’ Love-Sparks ‘offers ideas for quickie encounters, fun locations, role playing fantasy scenarios, and much more’. As with computer/mobile games, there are opportunities to progress through levels and ‘you can choose positions by complexity, intimacy or strength’.
Linked to this, but with an even greater emphasis upon gaming are the gameplay apps for couples. At the time of writing, Couple foreplay sex game was the app returned at the top of the list in the online store. The app, which describes itself as an ‘adult game for couples’ is listed as having had over 1 million downloads. The game merges some of the basic conventions of multi-player computer games, such as the use of player names and scoreboards, in addition to sound effects that are reminiscent of mobile games. The user is invited to enter their name, and the name of one other partner, into the app. On starting the game, the app presents an instruction to one partner, with a minimum and maximum time duration, for example: ‘Standing, use your tongue to tickle the back of [partner name]'s neck. (Minimum duration 30 seconds, maximum duration 120 seconds)’.
Pressing ‘skip’ produces a new instruction, while pressing ‘start’ brings up a moving timer bar next to the minimum and maximum time limits. When the minimum timer is reached, a computer-game style sound is played. After this point, the ‘player’ can press ‘done’ at any time, or wait until the timer on the maximum time runs out, when a different sound is played. On pressing ‘done’, the ‘player’ is asked to ‘rate’, by dragging their finger across five hearts. When both players have played all their ‘rounds’ the game announces who is the ‘winner’, which is calculated from the ratings made at the end of each round – though presumably it is anticipated that most couples will have lost interest in their phones at some point well before the list of activities is completed. It is interesting to note how similar this ‘foreplay’ game is to some of the techniques taught by sex therapists – such as sensate focus, which prohibits intercourse and makes couples focus on other forms of touch and stimulation. The genre has also been taken up on some dating shows, such as Undressed in which two people meeting for the first time are given instructions on the screen including ‘undress each other’, ‘give each other a massage’ or ‘kiss for 90 seconds’.
The fourth genre of app we identified is one that promises to analyse the sex you are having through use of devices in the phone such as altimeters and accelerometers which sense (for example) movement or sounds. Similar to sleep analysis apps couples have to ‘set up’ this type of app to ‘know’ (calibrate) and recognize the place in which sex is taking place – for example the softness or firmness of a mattress. It can then use this data to ‘measure’ and analyse your sex life, monitoring duration, loudness of sounds made, numbers of thrusts and other features. Spreadsheets is one of many apps that has these features. Already the market is moving towards wearable devices that are more sensitive, with many articles heralding an imminent future in which, as tech writers promise, there will soon be the equivalent of FitBit for sexual organs which may also be able to offer stimulation.
In addition to these four main categories of sex app, there are also apps for self-exploration, which can effectively turn your phone into a vibrating sex aid, and there are many apps that are hybrids of the main types – iKamaSutra, for example, is both a calendar/tracking app, but also has gamification features that encourage people to go from ‘novice’ to ‘master’ by progressing through a variety of sexual positions that are graded in terms of difficulty/unusualness. The app encodes a number of neo-colonial ideas about Eastern mysticism and exoticism, and opens to the sound of sitar music.
In addition to preparing, planning, strategizing, learning and practising new sexual skills and techniques, monitoring and evaluating your own and others' performance, much sex and relationships advice also focuses on the emotional work necessary to develop and sustain successful relationships. At its simplest this involves ‘reading the signs’ that another person may give you, often with helpful checklists and guides. For example, Glamour magazine advises women to monitor and surveil their partner for signs that he is ‘just not that into you’ or, conversely, that things are going well: ‘check his behaviour … Does he call when he says he will? Has he introduced you to his family? Are Saturday nights automatically your nights? Does he talk about the future with you? If he ticks all the boxes it's likely this man is falling in love with you’ (quoted in Gill, 2009 p. 352). In turn E Harmony's (2017) ‘our 10 favourite dating tips for men’ has similar notes:
Not sure how the date is going? Do a little chemistry check. While you're standing together waiting for a table, for example, lean into her a little bit (Be subtle!) and watch what she does. Does she lean away or god forbid step back? She's not feeling it. If she lets you lean in or even leans into you, things are going quite well.
