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Tony Stark a womanizer? Not exactly.
Yeah, I said it. I don't think Tony Stark is a womanizer. I got to thinking about this after reading this thread on the CBR forums.
I said:
He isn't a womanizer and hasn't been for decades. Perhaps that's what his characterization was initially (I would argue otherwise, except in the reeeeally early days), but his sexuality is a lot more complicated than playah. I think, if you actually listed the women he's canonically had sex with, you'd be surprised at how low the number is for an international playboy. You'd also be surprised at how many of those sexual encounters took place in the context of a serious romantic relationship - and for a womanizer, he's been serious about a lot of women.
What SquidSquod is trying to get at, and you're missing is that 'womanizing' is destructive behaviour that's denigrating to both parties. It implies thinking of women as objects, which other than the typical hotchimamma kind of comments, Tony doesn't seem to do. Granted, he has some seriously sexist tendencies, but they fall more on the women-are-precious side of things, than on the women-are-for-me! side. Yeah, it's ok (morally, ethically, whatever) for Tony to be sexually active, and even really, really sexually active. That's totally in character for him - but his encounter with Jen was laughably out of character. I mean, astonishingly so. And it had some completely irredeemable shades of sexual violence, that Slott and editorial don't even seem to see (but that's a subject for another thread).
I think his relationship with Maya, as written by the Knaufs, is the perfect illustration of why Tony isn't a womanizer. Yes he's a guy who has, and enjoys casual sex, but he's also a guy with lots and lots of issues, who sleeps with the wrong people, for the wrong reasons, and quite often ends up getting hurt. The Knaufs are right, I think, to point out that he's been burned a lot , and to have him cut down on the sexing around. Because let's face it - the guy's actual, in-comics pattern is to seek emotional intimacy through physical intimacy. This is a character who has the appearance of being a womanizer, but somehow keeps getting deeply, emotionally involved with woman after woman.
So Bendis will have him say things like "And that's why I'll never get married," after seeing Bob and Lindy argue, and yet on the other hand, he's contemplated marriage on more than few occasions.
Even Gage pointed out that Tony didn't get around nearly as much as he seemed to. It's really only Slott who's played up the playboy thing recently - Gage was working with the appearance of his being a playboy, but not so much the actuality. Note that when he tries to enjoy some time with Tyger Tiger it gets interrupted with another crisis. Brubaker may have had Tony sleep with 14 SHIELD agents, but he understands the character much better than Slott does. I trust him to be able to deal with a character's sexuality like a grownup, and do it in a psychologically realistic context.
But regarding the whole sleeping with subordinates thing: I really don't see this going away anytime soon. Tony's never respected sexual harassment legislation as much as he should. See his relationship with Pepper, way back when. It's one of the areas in which he thinks that rules are for other people. At the same time, he's always treating those women as people.
I agree with SquidSquod, in that if you actually show the character being a womanizer/playah/whatever, rather than just say it, you run the risk of making the character unretconably hateful to a lot of people. The key is to show Tony loving women, loving being with women, but not degrading them.
and in reply I got
If marvel was worried about the character being hated, they probably wouldn't have chosen him to headline Civil War in the first place. If you listen to all the critiism being tossed around by Stark, the fact that he sleeps around with SHIELD agents probably isn't that high on the list.
I recall back in the day Stark sleeping around with Wasp without her knowing that he was Iron Man. That was a respected teammate, and he was probably closer to Jan than he ever was to Jen. I'm not saying that he does what he did to Jen everyday... but it's not beneath him either. Like all good marvel characters, he's got issues... this is one of his. Can they make it go away? Sure. Will they? Probably not. Will the fact that he's a womanizing playboy hurt the character in the long run? I doubt it... it hasn't so far.
I don't even know how to respond to someone who thinks that Tony's relationship with Jan was just 'womanizing', or that his encounter with Jen was. I mean, good god. He used his secret identity to manipulate Jan into having a sexual relationship with him, that she otherwise would never have considered. That's, first of all, never been portrayed as something he does regularly, and second of all, not a ho-hum ordinary playah thing to do. I don't think it takes a radical feminist to see how fucked up that situation was, even for a guy who regularly lies about being a superhero to his girlfriends. That's Ant Man territory, right there, and they don't call him Irredeemable for nothing.
