Category Archives: gender
Higher Suicide Rates in Conservative “Values Voters” States
Values voters. That’s what those who vote their principles on gay rights and abortion are called. So long as they vote anti-gay and anti-choice.
Really? Are those the only values? And are they good ones?
Why is voting to deny gays and lesbians equal rights a value, while voting to defend their rights is not? Why is voting against the right of women to control their bodies not a value? Abortion rates are about the same whether legal or not, so many girls and women die when safe and legal options are not available.
Are they called values voters because they vote their morals against their pocketbooks? Plenty of well-to-do liberals do the same thing, voting for greater equality and opportunity for women, people of color, gays and the poor against their own financial interests.
Why are progressive ethics seemingly invisible?
I got to thinking about this while looking over research that finds teen suicide rates are higher where values voters live.
According to a Columbia University study, suicide attempts by both gay and straight teens are more common in politically conservative areas, even among kids who weren’t bullied or depressed.
The difference in suicide rates might have something to do with differences in conservative and progressive principles.
Conservatives focus on tradition and authority.
Progressives recognize the worth and dignity of each human being, whether female or male; black, white, or brown; gay, straight, bi or trans. And progressives seek to avoid inflicting harm on others.
No wonder teens are less likely to commit suicide in communities that hold these ideals.
Interestingly, the Bible, which is a major source of conservative morals, contains a progressive message.
True, Leviticus 18:22 does say, “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman,” which many interpret as banning homosexuality. But Leviticus 20:13 deems killing the proper punishment. Yet I don’t know anyone who insists on adhering to both points, leaving them inconsistent in relying on Biblical authority.
At the same time, Jesus declared the greatest commandments loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36-40).
When it’s all about love and the golden rule, good progressive values, there will surely be much less suicide.
Georgia Platts
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Lose Virginity, Lose Self-Esteem?
When women lose their virginity, they can lose self-esteem, too, experiencing a small drop. That’s what a recent Penn State study reveals.
Why?
Women college students were surveyed over time. Before sex the women felt increasingly good about their bodies. But after first sex they felt worse. Looks like when they’re in bed women start worrying about whether they look good enough. Masters and Johnson tagged the phenomenon of watching yourself from a third person perspective instead of focusing on sexual sensations or your partner, “spectatoring.” Women are much more prone, being the objectified. Then, feeling they don’t measure up, self-worth drops.
Other usual suspects may also affect self-esteem, including the double standard that provokes worries about labels like slut and whore. Tracy Clark-Flory over at salon.com points to a 1995 study that found “women were significantly more likely to report that their first sexual experience left them feeling less pleasure, satisfaction, and excitement than men, and more sadness, guilt, nervousness, tension, embarrassment, and fear.” Even now women continue to experience that bind.
The double standard strikes again when women feel used, unappreciated, and worried about reputations after short flings or one-night stands.
Meanwhile, a study I recently posted finds 35% of women in strong partnerships feeling sad, anxious, restless, or irritable, after sex. Researchers don’t know why. Commenters, speculating on their own experience with the phenomenon, fingered sexual repression or difficulties with orgasm (which are related to repression) as culprit.
Studies repeatedly find that women are less likely than men to enjoy sex. Other research suggests the problem is not biologically based, or inevitable. Women in sex-positive cultures enjoy sexuality a great deal.
We are going to have to move beyond sexism for women to reclaim their sexuality. That would benefit both women and men.
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Did Women Create Burqa Culture?
In honor of implementation of the French “burqa ban,” and the brouhaha it is causing from Bill Maher to the New York Times, I repost the following:
The French “burqa ban” has got me thinking. Did women have equal power to create the burqa? And who benefits from this garment?
Some charge that rejecting the burqa comes from fear of the other, or ethnocentrism. I’m in sync with cultural relativism, so long as no one is being hurt. But buqas and “burqa cultures” don’t give women equal power. And women certainly did not have equal sway in creating the customs of these societies.
Think about the laws that exist in places where women are required to cover up in burqas, abayas, niqabs (facemasks) or various other veilings.
