Photo by Flickr user Bardfly.
Used under a Creative
Commons license.
Lux Nightmare of Boinkology reinforces a point I keep trying to make: “
Shocking as it may seem, there are men out there with low sex drives — even some men who have sex drives that are lower than those of their female partners!
...
We know it can be hard for some people — okay, a lot of people — to accept that the old chestnut that “men want it all the time” just ain’t always true. So we’re more than a little impressed to see the Playboy blog running a series on men who don’t want sex.
Sure, it doesn’t go quite as far as we’d like it to — rather than featuring men who just aren’t that into sex, and are comfortable with it, the piece is more about men who, due to stress or age or health problems, just aren’t as horny as they used to be — but it’s a start.
Ok, because it’s all good stuff I copied most of the post from here.
Yes, our modern perception is that all men want sex more than all women. But I promise there are enough biases built into that assessment to drive a car through.
Because as we know, in a culture where the dominant paradigm says that men are the (instinctive, reflexive, helpless-to-resist) sex class and women are the (equally instinctive, reflexive, effortless-to-resist) “no-sex” class, there only men who want sex less than women are… well, I was going to say “deeply religious” but lately even that’s been taking a hit in popular imagination… and goodness knows what befalls women who don’t seem sexually reluctant.
And yet maybe, once again, it could be that, thanks in no small part to the dominant paradigm…
- Men who aren’t sexually “insatiable” or are outright asexual aren’t encouraged to discuss it. – Women who are sexually insatiable aren’t encouraged to discuss it.
Anyway, while I think sex is more fun that skiing and making oatmeal cookies, and I can’t imagine losing interest, even if, someday, I started to lose those perpetual morning erections, it’s important every now and then acknowledge that not all men feel the same way! And so in a way it’s even more important to acknowledge people like Lux Nightmare and even Playboy for acknowledging it.
Submitted by 1808 (not verified) on Fri, 2007-12-14 09:00.
Okay, for various self-interested reasons, I followed the link all the way back to the original Playboy posts, hoping for some insight into men who just naturally, inherently have low libidos. And I realize I shouldn't expect too much from Playboy (more the fool I).
Unfortunately, the original series of posts does *nothing* to dispel the myth of the ever-horny man. Instead, it uses letters from Playboy readers (a pool admittedly skewed toward high libidos) to locate low desire almost anywhere except in the man himself. If you tally it up, there are
- 3 stories of women who are insatiable 24/7 (nymphomaniacs! fun but exhausting - at least until "you’ve fucked her 5,000 times")
- 1 mention of relationship troubles (important, but a different issue than *naturally* low libido)
- 1 health issue (man suffering from migraines and stress)
- 3 statements that men need variety so just can't expect desire to survive monogamy
- 2 men whose desire plummeted after constant rejection by their no-sex wives
- 6 cases where the men blamed the women for becoming unattractive: overweight (2), shrewish (2), unsexy (2)
Sample quotes from the last group: "If you can’t get your man in the mood it is likely that you routinely screw like a dead fish."
"Our women never realize that emasculation, nagging and manipulation dampen our sex lives more quickly then them gaining a few pounds or not dressing as hot as they used to."
So, I'm still waiting for some *real* information on this subject. Almost everything you can read on low libido - including even the DSM-IV - presumes it's a girl thing. Very frustrating - on more than one level.
[Oh dear. Nightmare mentioned the Playboy story wasn't *that* helpful. I didn't realize it was *that* unhelpful. But my main point stands that, bearing in mind that a lot of traditional "woman needs fixing" libido therapy discussions acknowledge there's a "relative to whom?" component, even some of their examples have bearing. For instance while they make a big deal out of this or that woman's "insatiability" as if that were unusual, even in our 20s and certainly the time we reach our 40s (anyway) we all know of couples where the woman's interest exceeds her partner's. The point being that "insatiability" isn't necessarily an absolute term -- it can just mean "no longer sated." Anyway, to get to your real point: no, it's not just a girl thing and yes, that represents both a procedural and a moral failing of sex-research reporting if not sex research itself. (Note: if I can find the by-now years-old data source on men's rates of asexuality I'll post it here.) Thanks, Sungold! --fl]
Submitted by 1808 (not verified) on Fri, 2007-12-14 09:40.
