Thu, 2007-08-30 12:43

One of too many consequences of the contemporary dominant male paradigm is the frame of reference that men “just naturally” want more sex than women, who (we falsely believe) constitute the “just naturally” disinterested “no-sex” class.

(Ever notice how often “just naturally” really means “taken for granted and consequently never examined?”)

So check out this startling question and response I found at WebMD’s Health and Sex column

She Wants More
Question: My husband and I are newlyweds and I can’t keep my hands off him. I initiate sex 85 percent of the time. He usually says “no” because he is tired. Am I being selfish because I want sex more often? Is it normal for the woman to be the initiator most of the time?

Answer: Psychotherapist Rachel Morris says the first question to ask yourself is whether there are any other times — apart from when you’re having sex — where he gives you his “entire, full, unadulterated attention.” “If the answer is no,” Morris says, “it may be that you’re confusing the desire to have sex with the desire to have him all to yourself — the reassurance that you’re still loved. Intimacy and sex aren’t necessarily the same things. So pushing him to have sex, when really what you want is intimacy, probably means that you’re getting neither.

Source: WebMD.com

Mmm, boy if I were a knee-jerk gender activist I’d just automatically chew the authors another butthole for implying that if a woman says she wants more sex than her partner does she really just wants intimacy.

Because the entire point of the “no-sex” class paradigm is that women have to want something else because they never really want to have sex. Instead, quoth the dominant paradigm, women must be manipulated, levered, seduced, enticed, compensated, or coerced into sex. Instead, quoth the dominant paradigm, women who don’t need to be coerced and instead are initiating sex are somehow cheating, consciously using their booty to extract some other advantage from their male partners… or (shades of the reply at WebMD!) they’re using sex unconsciously in an effort to be “popular” with the boy or boys.

So yeah, not exactly the worlds most progressive foundation for rendering advice, Docs.

But…

But…

But…

Reflexes notwithstanding I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. And here’s the deal.

Had the question been asked by a man the answer would have almost certainly fallen along the lines of

Mismatched sex drive is one of the most common problems with couples, says general practitioner Sarah Humphery. “It’s interesting you say that you don’t understand how getting more involved in the housework is going to help,” Humphery says. “She’s going to be less tired, she’s going to be preoccupied, she’s going to feel less like a sort of housewife — you’ve got to make her feel sexy.”

From a previous question in the same article.

In other words it would have been a variation on the same old inside-the-paradigm “just naturally” thing with the same old conflation of sex and housework. (Men should pull their weight. However advisors should not tie it to women’s sexual availability!)

Instead, though, it was a woman asking and so…

Instead of totally jerking their knees they actually put a little thought into the answer.

And to be honest while you could read their advice as a complete affirmation of the “no-sex” class paradigm I’m going to turn it the other way and suggest…

It’s good advice. Good for women, sure, but from a social-indoctrination standpoint even better advice for men!

I realized back when I was 19 that while I seriously enjoyed sex I was really getting something out of the fact that, back then anyway, if you had sex together you slept snuggled together afterwards as well.

Actual sexual urges, you may have noticed, can be handled handily with, um, our own hands. Snuggling, however, requires two people. Using sex, as I did, as a way to get that close physical contact with another human being, however, alienated me from sex.

And lemme tell ya, if Freud, if not 100% right, was still on to something when he said there are problems when we seek nonsexual outlets for our sexual urges, he neglected to mention it’s no better to seek sexual outlets for our non-sexual urges!

We’re all easily starved for intimacy, and while I’ll be the last person to knock the very distinct pleasures of sex, I want to always be the first to knock efforts to ask more of sex than it can deliver.

Anyway, given the author’s answer to the previous question I think they probably need to be given the benefit of the doubt, I’m still giving it. “Am I needing sex or some other form of physical intimacy” is always a good question to ask. Even if we never think to ask it of men.

Update: Since the above is a bit convoluted here’s a quick recap.

- The advice “if you think you’re not getting enough sex, check to make sure you’re really not using sex as a substitute for other needed forms of intimacy” is good advice. – The advice was offered to, figuratively, the first woman to express interest in more sex than her partner wants, whereas – Since it’s assumed that men are “just that way” they are almost never offered the aforementioned very good advice. (For instance that’s the first time I’ve heard anyone else suggest it.) – Yet the complaint is so common among men it’s beyond cliche.

Even bottom-ier line: the advice, while sound, nevertheless insults women’s sexual autonomy and men’s sensitivity since it’s offered only to a woman and not to myriad men in the exact same boat.