What Women Want

My blog reader Bill posted a comment to "Dares That I Do" which I thought I would bring to the front. You can read his blog comment for the whole text, but basically he asks me to read an article he is linking to from the New York Times, and to comment on how that corresponds with my own feelings.

You should really read the article before my comment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25desire-t.html

First I would like to say that in answering that, I will be stepping onto very thin ice and may very well get some people very upset. Please believe me when I say that if you think so, you haven't understood what I am trying to say. I am only being analytical around some border areas that need to be investigated in order to be fully understood.

My first comment is on the rape fantasies. I have assisted one of my good friends in dealing with rape victims, so I do have some experience. One of the things often suppressed by the papers or media, either because of decency or lack of information on such matters, is that the victims have deep feelings of shame because they found that they actually lubricated and in some cases even had an orgasm. You can imagine what that does to a victim. "Did I entice? Was it my own fault? How could my body react like that, when I was so frightened and disgusted? What kind of a person am I? My response has always been the same as what the article described (that it is not because the victim wanted it), but my explanation is another one. I don't think the body reacts to protect, I think it is a basic reaction from the time when we were monkeys and didn't have fixed sexual partners, but where the procreation happened by any male forcing themselves on any available woman. Possibly for protection, but certainly for procreation the woman needed to lubricate, and possibly for the same reasons also achieve orgasm in order to be a willing participant at the next encounter. That we still react like that only shows how fast our society has developed in the last couple of thousand years, which in the development of our species is like the punctuation at the end of a 1000 page book. So no rape victim need to feel the least guilty. The guilty ones are the sick bastards perpetrating such a vile crime.

But, having said that - and here comes the thin ice - some woman experiment willingly with encounters which closely resembles real rape, and that is where the "fantasies" come into it. I admit to being one of those. A fantasy of mine would be where a friend of mine, as part of our game, ties me up naked in a revealing position, and for whatever reason leaves me for instance at the mercy of other guests at a party. Even though those other guests know it is wrong to take me against my will, their desire for me when they see me like that overshadows their ability to restrain themselves. Such a fantasy is very much like the one the article describes, where women dream of being so desirable that men just can't resist them.

In real life there would be a lot of reason for not letting yourself into a situation like that, ranging from HIV, physical danger to the problem of facing those "friends" again at another time. But people happily play role plays where they can live out the dreams. Unfortunately the border line between role plays and real situations can be difficult to detect. Like one of the victims who had an encounter very much resembling my fantasy. She was at a party and did let a friend tie her up at a time when she was drunk and aroused, only to find out he was "selling" her to a select few of his friends who had sex with her afterwards. Despite what we told her about this being rape, she didn't want to press charges, because she said it was her own fault for letting herself be tied up in the first place. Also, she admitted to having felt very aroused and not objected when the first "non-consentual" sex took place. It was only as it continued she got frightened and starting feeling abused.

This shows how close a fantasy (mine) can be to a real situation going bad. If you want to play like that you have to have a friend you trust 100% to be there and stop it when it crosses some border you have agreed in advance. But again - the safer you are the less of an excitement to those thriving on such adventures. If it goes over the line - do you call the cops? I guess not.

All this is of course totally different form the woman being pulled off her bike and raped behind the bushes somewhere. No doubt there - but even then some people lubricate and feel shame for it afterwards. Aren't we funny creatures?

In the article it is said that "I hammer home with my students, ‘Arousal is not consent.’ " And you have to hammer that home again and again to stop the sick bastards who gets it wrong. BUT.... How many girls haven't the next day regretted a sexual encounter she had had the night before when a little drunk and aroused by close dancing and a good atmosphere. Was consent ever explicitly stated? Or did the situation just escalate? Was it then rape? Of course not, but to a guy that is very close to a situation where it might be, if the girl claims more than just regret. When I was a young girl a contract circulated as joke. It was a piece of paper the girl had to sign before going to bed with a guy, so he wouldn't get in trouble afterwards. Not really a joke any more - perhaps that should be re-introduced.


I guess this response to the article was not what Bill had in mind, but it was my first reaction. Let me try and see if I can come up with a different reaction...

The article deals with the feelings of men and women. How the heterosexual men only gets aroused by women, and admits to that, whereas the woman gets aroused by both sexes and do not admit to that. Firstly I can't comment on the guys.You need to be one or have done the studies ;-) Secondly, yes I would get aroused by both sexes, but I would probably as opposed to my sister study subjects have admitted that as well. But that is because I am me, and much more willing to admit to my feelings. And no, in case you should ask, the moneys don't do anything for me ;-) At least I don't think so. I would be very surprised if a study would show it did.

It would be really interesting to run this test on some of my friends who insists they have totally straight and normal sex lives, and see what is really going on beneath the surfaces.

But I think it is true that women get aroused on a wider array of possibilities than men. Men perhaps gets more readily and visible excited and therefore cannot hide what excites them, and for that reason have developed a need to not be aroused by what is seen as not acceptable,where as women can better "hide" that she gets excited and lie about it.

The article seems to dwell on lust. Many women seem to loose that once married and in stable relationships, until suddenly something sparks it again. You see women who have let themselves get fat and sloppy, get divorced for only then go to the gym, wear nice clothes and make-up, use the settlement money for a sports car, go all the right places, discuss fucking with her soulmates, all in the same situation, for then to find the right one, and slip back into being fat and sloppy. Is the lust only something used to make the women want to attract the right man?

In that case I am an abnormality. I think "lust" all the time, and will go out of my way to orchestra situations where I can find relief for that. And I haven't gone fat or sloppy and have no intention to. Why not have a good and comfortable marriage and at the same time retain the sexual drive? I think those of us who can balance that right are very few.

It was a very good and thought provoking article. I am surprised a large newspaper had the nerve to write that in "God's Own Country", but there you are.