I consider myself to have a pretty high sex-drive, and in the unfortunate position of rarely having a partner to enjoy it with - so you'd think that whenever I did have a partner, I'd be one of those "helpless-to-resist" sex-class men, wanting to do it all the time.
It just doesn't work like that. Sometimes, I'm just not in the mood, and I've had to say so firmly on occasion.
Which leads to another problem from the sex/no-sex dichotomy: unless you're very confident with one another, a man who isn't that interested, feels pressured into performing anyway whenever his partner makes an effort, because otherwise she will interpret any lack of interest on his part, as meaning that she has failed to be desirable and sexy for him, and he doesn't want to hurt her feelings.
[Yeah, and that's just one of the possible fallouts. Another being that because of personal, social expectation men can wind up saying yes because they think they're supposed to or because they're/we're indoctrinated to believe we might not get "another chance." Moving forward it'll be great to begin developing (modern, Western) traditions of *shared* "gatekeeping" *and* initiation for both men and women. Thanks, SDE. --fl]
Submitted by 1808 (not verified) on Fri, 2007-12-14 10:21.
I think the norm for women has changed from sexually reluctant god's police to always sexually charged and ready for ...anything - whether it be girls gone wild type antics to that so-called sexual empowering 'anywhere anytime' type attitude. I'm not quite sure which is worse to tell you the truth. We're living in this totally hyper-sexual society at the moment where if anyone is asexual or not up for it or even god forbid wants to wait for marriage is immediately seen as a freak of nature. Funny how things change.
[If so then you're right, we're still no better off. One exaggerated extreme is no better than the other. Especially since, I'm pretty sure, the image of "always sexually charged and ready..." is really a panicky reaction to what's actually the libido women (being human and all) have had only now they're/you're comfortable expressing it. And it's not that men can't keep up, it's just that they/we aren't used to situations where we don't "gatekeep" initiation. ('Member, when we were doing all the initiating we never wound up in sexual situations where we weren't at least nominally "in the mood.") If we all (not just men, not just women) grow up a little bit about it and stop madly exaggerating we might actually wind up all enjoying ourselves a little more, and feeling "gate-keepered" quite a bit less. Thanks, M! --fl]
Submitted by 1808 (not verified) on Fri, 2007-12-14 13:05.
M:
I think that those displays of "girls gone wild" or "sexual empowering anywhere anytime" are purely displays. The underlying "sex"/"no-sex" dichotomy still persists when it comes to actually having sex, as opposed to being ostentatious about being sexual.
In simple terms, the underlying message nowadays is "you're allowed to talk the talk, but you mustn't walk the walk". And, in turn, that means you're allowed to enjoy flaunting it, but to be ready and willing to do it still makes a woman a "slut", a "slag", a "slapper", a "tart", a "village bicycle", "easy" etc. With the "anywhere, anytime" attitude I think a similar line works - the woman is expected to be choosy, and to make the man somehow prove himself worthy (see Figleaf's other posts on worthiness). She is still expected to play that role of "gatekeeper". The empowerment felt by women in either the "gone wild" or the "anytime" structure, is not because of choosing freely whether or not to have sex, but depends rather on the assumption that all men want it, all the time. The message being sent is not, "We want it and we're going to get it", but rather, "We've got it and you can't have it."
The surface display makes us think of women nowadays as being sexually-charged, but under the surface, the narrative remains one of "sex"/"no-sex". And this particular narrative actually appears in some cycles of myths and legends.
[Good point. Sort of like the Brittney Spears (may not have spelled that right) thing where she wore jeans so low she *had* to wax, and it was considered sexy and cute *only* until she nominally "lost" her viriginity, whereupon it paradoxically *stopped* being sexy and became "slutty." Go figure. Thanks, SDE. --fl]
Submitted by 1808 (not verified) on Sat, 2007-12-15 03:46.
absolutely snowdrop - and that double standard is exactly the case. Though I really think that women are in this difficult spot where we have to flaunt it (and perhaps we always had to flaunt it) but then not to get TOO carried away but ALSO that we can't hold off too long either. If we say no, we're not sexually empowered. If we say yes too often then it's slutty. If we don't display this myth of being sexually charged at all times then it's like we're not displaying evidence of being a woman of the world or something.
