Istanbul Diaries #1

The role of status in female sexual behaviour

Authors note

This blog is a new venture. I miss edgy self-disclosure. I want to take more risks in my writing. And I have been told that as a single Brit in his sixties living in a big city outside the West, my life must be interesting. But before reading please note the following:

• there will be frank, uncensored reflections on my life and interactions with others, which may involve swear-words

• there will be meandering but I will get back to where I departed at some point

• sex and sexuality will be discussed

• if you’re European, and thus programmed to always try and make out that you’re a “good person,” you may find some content shocking

• events, places and individuals are all genuine but people’s names are changed or just replaced by a capital, which may or may not be the actual first letter of their name

Diary

November 25th 2023

On seeing Doğan again, I’m immediately struck by a slight sense of guilt and a feeling that I should be nicer to him this time. I deliberately greet him warmly “Hey Doğan, good to see you, man.” We are in Beyoğlu 360, a fairly upmarket rooftop lounge bar off Istiklal, Istanbul’s main shopping thoroughfare on the European side (Bağdat is its equivalent on the Asian side). There is something I love about lounge bars in Islamic countries. According to legend, the lounge bar was “invented” in Morocco, if such a thing can truly be considered to have been invented, and developed from the Shisha lounge. What I find especially cool about them is the transition they undergo on a daily basis. The upscale restaurant of the daylight hours step-by-step transitions to a semi-heaving dance floor by midnight. Choreographed by some unseen hand, at certain times waiters grab tables and shuffle diners around. Smart doormen subtly transition into bouncers, tasked with keeping an eye on the action.

Within an hour of being in 360, four separate individuals have informed me how much better it is in summer when you can overlook the city from the large balcony where the DJ bangs out tunes. I already know this but nod along.

The thing with Doğan is that he’s a total hustler. Before I have managed to speak to one new woman, he will have spoken to every female in the place. Curiously enough, he seems to be remarkably unbiased in his endeavours. It makes little difference to Doğan whether you are a seventy year old American woman, visibly the worse for wear, or a six foot Russian model in full ice-goddess mode. Doğan will go up and introduce himself to you. And, he will either drag you around the place to meet men he judges suitable, through some criteria I am unable to discern. Or otherwise drag you yourself up to meet said female. It was this behaviour that caused me to be a bit of a bastard to him a couple of weeks back in the Stella Lounge off Taksim, an entirely more stiff place that generally bugs me. I can’t actually recall what it was that I said. But I remember that him constantly telling women about what a great dancer I was got on my nerves at some point.

However, through making some subtly mean comment to Doğan, not only did I feel guilty afterwards but I also came to introspect on our relationship. I cannot feel Doğan as a person, and his eyes, uncharacteristic for a Turk, appear to me dull and lifeless. These things caused me to be wary and judgmental of him, when actually I do pretty good out of our relationship. For I am shy around women that I don’t know. Once I have some level of connection, I actually feel fine. I can be open and talk to women. I can explore creating a connection. But I struggle to take the first step. Some unseen barrier, some fear of being inappropriate or predatory takes me over and I can feel myself frozen, unless there’s first some level of responsive eye contact. And, in Mediterranean countries, this is an issue. Because as a guy, you need to take the first step. Or your status will diminish in their eyes, and that is a killer. But more of about status in a while.

The thing is, I have tended to hide from owning my shyness at making the first move. Like I’m peripherally aware of it but not sufficiently self-honest to make it possible for me to actually take it on. To actually be there in front of someone and to say to myself, okay, now’s the time to move. To recognise the point of change when it presents itself.

Status is, I find, a huge deal to women in this part of the world and, I suspect, the world over. Status is so central an aspect of female psychology, it is actually a major taboo to even discuss it within the field. For psychology is female. The men have science and the women own psychology. And, one way or another, the core topic, the 40-ton elephant in the room, just doesn’t get talked about. No woman will ever have sex with you if she perceives you as being of lower status. This is written deep in the primate DNA of all women. And is a rule only ever likely to be overidden under the influence of ecstasy when a sympathy fuck could be administered. Men are way more simple. They will basically fuck anyone, given half a chance, and women know this.