Is it likely that women decided that men could easily demand a divorce, but women could get one only with difficulty?
Is it likely that women created the notion that sharing a husband with other women might be fun?
Did women create the idea that an adulterous man be punished by burial up to his waist before being stoned, while a woman must be buried to her breasts – and one who escapes, escapes the stoning?
In these cultures, when a woman is raped it is her fault. She obviously let some hair fall from her covering, or she allowed an ankle to show. Everyone knows that no man could resist such things. Did women decide that women, and not men, are responsible for men’s sexuality?
Did women originate the notion that after rape, the victim must be killed to restore family honor?
Did women clamor for a burqa that limits their power and autonomy – keeping them from driving in Saudi Arabia and getting jobs that are far from home? Did women design this garment that prevents small pleasures like seeing clearly or feeling the sun and the wind?
And who benefits?
Men benefit from easily obtaining a divorce, but not allowing their wives the same privilege. Men benefit from the sexual variety of having many wives, while women are left to share one man. Men benefit by more easily escaping a stoning. And men can rape with impunity since women fear reporting sexual assault, lest their families kill them. Men gain power when women are incapable of getting jobs and income. How much easier is it to beat women for the infraction of straying outside the home, or letting a wrist show, when they are black or blue blobs, and not human beings?
It is common to make accusations of ethnocentrism when one culture rejects the practices of another. Often the fears are valid.
But if a powerful group creates a culture that benefits themselves to the detriment of others, the critique is not about ethnocentrism. It is about human rights.
Georgia Platts
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One Out of Ten Women Get Depressed After Sex
While sex is usually associated with ecstasy, for some women getting it in is anything but joyous.
According to a new study published in the the International Journal of Sexual Health, a third of women under 35 say they often feel sad, anxious, restless or irritable after sex. Further more, 10 percent of the women surveyed admitted to frequently or almost always feel sad after their romp in the sheets was done.
While previous research has shown a connection between depression following casual sex, the women in the study were not experiencing the blues as a result of a one night stand. In fact, many of them were in established relationships and still felt the nagging feelings after having sex with the ones they were with.
Speaking on her emotions in relation to her romantic relationship, one of the respondents said:
“I did not associate the feeling with an absence of love or affection for my sexual partner nor with an absence of love or affection from them towards me, because it seemed so unconnected with them.”
The study has many researchers fuddled. The definite cause for “post-coital sadness” as it is known in the psychological community, remains unknown. While researchers note that these feels are common in women who approach sexual intercourse with histories of sexual abuse often associate making love with an overwhelming sense of guilt. However, this is not seen as a constant with the women interviewed for the study, so researchers will be looking next at the different personalities of the women. Researchers hope that by examining their personality types, they can find a connection between how the women describe themselves and how they experience the act of having sex.
This article was originally posted in Clutch on April 11, 2011.
Sample comments from readers
I experience this. When I was having sex this is something I experienced. Hmm…Could be personality types…
I would imagine that women my age at least (over 40) may still have some guilt tied up with sex. Growing up in the 60′s and being browbeaten, threatened and dared not to “keep your dress down and your panties up”, by the time many women did get some, they felt too guilty about it to enjoy it. And then these women raised their daughters this same way as they were raised, which would explain younger women suffering from the same emotional malady. We pass along a lot of twisted notions to our kids sometimes, even when we know it’s not right.
Maybe it is due to dissatisfaction cause ain’t nothing worst than getting all horny and having the inability to put the fire out. And perhaps they may be unable to achieve orgasms that is something i think should be explored as well.
I had that problem in the past but for some reason, it hasn’t occurred in a very long time. I have also experienced extreme agitation and anger, but um, I’m sure that was due to not being satisfied.
i get irritable when i don’t have an orgasm. this is why i believe in using a magic wand. go get one – around $35. best money you will ever spend.
My thoughts:
In cultures that are sex-positive for women, women enjoy sex a great deal and are highly orgasmic. Something is terribly wrong in our society for one-third of American women to feel sad or anxious after sex.
