Not-So-Great Expectations

Photo by Flickr user splorp. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon says

So, this Ecuadorian politician named Maria Soledad Vela has tried to write women’s right to sexual pleasure into the nation’s constitution. From what I understand, the law is just about laying the groundwork for public policies that acknowledge that women are sexual agents, not just wombs on feet. And everything that would follow—good education, reproductive rights, etc.

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From my perspective, the approach is an interesting one. Women’s sexual rights are often created through appeals to equality or privacy, but would it be the worst thing in the world to suggest that part of equality is the equal right to really own your sexuality? The right being established here is one men generally have without question, even when they belong to religious traditions that exert some controls on their sexual expression. The right is simply to feel that your body belongs to you, that you can enjoy the sexual pleasure it can provide as pleasure, not as duty or just in a passive, acted-upon sense. The idea that women are sexual agents powerfully undermines rape culture, because sex is viewed as something engaged in by every party involved, instead of acted upon by one party on another. If men found women’s enthusiasm to be the baseline for engaging in sexual activity, instead of just consent, however reluctantly provided, then there’d be a whole lot less situations where men felt they’d obtained consent that women didn’t really give.

I've quoted huge chunks from here

Oh heck, I might as well quote the rest of her post since that's really what I want to talk about

Perhaps that’s why so many male politicians are throwing first class hissy fits. One claimed that this meant mandatory orgasm provision. (Oh noes!) Another suggested that the legislation is like life in prison. I had an imagine of a man with a woman strapped spread eagle to his face like a feedbag, but that’s the only way I could really see this as a prison.

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Lest you think the panic on the part of Ecuadorian men is unique to their culture, check out the comments at Salon. The vast majority of them are from men who seem to be brought to full-blown terror at the idea of women really enjoying sex on our own terms. Where these bottom-feeders lurk, I can’t tell you. In my world, most men consider female sexual pleasure a prize highly sought, and getting to witness it regularly doesn’t diminish the appeal at all.

And while we're at it, here are some of those comments to the Salon.com post

Why can't a woman just masturbate?

Then she has her sexual satisfaction.

Or are they meaning EVERY MAN IN THE COUNTRY also gets free and easy access to prostitutes who will guarantee the men 'sexual satisfaction'?

The problem with these retarded laws is they begin well meaning (or PRETEND to be well meaning) then their TRUE FANGS come out and they become cudgels with which to beat men (and ONLY MEN) over the head with.
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Every time, I think Tracy Hyphenated-Lastname has bottomed out. Every time, I think she's surely written the dumbest thing she possibly can.

Wrong, every time!
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What if the woman is frigid? Is that a punishable offense?

This is just plain stupid.
Just a couple of not-even-NiceGuys™ seem to be making most of the noise here.

A lot of people on the wrong side of the Krafft-Ebing side of the watershed have this mortal dread of women actually enjoying sex... which I sometimes suspect derives from an even mortal-er dread that *men* might actually enjoy sex. (This is not unlike the old joke that Baptists forbid sex standing up because it might lead to dancing.)

Notice how focused everyone gets on the bit about women's orgasms** compared to what Maria Soledad Vela and Amanda Marcotte (and Twisty) are really talking about?

But let's go with the flow and talk about those pesky orgasms. Can I just be a little contrary here and say that maybe the anti-feminists who are shitting the largest fishhooks over the proposal are, as usual, selling men short? Because, seriously, unless you want to argue that men are just *intrinsically* insensitive, stupid, selfish, slow, untrainable, *and* thumb-finger incompetent (which, admittedly, a stunning number of men-are-the-master-race types hasten to do) then just how big an imposition could mutually satisfying sex possibly be?

Answer: if a stringy-haired, 100 pound, 6'3" geek from East Tennessee with horrible acne and poor social skills could figure it out by age 16 can figure it out then if other men can. Or could if anti-feminists didn't keep objecting that it's just too hard for our poor superior little y-chromosome-blessed brains. Like all human beings men are notorious for rising only to expectation. And if anti-feminists go running around insisting we're just not up to the task? Or that it's not our responsibility ("why can't women just masturbate?!?!?!") Or that it's not part of the "bargain?" That there's something wrong with even *trying?* That it's our partner's fault or, even more comically, *feminism's* fault? Then yeah, we're going to be crap lovers.

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Incidentally you can see, especially from the Salon comments, that the "no-sex" class paradigm plays a *huge* part of this: the men are saying, in essence, that providing satisfaction for women is reneging on the deal whereby men cough up the dollars women care about and women cough up the pussy men care about. Inside those assumptions women asking for sexual satisfaction as well are effectively double dipping.

[** Even one of Twisty's commenters slips here: "I am SO moving to Ecuador! I am hoping to receive the first state-issued vibrator!" --fl]