I read Tony and Jan's relationship as being a case where Tony couldn't quite see how badly he'd fucked up (and how badly he'd fucked up both Jan and himself), until he saw the fallout. He didn't even see how he was wrong, until after he'd lied to her. Not because it was ethically acceptable to him, but because he wouldn't allow himself to see it - there are moments where he almost admits it, but his superhuman powers of denial keep him from the realization. I also read it as being indicative of there being something really wrong in Tony's head, and for the record, even before her finding out, it's already got him thinking about drinking. He hurts Jan not because he wants to hurt her, but because he's selfish and really incredibly messed up - I think that it's crucial that his biggest moment of sexual jerkitude, comes during a period where he's psychologically unstable, and recently sober (and soon to fall off the wagon again). I don't know, call me crazy, but I don't think that's a coincidence.
But it is interesting that his relationship with Jan was never portrayed as anything but wrongwrongwrong, whereas his leaving a partially clothed Jen by the side of the road, after shooting her cousin into space, lying about it and sleeping with her while she was under his command, is getting virtually no attention outside of She-Hulk. What he did to Jen was deliberately and consciously cruel. And as much as Tony's been portrayed as a jerk, I've never read him as being cruel, at least not deliberately so.
I don't know, am I crazy? Please, tell me if I am.
I think it's important to draw a big line in the sand between the above two incidents, and the rest of the character's sexual history. You can't ignore them, but I think they're far from representative.
I also don't think that the character's canonical sexual history actually upholds the playboy label. I mean, I could accept it, if we could concede that he's one of the least successful playboys in the history of ever. The guy starts out engaged, and then gets serious about, at the very least, four women. He's shown to be unable to sustain casual sexual relationships without a) his girlfriend trying to kill him; b) his developing feelings for her; or c) both, usually both. Many of his most self-destructive relationships are with friends, or long-time acquaintances - he's constantly seeking out sexual relationships with people he already knows and trusts. And he's borderline masochistic about holding onto the relationships that cause him pain. Madame Masque, Pepper, Rumiko, Sunset Bain, Maya. I mean - dude.
So, thoughts?
I said:
He isn't a womanizer and hasn't been for decades. Perhaps that's what his characterization was initially (I would argue otherwise, except in the reeeeally early days), but his sexuality is a lot more complicated than playah. I think, if you actually listed the women he's canonically had sex with, you'd be surprised at how low the number is for an international playboy. You'd also be surprised at how many of those sexual encounters took place in the context of a serious romantic relationship - and for a womanizer, he's been serious about a lot of women.
What SquidSquod is trying to get at, and you're missing is that 'womanizing' is destructive behaviour that's denigrating to both parties. It implies thinking of women as objects, which other than the typical hotchimamma kind of comments, Tony doesn't seem to do. Granted, he has some seriously sexist tendencies, but they fall more on the women-are-precious side of things, than on the women-are-for-me! side. Yeah, it's ok (morally, ethically, whatever) for Tony to be sexually active, and even really, really sexually active. That's totally in character for him - but his encounter with Jen was laughably out of character. I mean, astonishingly so. And it had some completely irredeemable shades of sexual violence, that Slott and editorial don't even seem to see (but that's a subject for another thread).
I think his relationship with Maya, as written by the Knaufs, is the perfect illustration of why Tony isn't a womanizer. Yes he's a guy who has, and enjoys casual sex, but he's also a guy with lots and lots of issues, who sleeps with the wrong people, for the wrong reasons, and quite often ends up getting hurt. The Knaufs are right, I think, to point out that he's been burned a lot , and to have him cut down on the sexing around. Because let's face it - the guy's actual, in-comics pattern is to seek emotional intimacy through physical intimacy. This is a character who has the appearance of being a womanizer, but somehow keeps getting deeply, emotionally involved with woman after woman.
So Bendis will have him say things like "And that's why I'll never get married," after seeing Bob and Lindy argue, and yet on the other hand, he's contemplated marriage on more than few occasions.