The article is illustrated with a photograph of a man in a white lab coat, holding a petri dish – to enhance the implication that this is reliable, scientific guidance. Other emotional work involves observing and changing one's own patterns – for example getting out of the ‘friend zone’ or getting a second date.
Like the other forms of work we have examined in this chapter, the emotional labour demanded varies dramatically by gender. Our research supports other studies which show that the emotional work of heterosexual relationships is disproportionately women's work (Braun et al., 2003). Women are called on to be emotionally responsible for their own and their partner's pleasure, the communication in the relationship, and for reassuring and protecting what is often depicted as a very fragile male ego.
In magazine advice and self-help books targeted at women a vast pedagogic enterprise is focused on ‘menology’ – learning to understand, please and reassure men. ‘Expert’ discourse plays a key role in this, but sometimes the experts are men themselves as they reveal what's hot and what's not, or their secret turn-ons or turn-offs. Advice ranges from the seemingly obvious (‘if you like someone it's a good idea to be friendly’) to the quasi scientific (‘bananas contain bufotenine which helps to lift spirits and boost self-confidence’). The detailed and forensic quality of some advice is striking. For example Tracey Cox microscopically unpacks the activity of flirting to itemize the constituent parts that create that sense of erotic connection. For example, women should learn to ‘co-react’, mirroring and mimicking his feelings so that if he is angry about a situation ‘you should be too’. Women should also ‘pick up on any unusual or specific words he uses’, and then casually drop the same words into conversation themselves. Cox notes ‘using the same phrases that your perfect partner employs within his social circle will earn you a powerful place. He'll feel he has known you forever, that he can tell you anything and that you're the one for him’. Other strategies involve eye contact – look at him, look away, look back, or better still calculate exactly how much you are looking at him (Cox advises that 75% of the time is ideal); strategic touch; attention to body language; and asking his advice – an idea that was a mainstay of relationship advice for heterosexual women for decades, and still, apparently, is something that men love. The level of detail is extraordinary – especially in comparison to advice targeted at men – but so too is its generic quality. It seems to involve not two embodied, complicated human beings interacting, but advice to women to construct themselves as a fantasy partner for a man. This resonates with a common trope in romantic fictions – the Manic Pixie Dream Girl who exists to give meaning to the male hero's life (see http://rewriting-the-rules.com.)
Similar advice attaches to the (non-) issue of women's lack of pleasure achieved from PIV sex. While at an explicit level much advice may counsel against faking orgasm (or at least not all the time; communication is better), it is utterly normative nevertheless to advise ‘exaggerated’ sexual responses, both as a form of aesthetic labour, as a way of enhancing women's desirability to a man, and as a form of ‘reassurance’. As Moran and Lee (2011, p. 169) note women are ‘extensively advised of appropriate ways to act during sex so that the man could revel in their – real or pretended – enjoyment’. It's all about performing:
Grip at his skin and pull him towards you … it shows you are caught up in the sensations of the moment, you can't control yourself which is a huge turn on and ego boost for him.
(Cosmo, April 2009, quoted in Moran & Lee, 2011, p. 169)
Moaning or taking a deep, lusty breath as soon as you feel him inside you – or letting him know how good he feels – will enhance the moment for him.
(Cosmo, May 2009, quoted in Moran & Lee, 2011, p. 169)
As we will explore further in chapter 8, communication is key – and it is women who must take responsibility for it. ‘Keep expressing your feelings’, warns Glamour, ‘when communication stops, love dies’. Women are exhorted to monitor all aspects of the relationship at all times asking themselves: Is he really happy in bed? How do you compare with his ex? (etc.) Concerns about stopping him ‘straying’, and about how you compare with other women exacerbate the sense of anxiety that pulsates through this advice. Women are routinely told they need to be able to read men's minds (and bodies) yet they cannot expect this to be reciprocated. Indeed, while women are repeatedly positioned as carefully monitoring the health and wellbeing of all aspects of the relationship, they are also advised that if they want something themselves they had better ask for it. ‘Don't expect him to read your mind. You want flowers? Tell him’ (Glamour, quoted in Gill, 2009, p. 356). No sense of blame attaches to this; it is simply a matter of how men are, the experts advise.
