Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

While asking intelligent questions about the effect of The Beauty Myth on asexuals, Ily of asexy beast quotes an interesting red-flag raiser by Naomi Wolf

“We see that, sanctioned by the culture, men’s sexuality simply is. They do not have to earn it with their appearance. We see that men’s desire [or lack thereof—ily] precedes contact with women. It does not lie dormant waiting to spring into being only in response to a woman’s will. (156)”

Read other quotes, and Ily’s actual post, here.

I’m actually going to gently push back at Wolf’s assertion. Because I think she’s buying into the role assigned to men inside the no-sex class paradigm: that of the innate, obligate sex class.

Having a lot of contact with middle-school students through my own child’s membership therein I’ve gotta say that it sure doesn’t look like men’s desire is all that innate. Nor even, since girls have always tended to enter puberty before boys, am I certain men’s desire precedes women’s.

Instead I’ll go with two observations. First, that, as members of the sex class men certainly have the cultural wind at their backs when it comes to entry into sexuality. Though it might be more accurate early on to call it their sexualization. Second, there’s that business about older men being attracted to younger women, and possibly younger women being attracted to older men. Which, at least in the middle-school phase of life tends to make a lot of sense: boys simply aren’t as sexual as girls the same age (though, I’ve mentioned, they may be sexualized.)

Older men’s sexual desires certainly do precede those of younger girls. And so it’s easy to see where Wolf (and the entire rest of the planet) might have made her mistake. But this may have more to do with cultural and chronological circumstance rather than an innate, obligatory, class-assignment characteristic of men.

Finally, and this relates, I think, to Ily’s point about asexuality, if we assume as Wolf does that men are innately sexual, in a way that precedes sexual contact, then… well… we’re not exactly going to go looking for moments when it might begin. Or moments before it begins. Nor are we likely to examine what… well… unexamined influences on boys’ emergent sexuality. Nor are we likely to inquire into ways to consciously influence its emergence.