Even Gage pointed out that Tony didn't get around nearly as much as he seemed to. It's really only Slott who's played up the playboy thing recently - Gage was working with the appearance of his being a playboy, but not so much the actuality. Note that when he tries to enjoy some time with Tyger Tiger it gets interrupted with another crisis. Brubaker may have had Tony sleep with 14 SHIELD agents, but he understands the character much better than Slott does. I trust him to be able to deal with a character's sexuality like a grownup, and do it in a psychologically realistic context.
But regarding the whole sleeping with subordinates thing: I really don't see this going away anytime soon. Tony's never respected sexual harassment legislation as much as he should. See his relationship with Pepper, way back when. It's one of the areas in which he thinks that rules are for other people. At the same time, he's always treating those women as people.
I agree with SquidSquod, in that if you actually show the character being a womanizer/playah/whatever, rather than just say it, you run the risk of making the character unretconably hateful to a lot of people. The key is to show Tony loving women, loving being with women, but not degrading them.
and in reply I got
If marvel was worried about the character being hated, they probably wouldn't have chosen him to headline Civil War in the first place. If you listen to all the critiism being tossed around by Stark, the fact that he sleeps around with SHIELD agents probably isn't that high on the list.
I recall back in the day Stark sleeping around with Wasp without her knowing that he was Iron Man. That was a respected teammate, and he was probably closer to Jan than he ever was to Jen. I'm not saying that he does what he did to Jen everyday... but it's not beneath him either. Like all good marvel characters, he's got issues... this is one of his. Can they make it go away? Sure. Will they? Probably not. Will the fact that he's a womanizing playboy hurt the character in the long run? I doubt it... it hasn't so far.
I don't even know how to respond to someone who thinks that Tony's relationship with Jan was just 'womanizing', or that his encounter with Jen was. I mean, good god. He used his secret identity to manipulate Jan into having a sexual relationship with him, that she otherwise would never have considered. That's, first of all, never been portrayed as something he does regularly, and second of all, not a ho-hum ordinary playah thing to do. I don't think it takes a radical feminist to see how fucked up that situation was, even for a guy who regularly lies about being a superhero to his girlfriends. That's Ant Man territory, right there, and they don't call him Irredeemable for nothing.
I read Tony and Jan's relationship as being a case where Tony couldn't quite see how badly he'd fucked up (and how badly he'd fucked up both Jan and himself), until he saw the fallout. He didn't even see how he was wrong, until after he'd lied to her. Not because it was ethically acceptable to him, but because he wouldn't allow himself to see it - there are moments where he almost admits it, but his superhuman powers of denial keep him from the realization. I also read it as being indicative of there being something really wrong in Tony's head, and for the record, even before her finding out, it's already got him thinking about drinking. He hurts Jan not because he wants to hurt her, but because he's selfish and really incredibly messed up - I think that it's crucial that his biggest moment of sexual jerkitude, comes during a period where he's psychologically unstable, and recently sober (and soon to fall off the wagon again). I don't know, call me crazy, but I don't think that's a coincidence.
But it is interesting that his relationship with Jan was never portrayed as anything but wrongwrongwrong, whereas his leaving a partially clothed Jen by the side of the road, after shooting her cousin into space, lying about it and sleeping with her while she was under his command, is getting virtually no attention outside of She-Hulk. What he did to Jen was deliberately and consciously cruel. And as much as Tony's been portrayed as a jerk, I've never read him as being cruel, at least not deliberately so.
I don't know, am I crazy? Please, tell me if I am.
I think it's important to draw a big line in the sand between the above two incidents, and the rest of the character's sexual history. You can't ignore them, but I think they're far from representative.
I also don't think that the character's canonical sexual history actually upholds the playboy label. I mean, I could accept it, if we could concede that he's one of the least successful playboys in the history of ever. The guy starts out engaged, and then gets serious about, at the very least, four women. He's shown to be unable to sustain casual sexual relationships without a) his girlfriend trying to kill him; b) his developing feelings for her; or c) both, usually both. Many of his most self-destructive relationships are with friends, or long-time acquaintances - he's constantly seeking out sexual relationships with people he already knows and trusts. And he's borderline masochistic about holding onto the relationships that cause him pain. Madame Masque, Pepper, Rumiko, Sunset Bain, Maya. I mean - dude.
So, thoughts?