Men may be shy, they may not be able to communicate, they may feel vulnerable. Therefore it is up to women to resolve relationship problems: ‘You need to take more responsibility for your pleasure’, advises a man writing in Cosmopolitan, ‘and really let him know what works and what doesn't. The truth is, guys crave guidance but we are too inhibited to ask for your feedback’ (quoted in Moran & Lee, 2011).
Interestingly, while male insecurity and inhibition is treated with a sense of delicacy and respect, there is no equivalent understanding accorded to women. On the contrary women are enjoined never to show insecurity as this is repellent to men. This creates a radical asymmetry in which women must tiptoe with great care and empathy around male fragility, soothing and reassuring in a supportive, non-threatening and preferably sexy way, yet can expect men to undertake no such emotional labour.
This asymmetry of emotional labour and the ‘entitlement’ to experience certain feelings – let alone have them taken seriously – was highlighted vividly in a study by Laura Favaro (2015), in which she looked at extensive online discussions (more than 2000 posts to 102 threads) – initiated by women – about their partner's use of pornography. The study is formally agnostic about porn use – and does not take up any kind of position on the material being watched – but instead is interested in the structure of discussion and argumentation about the issue. Most of the discussion threads started with women expressing hurt or confusion about the issue. The following statement is typical: ‘my boyfriend keeps watching porn and it is hurting my feelings’ (quoted in Favaro, 2015, p. 368).
Favaro shows how the responses to this kind of comment are framed in two broad ways. First in terms of the ‘immutability’ of masculinity, often backed up by evolutionary arguments or what Favaro calls ‘postfeminist biologism’, e.g. noting that men are ‘visual creatures’, genetically hardwired to watch porn. Secondly, she highlights the considerable anger and hostility meted out to women, with the corresponding exhortation that women must change. The overriding advice, Favaro (2015, p. 371) argues, is that women must work on themselves, ‘subjugate their own views, needs and desires, and dutifully adapt in response to men's apparent fixity’. Across the body of the posts (by men and women) women are mocked and attacked for their ‘delusional’ states in expecting to be ‘enough’ for their partner or in hoping he would not look at porn while in a relationship (e.g. ‘the problem is you, look for psychological help’) and told to ‘get over it’. A frequent implication – even though it contradicts the idea that ‘men are visual creatures’ and thus porn-viewing is inevitable – is that women themselves contribute to this by ‘failing’ to maintain their aesthetic standards (‘keep in shape, wear nice clothes and high heels around him, wear make-up at home and buy nice underwear’) or by not satisfying their partner sexually (‘ask him what turns him on and do that’).