Though I agree with girls gone wild not quite being the same as sex it still translates as such in an underlying cultural way. I don't think many people wouldn't be thinking that they aren't sexually active - in fact quite the opposite, which is interesting because hey, maybe they're not! In any case, in real terms if a girl waits for marriage to have sex she's really seen as a freak of nature and you have to wonder...if it's a choice for her to do so then surely it's sexually empowering for her...so then you have the girl who is weird for not having sex and the girl who is weird FOR having sex. It's completely bizarre.
Submitted by 1808 (not verified) on Sat, 2007-12-15 12:34.
I do so hate to be a one-trick pony, but my perspective has left me with a touch of sympathy for human frailty, and what struck me most was the story of the mechanic who, after a long day, wanted a beer and a rest more than anything else. I think this connects in some way to the doctrine of "worthiness", but can't help but link it to the perverse way that social non-dominance plays out in men's sex lives...less of everything, including legitimate, socially-sanctioned monogamous sex, although not as alienated from women and desire as the viewpoint that produced Mudflap Girl. I think you're trying, perhaps not as blatantly as Jensen, to get men to regard sexlessness (for low-socio-economic-class men really ARE the "no sex class", cf. Steven Pinker on how inner cities tear themselves apart deciding WHO gets to, and who doesn't) as some sort of quietus, to have and to hold, a lacuna that no one can take away from them, the difference being that you like men much more than Jensen. A kind of Appalachian Gothic, if you will, but more of a peace offering to the limits of desire than anything else, but terrifying because an anxious masculinity sees constant desire as proof of life, and acquiescence to the passing of that desire as acquiescence to a lesser manhood and thus a lesser existence. A society that valued men differently would let "older men turn to philosophy, but now we have Viagra."(Philip Roth, _The Human Stain_)
[Just to be clear I'm not *advocating* for less sex, nor less sex for the lower class (having been impoverished throughout the 1970s and nearly or entirely homeless for nearly two years.) Instead I'm only advocating for *acknowledgment.* As to your point that desire amounts to proof of life, I remember that overloading sex like that tended to alienate me from it, even when I had it... not to mention making it much, much harder to make connections with people I wanted to have it with. I mean think about it -- how enthusiastic would *you* feel about someone who saw sex with you only as a way to feel alive? And finally, Roth was a silly man to imagine one can't be as philosophical, or as active, in youth as in age. *It happens* and it's *always* happened, and for the most part we, and Roth, feel squeamish about it because it means "wrinkly" people having sex. But... but... if it makes younger people feel "alive" why not older? And if not but it's still enjoyable then *still* why not? That we, or he, might think otherwise -- that we might think sex only "counts" if one or one's partner is young and "desirable" -- then we're again overloading sex with more than it can safely bear. In other words, I believe, um, passionately that we might all have *more* sex if men weren't indoctrinated to believe "scoring" was more than a euphemism. Thanks, Eurosabra. --fl]
Submitted by 1808 (not verified) on Wed, 2008-12-17 14:49.
figleaf,
linked to this from a recent post, and I have been reading you for years. It is interesting, the narrative that exists about male/female sexuality, and how that has an effect on your life. The man is always supposed to be the aggressor, the one who wants it more... but I am in a relationship, marriage actually, where I am the one always begging for it. And it totally messes with my head, despite whatever liberal 'that is how a person is' thoughts and leanings I can bring to it. How to reconcile? I dunno, maybe it was a mistake to enter in this marriage, but here I am. It is very painful, and I think doubly so because of the ideals that have been instilled from an early age.
[Hi, Callie. The thing is that in spite of all the narratives on the planet you're *so* not the only one. Which is why it would be nice if we had not only a little more narrative but also, oh, maybe a whole set of traditions so we'd have more context for coping with it. Instead we spend all our time fretting about "women's libido" as if mens were *never* a problem. And all I can ever say to anyone is "wait." Very frustrating. Thanks! --fl]