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Men: Erotic Objects of Women’s Gaze
Michelangelo’s “David” — a view from behind.
A nude woman frolics in silhouette as clothed men sleuth about, guns in hand and feet in chase. These images introduce The Spy Who Loved Me.
Flipping through TV stations the other day, this Bond rerun caught my eye and left me imagining the reverse: a nude man cavorting about as clothed women raced in pursuit of criminals. Weird.
The female body is celebrated – or exploited – while the male body is ignored.
Check out People’s sexiest men and you will see face shots, loose T-shirts, and very few rippled muscles. Who could imagine a “sexiest woman” shoot sans bodies.
Searching for a calendar of sexy men at Boarders, the closest I could find was Barack Obama.
Yeah, yeah, there is the occasional men’s underwear ad, but they are rare.
No wonder women don’t spend a lot of time checking out men’s bodies, ogling them or judging them.
A man commented on one of my posts that (to paraphrase):
Not only are men not considered erotic, they are often used to get laughs. In Seinfeld, Elaine referred to the male body as “utilitarian,” implying that the female is much more erotic. George Costanza became a victim of “shrinkage.” Scenes of Johnny Knoxville running around in a thong get chuckles.
Why is the male body so de-eroticized?
One possibility: Men have historically controlled media, and they focus on what they find sexy (about 95% of them anyway). Homophobia further hinders eroticization. As women enter the industry we find more focus on men, but still not much compared with women. Meanwhile, showered with sexy-women images from the time they are small, even women come to find women the sexier of the species.
What if the world were to switch? Suddenly, a universe of men in Speedo’s?
What if women became subject, and men erotic object for women to gaze upon? What if women sought to consume men as objects? Judging them, grading their beauty? Would women feel empowered, experiencing themselves on the “person” side of the person/object divide?
Something to think about.
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Super Sloppy 17ths
By Genevieve Dempre
I realized I was a feminist the first time I gave myself permission to be angry with men. My first boyfriend in high school spent a lot of time undermining me in ways that felt like love. He’d tell me I was pretty but not sexy, and then have sex with me. He’d tell me I was smart, but then laugh with his brothers at how I was “ditzy.” He’d look deep into my eyes and tell me the world was ours, and how much he loved me, then tell me I was being crazy when I’d call him more than he liked, or when I’d ask for anything at all. He gave me what he wanted to give me when he wanted to give it to me, and I got to tell myself over and over again that it was what being in love was like.
That guy broke my heart when he broke up with me, and I felt like I lost my whole world. He made me feel like my world wasn’t any bigger than him and that any attempts to make it so were a result of me being “crazy.” After that I gravitated towards any guy who made me feel validated for a few minutes. I wanted to be friends with guys only—I told myself that women were catty and shallow, and that I just got along better with guys. Looking back on that time, I was desperately unhappy and also desperate to be someone who mattered. And the only people I knew who mattered were men.
I sat through marathon sports sessions and pretended to care. I cooked and I cleaned and I fetched beer and I sat by while guys made comments about other girls … girls who weren’t me, because I certainly wasn’t that girl. I wasn’t stupid and slutty and weak, I wasn’t obsessed with Sex and the City and bad alcohol, and I certainly didn’t get easily offended like all those other girls did, by stuff like porn and strippers and sexual comments.
I could keep that face on until I couldn’t. And that’s when the shortfalls of these guys became painfully apparent. When I missed my first boyfriend so much, I cried during sex with a one night stand and the guy asked if I was OK—and when I said yes, he kept going while I kept crying. When a guy cheated on his girlfriend with me and—nevermind that I was drunk and he was four years older and it was my first week of college—she stayed in a relationship with him but made sure everyone we knew heard about what an evil, dirty, boyfriend-stealing slut I was. When I was too drunk to drive home and asked a male acquaintance to drive me, and we had sex that I don’t fully remember—but he told everyone. And this stuff happened again and again, until it culminated in a night when at a fraternity party, someone grabbed a microphone and asked if anyone wanted their turn at “super sloppy seventeenths” with me.