But it is the tone of the comments that is most noteworthy. Expressions of women's hurt are treated with contempt: ‘I don't know how your relationships survive if you don't understand men are different and you are so insecure’ (quoted in Favaro, 2015, p. 372), and any sense of vulnerability is attacked as a psychological failing. Compare this to the advice targeted at women in relation to male impotence: here women are told to put aside their own fears or anxieties – for example feelings of hurt or reflection or sexual frustration and to put all their energy into reassuring their partner that it doesn't matter and that he is still loved and desired: ‘Let him know he makes you happy in bed’, advises Cosmo. ‘Moaning “that feels good” assures him. And if he is having a hard time coming, assuage his concerns by not making his orgasm the end goal.’ This is the case even when it contradicts the imperative to communicate (see chapter 8). In our analysis of Glamour's sex advice, women who expressed their own feelings, rather than prioritizing their male partner's, are accused of selfishness, being emasculating or even – paradoxically – of ‘failing to communicate’. While men's insecurities and vulnerabilities are to be treated with the utmost care and empathy, then, women's are to be attacked and derided. Indeed, interestingly even normatively promoted activities such as buying new underwear or performing a sexy strip-tease can be reformulated as nasty behaviours – suddenly not an essential part of being a sexual entrepreneur, but as attempts to ‘pressure’ a partner into sex. Here, then, the gender asymmetry of emotional labour becomes apparent: men's behaviour is immutable and inevitable, women must fit and adapt to it; men's needs are primary, and their insecurities or fragile egos must be protected at all times; women, by contrast, are not entitled to hurt or vulnerability but must ‘get over it’ – while being held ultimately responsible for the health and wellbeing of the relationship. Interestingly this is quite different from the ‘sex addiction’ model in which it is men who are depicted as needing to change – albeit a change that is framed/excused in terms of individualized addiction. More research is needed, but our impression is that the ‘boundary’ falls at the edge of normativity – some porn is ‘normal’ for men, and must be adapted to by women; too much or too kinky requires that men must change.
The final kind of work we want to consider is similar to emotional labour but features the transformation of one's attitudes, dispositions and subjectivity. The injunctions to this kind of work are deeply shaped by gender. It involves ‘technologies of self’ (Foucault, 1988) that call on individuals to effect ‘by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection or immortality’ (Foucault 1988, p. 18). This psychologized and therapeutic injunction to work on and transform one's sexual subjectivity constitutes an additional stratum of labour that sits alongside – rather than displacing – the other forms of work already discussed.
Pantea Farvid and Virginia Braun's (2013) research on ‘hook up’ culture provides a vivid example of this psychological work. They analysed 28 guides to casual sex, written by people who were positive about a range of informal sexual arrangements – including ‘friends with benefits’ and one night stands – and who positioned themselves as having some degree of ‘expertise’ in cultures and practices of hooking up. Nevertheless, Farvid and Braun show that despite this ethic, many of the texts reinforced mononormativity as somehow natural or essentially ‘right’, and positioned casual encounters at the bottom of a hierarchy of value (Rubin, 1984) in relation to heterosexual relations. More significantly, for our purposes here, they also constructed casual sex as ‘not a natural act’, and as a form of sexual encounter that requires considerable psychic labour to get right. Farvid and Braun (2013, p. 364) uncover the ‘rules’ or scripts of casual sex, demonstrating how it was repeatedly cast as ‘only suited to certain types of people’. ‘[It] can be good and it can be fun’ noted one text, but ‘it's not for everyone’ (quoted in Farvid & Braun, 2013, p. 364). To do casual sex right emotions should be regarded as troublesome:
A booty call should be ended at the first signs of any feelings, either yours or theirs. This is to avoid any serious drama or being ensnared unexpectedly in the trap of a relationship.
(quoted in Farvid & Braun, 2013, p. 365)
Readers were advised to keep feelings out and to be vigilant against sliding into something more than ‘bonking’. Casual sexual arrangements
involves having each other's phone number and being able to rely on each other for regular sex … but that's it. No dates, no social outings, no meeting the family, no breakfasts out at cafes, no talk of the future, basically no relating outside a sexual realm. (quoted Farvid and Braun, 2013, p. 365)
Above all, this means remaining attentive to the possibility of romance, and getting out as soon as – or preferably before – it develops. This requires work on the self, many of their sources admitted, because human beings ‘naturally’ want to build long-term intimacy. As one source they quote put it: ‘Oxytocin, also known as the cuddle chemical, is also the enemy to anyone engaging in casual encounters. This shifty chemical comes with an equally sneaky side effect known as “pair bonding”.’ Because of this, those committed to casual encounters have to be vigilant and attentive, and if ‘you feel this sensation kick in – abort! Abort!’ (quoted in Farvid & Braun, 2013, p. 371).
