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Guest Lectures

The Death of Flirting
by
William C. Fields

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Bill Fields (on right), Engineer and Quality Systems consultant to major corporations, is well known for his paintings and photography. Here he gives the Meuninck's a lesson in flirting.

"All real living is meeting." -Martin Buber

If Mr. Buber is correct, and I believe he is, then a fundamental portion of our lives and an aspect of meeting is certainly flirting. We meet for many reasons, spiritual social, financial, strategical, to woo, to negotiate, to adore our Creator, each in his or her own way and in each person's own understanding of creation. Sometimes when we meet, we flirt.

There was a time when a woman or a man would see someone of the opposite sex and be inspired to say something complimentary or smile or wink. This innocent act of no consequence was flirting. And it was good. People made themselves feel good. More importantly, people made each other feel good.

What has gone wrong? What is wrong with feeling good? Why have we abolished a source of harmless pleasure, a source of happiness? Flirting has probably been with us since the first cave dwellers noticed how much better everyone looked in torchlight. Why have we chosen to sentence such a venerable aspect of our collective cultures to death at the end of the second millennium?

I'm going to try to answer a few questions about flirting. I approach these interrogatives as much for my own understanding as anyone else's. This is a method to resolve some of my personal discomfort. I hope that in the process it serves you the reader as well. So, the questions follow. What makes a flirting so nice? Why do happily married or otherwise involved people want to flirt? And, what exactly is flirting? When does it cross the line into seduction? When is it good? When it is bad? Why has it met its death in our society today?

I feel the need to first establish what flirting isn't. These are of course, my definitions and do not necessarily fit the linguistic interpretation. First, flirting is not seduction although it can be an important part of a seduction. Flirting is not an invitation or a proposition. Flirting is not the belittling of another's feelings. Seduction, invitation and proposition can each be seen as separate entities in the dance of love. Seduction involves presenting a pleasing demeanor to another with the intent of wooing the person into one's arms. Invitation is openly stating the same principles that seduction achieves through suggestion and actions. Proposition is very similar to invitation. Generally speaking, men proposition and women invite. Of course, these are interchangeable ideas. But most of the time they fall along these sexual lines. The salient point is that none of these activities is flirting.

Good, so what is flirting? Flirting is the act of expressing in a good-humored manner, an appreciation for the sexuality of another. Flirting is harmless. There is no expectation of anything more than a little banter. Flirting is one adult saying with words or gestures "I think you're very lovely."; "I wish I were young again.", "I wish I had met you when we were both single." and other similar sentiments. Keep in mind that these sentiments are as innocent as a six-year-old giving an apple to the teacher. Flirting is an expression of fondness, attraction, and appreciation. It is not an attempt to act on those feelings.

Why has flirting become a liability? There has been in the years, decades, centuries, millennia preceding today a long history of abuses perpetrated on innocents. These abuses went, ignored for so long because we failed as humans to protect those who were preyed upon. The preyed upon have included children, women and men who had little or no defense against a perpetrator with power. The current consciousness of these issues and the seeming explosion of incidences is a result of the fairly recent acknowledgment of the problem. Our collective awareness and admission of the problem has made a family secret public. There have been for all eternity, those with power (perceived or otherwise) who have used their position to influence, proposition and seduce the willing and more importantly the unwilling. In these last days of the century, the millennium the oppressed have finally gotten a voice. They have said resoundingly "Enough!". We have an obligation to defend, protect and prevent any future abuses. All this being said, flirting is an innocent bystander and a casualty of a just war.

The wrongs of the past effected all of us and belong to all of us. Those that preyed were most likely preyed upon at some time in their histories. It has been shown repeatedly that perpetrators have usually been victims. The institutionalization of abuse has allowed the passage of this evil behavior from generation to generation. I don't mean just within families. This has happened to the entire human family. If you doubt this principle you don't have to look any further than the Holocaust perpetrated in Europe during World War II or the Cultural Revolution in China, or the tribal struggles in Africa and the former Yugoslavia today.

To paraphrase another principle, whenever there is some action, it is followed by a reaction. People have reacted to the action of abuse all over the globe. There are those who have exposed this behavior in their own families. Fathers have been sent to prison by daughters and sons. That is as it should be. Immoral, illegal and unethical behavior is an anathema to us all.

The problem is one of over reaction. A technique that has come into currency in recent times is regression therapy. I am not an expert or even a novice in these matters. I only know what I have read in articles and what I have heard first hand from a number of people involved in these techniques. Basically it breaks down this way. A therapist using hypnotism takes a client backwards in their life to an incidence(s) of abuse that had previously been forgotten. A man that I know was accused by his daughter after such sessions. I have known him personally for more than thirty years. He swears that no physical abuse ever took place. To his credit, he concedes that he was a less than perfect parent. He acknowledges that he was remote, cold and suffered from alcoholism when his daughter was growing up. He has undergone treatment and is living in recovery today. His failings as a parent may be viewed as emotional abuse but certainly do not constitute incest as the therapist led the daughter to conclude. After the accusations, the pain and a couple of years of reduced communication the daughter concluded that the assumption was incorrect and she had not been molested. This dangerous overreaction on the part of the therapist harmed this man's life and reputation. The therapist is not held accountable by anyone for this travesty. If I know several people with similar experiences then by extension there must be thousands of others.

In the workplace, there are a growing number of accusations of sexual harassment. I firmly believe that there has been and continues to be sexual harassment activity in work situations. I believe that unethical managers or supervisors have used the power of their positions to attempt to or to seduce employees. This is a disgraceful fact. The over reaction is that an unethical employee may only claim sexual harassment and an innocent person's reputation is tarnished. Have we gone over a metaphoric cliff in an attempt to do the right thing. I don't know if I have a solution or can even guess at one. I only know the outcome. Flirting is dead.

Not only is flirting dead and buried but men are afraid to speak to women. So we meet and it is real living. But now our meetings have become more defensive, protective and less open. We have lost a very special aspect of living and are by consequence, less alive for it. We are deader in our lives. We have less of the vital life force that is so precious and can be seen glowing in each other's eyes. The sad outcome of all this activity is the death of something good, the death of one of the ways that we warm others and ourselves with kindness. The outcome is the death of flirting.