I dropped out of school then. I felt so worthless I wanted to die. Everyone had figured it out: I was weak, worthless, stupid, and worst of all, a total whore. And after I hit rock-bottom I started to wonder why. Why was it that sex meant that something had been taken away from me and given to some guy? Why was it that guys could shamelessly talk about their sex lives, but I was supposed to be ashamed of mine? Where exactly did this slut label that was breaking my heart come from?
And then the first guy came back. After another painfully draining relationship with him, I got the opportunity to tell him to go fuck himself, to get his things out of the house and leave me to my life. I finally started living for myself. And I realized that straight white men are given power, but the rest of us have to find ours. That made me so angry and so determined at the same time, and something inside me fundamentally changed: I stopped accepting things for what they are and started asking questions about why they are that way. This changed my career trajectory in an insanely positive way. It changed how I relate to men, which led to a fantastic, egalitarian relationship with a man I plan to marry (I’m the one who proposed). And perhaps most importantly, it led to some deeply rewarding friendships with other women. Whom I stopped viewing as the enemy in my quest for male validation and started to see as fellow survivors of the patriarchy.
I found feminism like some people find religion. It changed my life and it made me whole.
This was originally posted on the Ms. Magazine Blog on March 31, 2011. The piece was part of a week-long blog carnival in honor of Feminist Coming Out Day.
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She Drinks, She Flirts, She Passes Out … Is It Rape?
Around midnight at a college party, several young women soccer players are alerted that a 17-year-old girl is barricaded in a room with eight guys on the baseball team. Through a window, the women glimpse what looks like an assault.
They batter down the door and, as the men disperse, find a young, semi-conscious woman on her back, unmoving and naked from the waist down. Vomit trickles from her mouth down the side of her face and collects in a pool. Blood runs from her genitals. She mumbles, “I’m sorry.”
The women lift up the teen, wipe the vomit from her face, carry her to their car and drive her to a hospital. The next day, the girl remembers nothing.
This is the scene the soccer players and other witnesses describe at a De Anza College party in San Jose four years ago. Is it rape?
The case has just been tried in civil court because the Santa Clara, Calif., district attorney felt there was not enough evidence to criminally prosecute, since all involved were drunk.
In civil court, witnesses for the defense supplied other details. Earlier in the night, the girl was drunk and flirting. She rubbed up against a young man and grabbed his genitals. She performed a bawdy lap dance in front of other party-goers. She made a graphic sexual invitation.
Is it rape?
Today, the jury in the civil suit found the defendants not liable on any of 10 charges, including two counts of rape. I am not surprised.
I am not surprised because as a culture we are sorely unaware of the dynamics of rape and its motivations.
But I believe a rape did occur, and here’s why.
Rape is sex without consent, plain and simple. In this case, the plaintiff argued that there was no consent because the woman was intoxicated, unconscious, or both. Everyone agreed that six or seven hours after the alleged assault, the young woman’s blood-alcohol level was at least twice the legal limit for driving under the influence. However, unlike drunk-driving, there is no legal limit at which a blood alcohol level automatically indicates lack of consent. Hence, the plaintiff and defense argued over the timing of the teen’s peak blood alcohol level.
The defense expert testified that the teen had not reached peak blood alcohol level until after she had left the bedroom, while the plaintiff’s toxicology expert testified that she had reached peak level while in the bedroom. So expert evidence is contradictory.
However, when the soccer girls found the young woman, they say she was passed out on the bed and in need of help to rise up and walk to a car. That sounds like “peak level”–or at least, a level at which consent was impossible–before she left the bedroom.
Rapists rape for different reasons. Gang rapes, which are most common among sports teams, fraternities and criminal gangs, are often male bonding rituals meant to degrade a woman as men enact male superiority.
This was sex with a nearly comatose girl, an object–a sex object–used by others. The whole scenario looked more like a degradation ceremony than sex. One man left the room and told a friend, “There is a girl … basically getting gang banged.” Yet when the soccer players forced their way into the room, another man allegedly branded the teen, “a ho” who “wanted it.”