Farvid and Braun show how these ideas construct a ‘regime of truth’ about casual sex which suggests that only a particular kind of person is likely to be ‘successful’ at this type of relationship. Moreover, everyone engaging in casual encounters needs a specific psychological profile: they ‘should’ be good at communicating, emotionally resilient and able to maintain strict boundaries. This psychic labour is needed to have the ‘right kind’ of casual sex. This, and similar injunctions in popular writing about polyamory and other forms of open non-monogamy, serves to shore up mononormativity and couple normativity by constructing anything else as inevitably complicated and hard work, requiring a great deal of skill and intelligence (Barker & Langdridge, 2010).
Farvid and Braun (2014) consider the gendered assumptions that underpin these heterosexual scripts, pointing to the ‘performing’ man and the ‘sassy’ woman. More broadly it is clear that ‘sexual entrepreneurship’ is deeply gendered. Although it involves the acquisition and practice of skills and techniques by everyone, it frequently also requires a deeper psychological change for women. One example of this is the current prominence accorded to boldness and confidence. In our earlier analysis of Glamour magazine's sex and relationship advice we showed how women were exhorted not simply to change behaviours, practices, communication styles, but also to transform the self, making over their psychic life. This comprised several elements: loving your body; embracing confidence; banishing repression and becoming a sexual adventurer (Gill, 2009). All these features have intensified in recent years with ‘love your body’ (LYB) now constituting an entire genre of commercial media and ‘femvertizing’. At its heart is the production of ‘positive’ affect: not (only) working on your body, but, crucially, transforming your relationship to it. While it often has a feminist ‘gloss’ and even a tone of defiance (Gill & Elias, 2014; Gill & Kanai, 2017), LYB rhetoric remains located in a resolutely individualistic paradigm in which poor body image and low self-esteem are regarded as toxic but fundamentally a-social conditions which women ‘do to themselves’. Body hate is dislocated from wider patriarchal culture and from the ubiquitous hostile and evaluative surveillance of women's bodies across popular media and celebrity culture, and instead treated as emanating from women's own broken relationship to the self. Men are exonerated too – indeed, sex and relationship advice targeted at women frequently suggests that:
Guys really don't care if you're big, small, short or tall as long as you're happy with the way you look. Frankly our standards are way lower than yours so don't ever worry that you don't measure up. And girls moaning about their bodies is the biggest libido drainer. If you love your body, we will too. All those curvy bits that you despise? We love them.
(Glamour, quoted in Gill, 2009, p. 357)
Here then the body is presented as a non-issue and the really central problem is women's negative feelings about their bodies – that is what needs to be worked on. It is worth highlighting the hollowness of such comments – cf. earlier comments about women's weight or that rank women according to numerical scores (see also O'Neill, 2017) – but also the way they bring into being a new set of silences and problems, requiring compulsory body positivity no matter how you actually feel.
The confidence imperative is similar and has been discussed extensively elsewhere as a new ‘cult’ and an industry targeted at women (Gill & Orgad, 2015; 2017; Orgad & Gill, 2018). In sex and relationship advice for heterosexual women confidence is important because it is sexy and attractive to men: ‘Most men agree that a confident, secure, optimistic and happy woman is easier to fall in love with than a needy, neurotic one’ advises Glamour magazine. Indeed, ‘men are drawn to confidence’ and it is more important than a woman's weight, or size or appearance. It is all about ‘making the most of your assets’ and ‘bigging yourself up’, having the right ‘positive mental attitude’ and ‘zapping’ negative thinking. In an article cited by Laura Favaro (2017a, p. 290) women are told that if they want to attract love ‘what really works is looking at the inner you and doing the inner work necessary’. To become lovable one needs a ‘mental makeover’, Cosmo tells us.
