Via Latoya Peterson at Jezebel comes a fascinating paragraph from Newsweek’s Jessica Bennett
The mystery of why women have sex, and what they want out of it, has long been an elusive study-something even Sigmund Freud called “the great question.” Researchers have historically theorized that women’s motives lie in love and commitment, while newer studies have shown they do it for pleasure, just like men. But women are complicated creatures: their sexual health is determined as much by their emotions as by their physical state, which might help explain why as many as 50 percent of women have trouble getting aroused. Yet while scientists, in recent years, have labored over the “how” of female desire, no major study, until now, has actually asked women to describe why they have sex in the first place.
Anyway, this is a little tough, what with me not being a woman and thus not being a “complicated creature” and all but… um… women aren’t creatures?
And WTF with the implication that it’s unusual for emotions determining sexual health? This might be because Bennett isn’t a man and thus falls for the notion that we’re simple “creatures” but… um… yeah.
For the record she’s talking about Meston and Buss’s “Why Women Have Sex,” discussed in detail here. And as I mentioned, the book appears to be based on a study the authors did of both women and men in 2007. And as I discussed in the book the top reasons for both men and women looked like this
| Women | Men | |
1 |
I was attracted to the person | I was attracted to the person |
2 |
I wanted to experience the physical |
It feels good |
3 |
It feels good | I wanted to experience the physical pleasure |
4 |
I wanted to show my affection to the person |
It’s fun |
5 |
I wanted to express my love for the person |
I wanted to show my affection to the person |
6 |
I was sexually aroused and wanted the release |
I was sexually aroused and wanted the release |
7 |
I was ‘‘horny’‘ | I was ‘‘horny’‘ |
8 |
It’s fun | I wanted to express my love for the person |
9 |
I realized I was in love | I wanted to achieve an orgasm. |
10 |
I was ‘‘in the heat of the moment’‘ | I wanted to please my partner |
11 |
I wanted to please my partner |
The person’s physical appearance turned me on |
12 |
I desired emotional closeness (i.e., intimacy) |
I wanted the pure pleasure |
13 |
I wanted the pure pleasure | I was ‘‘in the heat of the moment’‘ |
14 |
I wanted to achieve an orgasm | I desired emotional closeness (i.e., intimacy) |
15 |
It’s exciting, adventurous | It’s exciting, adventurous |
Source: Arch Sex Behav (2007) 36:477-507, pg. 481 Update: Link to Meston and Buss’s original study (pdf)
Staggeringly different, eh? Oh wait!
We “know” women’s sexuality is complicated, and that men’s isn’t. Which makes Meston and Buss’s decision to exclude from the book their own data on men extraordinarily cynical.
It’ll probably be a best seller.
Submitted by 3222 (not verified) on Tue, 2009-10-06 19:58.
Not asking women why we have sex in a scientific study until recently and continually calling us complicated creatures is just another way of turning us into objects instead of people. Because *people* have opinions that are valued and objects don't. I could almost hear Rex Harrison singing"Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?" in the background......
Submitted by 3222 (not verified) on Sun, 2009-10-11 14:48.
These questions are too vague to capture the difference. "I was attracted to the person" means very different things for women and for men.
Every typically experienced (*) man KNOWS that in sex, men are the wanters and women are the wanted. That is THE fact about human sexuality. No number of idiotic "studies" will ever manage to demote this directly observable reality to the status of a myth. For one book printed claiming that it is a myth, there are 100000 men directly experiencing the reality at the very moment. This is one area where ideology stands no chance because the reality is just too stark by freakin' orders of magnitude.
(*) that excludes alpha males
[Hi Basta. "Every typically experienced man KNOWS that in sex, men are the wanters and women are the wanted." Will Rogers used to say, trouble comes not from the things you don't know, but in the things you know that ain't so. It's a great source of frustration for both men and women that so many men "know" that. --fl]
Submitted by 3222 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-10-12 14:02.
Dear BASTA!,
"...men are the wanters and women are the wanted" may be your experience from your perspective, but as a woman I can tell you that I (we) get horny for guys all the time. From my perspective, it's often the opposite: that I am the wanter and the guys are the wanted.
I think part of it might be that you're not mentioning whether or not "the wanted" is simply the person who is being desired (and who may or may not reciprocate; many people, men and women, enjoy feeling wanted) or "the wanted" is someone who is desired but doesn't wish to be.
In the latter case, men being the subject of unwanted desire may not be something you (or most men) experience, but women often are the subject of unwanted desire. Even this is complicated by culture: men feel much more free to express desire for a woman in public than women feel to express desire for a man in public, and I would further argue from my experience that men feel much more free to continue expressing their desire in the face of a woman not wanting to be the subject than when the situation is reversed. A man in many cases is rewarded for expressing a desire for a woman because it's a display of virility and masculinity, whereas most women would get a negative reaction from a group she expressed such desire to. If a man says he desires a woman and she doesn't reciprocate, he doesn't lose much because that's not an unexpected reaction, but when a woman says she desires a man and he doesn't reciprocate that is often interpreted as an insult to the woman.
My point is the underlying feelings may not be all that different, it's just that our culture puts different constraints and pressures on men and women about how those feelings are "allowed" to be expressed. And that makes us erroneously think that men are hornier than they are ("If he SAYS he's turned on that frequently, how much more often must he be turned on and not mention it?") and that women are less horny than they are (because we often don't express that we're attracted to someone...may even go out of our way to avoid showing it).
I know that I don't usually tell guys that I'm attracted to that I am unless I actually want to have a full-blown relationship with them, because otherwise saying that just complicates everything.
Something to think about.
Submitted by 3222 (not verified) on Fri, 2009-10-23 23:21.
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