Another young woman came forward to say that one of the baseball players had raped her in the same small room 10 weeks before. But his insurance company settled last week, making him no longer a defendant and testimony about him inadmissible.
Defense attorneys asserted everything was on the up-and-up, insisting, “If it weren’t for the soccer girls, we wouldn’t be here.” The plaintiff rebutted: “If it weren’t for the soccer girls, the attack would have continued,” adding, “For how long? Hours? Would she have woken up in the morning?”
Some still, horrendously, blame the victim: She should have known better than to let herself get drunk, they say. The accused insisted she invited the behavior. She had propositioned the men.
Was the teen an unwise, and possibly troubled, girl? Maybe. Was she raped? By any reasonable standard, yes.
This post originally appeared in the Ms. Magazine Blog April 8, 2011
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Men Prefer Great Hair Over Big Breasts?
Sixty percent of men would rather date a woman with great hair than big breasts. Fabulous hair also topped low-cut blouses when it came to alluring men in bars. So says a recent survey reported in Glamour.
Do keep in mind that 40% chose breasts over hair. So if you’re well-endowed, not to worry.
Is this true? Some wonder. After all, Pantene commissioned the study.
The research has been picked up and widely reported. Here are a few comments from men on the topic.
- On my list of attributes I wanted, “hair longer than mine” ranked well above “a chest larger than mine.”
- The face/hair falls #1 on the thing my friends and I notice first about attractive ladies. It’s not that we ignore the other blessings bestowed upon a beautiful woman, but what’s above the neckline determines approachability and friendliness and gives a much better sense of the person than cleavage. I have no friends who discriminate based on cup size, and bras today can make Betty White’s breasts appear firm. (NOTE: Admittedly, I’m almost 40. So maybe we older dudes judge by different standards.)
- We would notice your curves first, ass, chest, legs and the way you stand. But your head will become our primary focus after that. Your face, your hair, your smile is what charm us. We really notice your hairstyle, especially if it’s a nice cut. It’s also a mirror of your personality, of how you can take care of yourself, it’s feminine and sexy.
The survey results make some sense. Keira Knightley and Paris Hilton have both landed on FHM’s “sexiest women” list. They both have great hair, but little cleavage. A past roommate of mine had gorgeous hair and face but very little “up top,” as they say, yet men went nuts for her.
Related research shows that men usually rank face over body in some circumstances too. Surprising? Given a choice between seeing a woman’s face or body, 75% of men preferred to see face for long-term relationships, compared with 51% who wanted to see body for a short fling.
Overall, I would call this good news. First, maintaining beautiful hair is not dangerous, unlike going under a knife for implants.
And, I appreciate the sense that face and hair reveal personality and give a sense of who the woman is, while cleavage does not. Men caring more about women as people than objects. Who knew?
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Feminist Click Moment: You’re Against Battered Women’s Shelters?!
“We’ve got to stop those feminists from setting up a battered women’s shelter!”
So proclaimed my piano teacher in numerous post-lesson conversations with my mom. When she wasn’t grumbling about shelters she was remarking on how lovely Phyllis Schlafly’s bouffant looked alongside those long-haired feminists.
I didn’t get it. “Why doesn’t she want shelters?” I asked my mom.
Mom didn’t get it either. “I suppose she’s concerned that they don’t have the right training to run one,” she speculated.
Actually, my piano teacher probably didn’t know why she was against shelters, either. Aligned with “the F-word,” they must be bad.
None of us knew. But as it turns out, the whole family-values agenda that my teacher so revered was intent on maintaining male power and female submission.
My piano teacher was a member of my church. Back then, in the ’70s, Mormonism was in major backlash against the feminist movement. And that gave rise to a series of little “clicks,” leading up to a major feminist “click” moment for me.
In my church’s backlash, women were suddenly forbidden from leading prayer during worship services. Worse yet (to me), girls had to wear dresses to “Activity Night,” and lessons on the importance of marriage overtook other activities.