The confidence cult works by locating the blame and responsibility for all the difficulties and challenges of female subjectivity and heterosexual relationships in women themselves. The brutal effects of patriarchal capitalism are dismissed as trivial compared to women's own toxic baggage – which, bizarrely, is treated as self-generated and entirely unconnected to a culture of normalized pathologization and hate speech directed at women. ‘The problem is you’, advice literature tells women (Adamson & Salmenniemi, 2017). ‘Only you can help you’ says another magazine article quoted by Favaro (2017a, p. 290). ‘You have to stop blaming others for your low self-esteem and accept some responsibility.’ Women are ‘their own worst enemies’ and must work on the self in order to develop a desirable new subjectivity – a confident self, with none of those pesky needs, insecurities or vulnerabilities that are – apparently – so grotesque to men. If ‘confidence is the new sexy’ as we are repeatedly told, then insecurity is the new ugly – at least for women. Yet at the same time, as @Feminista Jones has shown, demonstrating confidence – for example by simply saying ‘thank you’ to a compliment, can equally generate hostility and anger from men.
As well as embracing confidence women are encouraged to ‘banish repression’ and to overcome their sexual ‘hang ups’. These, it seems, may in fact have their origins in culture or upbringing (unlike lack of confidence), but nevertheless the responsibility for overcoming them is women's alone. The first task is in admitting and documenting these negative or repressive attitudes and undertaking a journey of self-transformation that involves coming to know your body and your desires more completely – perhaps by writing lists or using apps or documenting how you feel about each body part and possible sexual acts. For example you might want to address questions about ‘vagina anxiety’ or identify ‘top five touch-me zones’ or to think about your sexual fantasies or even your triggers, as well as answering questions such as ‘do I have sex for the right reasons?’ What is more striking than the content of the activities suggested is the sheer volume of work and self-surveillance involved. Through psychological processes including confession, self-monitoring, neurolinguistic (re)programming, etc. ‘one is invited to move from a sexual subjecthood characterized by shame, secrecy and hang-ups to a newly made-over ‘open’, ‘healthy’ and ‘uncomplicated’ (!) sexual subjectivity (Glamour, quoted in Gill, 2009, p. 360).
These practices of making over one's sexual self will help to bring into being a new upgraded form of sexual subjectivity: one that is bold and adventurous (though, not, it would seem, too different from hetero monogamy). As we discussed earlier in the section on sexual entrepreneurship, a core value of contemporary sex and relationship advice is ‘variety’ and ‘spice’ – with a strong sense of ‘risk’ attaching to getting too comfortable or falling into a sexual rut. The emphasis is placed on change for its own sake, with an implication that everyone should be vigilant about letting sex become humdrum; there is no sense that some individuals and couples may enjoy the pleasures of the familiar or that they may want to decide and negotiate their sexual practices themselves. Instead, much of the advice – particularly that directed at women – has a rather frenzied emphasis upon ringing the changes, finding new positions, deploying new toys and accessories, buying new underwear and working incessantly to keep sex ‘fresh’. ‘Pushing yourself’ as a sexual subject is seen to have value in its own right as a project of the self: finding out about who you really are, experimenting, going beyond boundaries – even as the boundaries of heterosexual monogamy are heavily reinforced, with other activities strictly marked as ‘play’ or ‘experimentation’ (Harvey & Gill, 2011b).
This chapter has examined the way that sex and relationships advice focuses on work and entrepreneurship. Through analyses of magazines, online articles, TV shows and sex apps, we have sought to unpack the diverse different forms of work enjoined by sex and relationship advice. This ranges from the work of tactics and strategy in planning dating, to the labour of bodywork and self-promotion, to the skill acquisition needed to have the best sex ever, to the emotional labour of communicating and taking care of another person, and the wholescale psychological transformation involved in overcoming hang-ups to become an adventurous and confident sexual subject. We have shown how notions of marketing, investment and shopping permeate these notions of work, as our intimate life becomes saturated in discourses of management and entrepreneurship.
Our focus in this chapter has largely been on texts aimed at heterosexual women and men and we have sought to highlight, above all, the deep and persistent inequalities that scar these discourses. If sex and relationships are increasingly thought of through metaphors, analogies and practices of work, then this work remains profoundly shaped by gender injustice. This both reflects and helps to support a society still riven by inequality.