I have introspected on the central importance of status in female sexual behaviour a fair bit over the years. Is it because of the patriarchy, and women being generally and systematically controlled? I think this may be an aspect. Though it’s tricky to study the matter, not just because it’s so taboo. But also because our world is so male-dominated that it’s genuinely difficult to find a non-patriarchal culture through which one might make comparisons.

Enter Osho, the controversial Indian mystic from the 70s and 80s. And enter the Bonobo, an ape native to the Congo. Anthropologists love Bonobo tribes because, like Osho communes, they appear to be run on a strict matriarchal basis. And, guess what, sex is highly prevalent in both. Bonobos use sex to control males and to cement agreements over food and territory. The females deliberately disrupt the familial ties of young females, thus forcing them to bond and act as a team across a wider network of females than the family alone would provide. By doing this, they create a sufficiently strong network of females to keep even the most alpha of the males subordinate.

In the Osho communes, all the power roles were taken by women. The men would take on building and maintenance and do security, when needed, but the women ran the show. Women within the power structure of the commune cooperate but also compete for trophy roles or mates. Being over a department, especially food or designating work, confers enhanced status in front of other females. Having a high-status male partner - in terms of looks, masculinity, heartfulness or age - and effectively preventing him from having sex with other females confers major status.

Yet, despite this, the need to allow males to fuck around is also inherently understood amongst the most powerful females. Not only does it help to keep them happy, non-rebellious and under control but it also stops the traditional, monogamous male-female partnership from coming in, for this will lead back to patriarchy.

Thus, amongst these two matriarchal groups, sex is most definitely more freely available to a majority of males and females than in their more ubiquitous, patriarchal counterparts.

To be honest, I don’t yet feel like I’ve really worked out just how status, sexual behaviour and patriarchal or matriarchal structures fully inter-relate. Yet I suspect that this field will reveal many compelling insights to some lucky social anthropologist one day.

So I’m appreciating Doğan and our newly-realised cooperative relationship. And dutifully making small talk with the assortment of women, attractive or otherwise, that he sends my way. It is true that I am a good dancer. I may be old. I may be of only average looks, for my age. But stick me on a dancefloor, with some house or electro playing loud, and you would not bet against me. Or so I tell myself.

Of course, it helps that the average Turkish male, in these fairly upscale kinds of clubs, whilst amenable, good-looking and palpably male (unlike those in say the EU) does struggle to in any way move his hips to a beat. Yes, they can do the ever-popular Turkish dancing, which for the male involves thrusting your pelvis forwards whilst raising your arms above your head and waving them from side to side, and there can be no doubt that Turkish women love this stuff. But stick him on the dancefloor at two in the morning, with some classic house or Old Skool playing, and he visibly struggles. Yet he is held in place, and indeed transfixed, by the spectacle of all those gorgeous Turkish, Lebanese and Russian women gyrating to the beat. If only.

And this is where I achieve status amongst Turkish males as “the one who can dance.” Which is presumably why Doğan is happy to be my friend. And it’s good to have some level of status in this environment, for it helps me to gain respect and cement cooperative bonds of friendship with local guys.

At some point, as the hours pass and the alcohol flows, only the most predatory or desperate of males somehow remain, spread out in a vaguely cooperative pack around the edges of the dancefloor. Competitive, yet at the same time deferential to each other. Respecting females provisionally marked out as “already taken” by another male, yet also ever ready to make a move should said male leave for the bathroom, or show signs of weakness or collapse.

And there is something truly mystical, I think, about the average large town or city dancefloor. These few square metres of wood, each Friday or Saturday night, somehow become transformed into a hyperreal vortex of male and female sexual seeking behaviour.

I often feel like I shouldn’t be intrigued by this stuff and feel compelled towards it. Like I should be more mature by now, at my age and all that. But I still find the average dancefloor both fascinating and deeply challenging. And it is the women that I perceive as dancing the best that most tug me. And whilst there’s most definitely a sexual component to this pull, I would like to fuck them, that is not all there is. Something mystical or magical seems to lurks there too for me.

But this feels like enough introspection and disclosure for one day. I will pick up this thread and continue along in my next diary entry.