Priesthood, forbidden to women, is bestowed upon all males at age 12. If gender inequality were not bad enough, watching my late-maturing boy-peers take on that mantel seemed ludicrous. I was especially not happy when my little brother received the priesthood. Worse, my divorced mother then declared him “head of home,” presiding over my grandmother, mother and me. I wasn’t having any of it, so that befuddled notion never became reality.
The final click? The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back? Although Mormonism gave up polygamy (“Mormon Fundamentalists” keep the tradition), from the time I was little I was taught that polygamy was the way of Heaven because, ironically, women were sweeter in spirit so there would be more of us up there. I suddenly realized that if I were the best person I could be, my eternal reward would be second-class status as a woman and marriage to a polygamous man. Heaven? Sounded more like Hell to me.
Interestingly, I attended my old congregation a while back while visiting my mother, and heard an announcement that her congregation was raising money for a battered women’s shelter! I also heard concern that “unequal spousal relationships” were a primary cause of family disintegration. Maybe that’s hopeful. I know many young feminist women who today live in peace with Mormonism. Some have even started a blog: Feminist Mormon Housewives.
Oddly, in some ways my whole trauma has an upside. I don’t know if I would have found my life calling–teaching women’s studies, and writing for the Ms. Blog and creating my own BroadBlogs–if it weren’t for my church’s formidable effort to turn me against feminism. So, in a strange way, I’m tempted to say “thank you.” Too bad the cost is so high.
I originally wrote thisfor the Ms. Magazine Blog on March 30, 2011.
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Sex: From Casual Pleasures to Deep Connection. Readers Discuss
Below are comments on how women and men experience themselves, and how they think sex is best, based on earlier posts: “Are Women Naturally Monogamous?” and “Are Women Culturally Monogamous?” They’re edited for brevity and clarity. I’ve organized comments and added my own in italics. The comments typically revolve around the advantages of casual pleasures versus deep connection.
Polygamous women
- Divorced at age 33, I experienced a natural heightening of sexual interest and there were a number of men with whom I had sex during the next 7-8 years. I enjoyed it all tremendously and learned a lot about men and about myself. During that time, I met only one man I would have considered as a life partner. Now I realize that the relationship was great because the sex was great.
- If women were paid equally and had equal opportunity in the job market, I think that monogamy would be weakened. When I earned more than my husband, and could survive financially on my own, my sexual behavior changed as well.
- I seem to be different than the study (enjoying a variety of partners), but then so are most males I know (more monogamous).
Polygamous men
- Sex is so pleasurable. Why limit yourself from pleasure so long as everyone knows the ground rules – that this is about pleasure and not about commitment or love.
- Sex is magical. I would like to have sex with as many women as possible. But I always thought women experienced sex the same as I do. It hadn’t occurred to me that they might not.
Research suggests that women, on average, don’t enjoy sex as much as men do. U.S. women enjoy sex less than women in some cultures, but more than women in others. I’ll explore why later. The difference in enjoyment is not based on biology, but culture.
Jealousy and not loving equally
Women who are interested in polygamous sex can discover difficulties:
- As a lesbian I have a perspective that is completely woman oriented. I personally have had more than one lover at a time and found it difficult since I was always trying to explain why I was leaving to visit someone else. One always seems to love one more than the other.
Having sex because you’re expected to
- Here is my confession – two or three times I allowed myself to be picked up at a party or a bar. I am still so ashamed of those incidents. Remembering them makes me feel so dirty! I thought it was expected. You know – times were changing. Everybody did it. I now believe I let myself be used by men who were only after a little fun and had no serious intentions.
- I let myself be used by men who were only looking for fun… then I felt ashamed! Many women were brainwashed into believing they would enjoy it as much as men only to realize they were no more than a toilet bowl or conquest. I am sorry to disappoint but sex ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Many may hide the shame and humiliation they feel by saying they liked it.
Women are punished for sex
Some women may feel pressured to have sex, but women are also punished when they have it, labeled “sluts”:
- The stigma attached to women likely keeps the number (of lovers they report) low
- (At least men) seem to have each others’ backs. Women don’t. They’re often quick to stab each other in the back.
Meeting social expectations: Men
- Men might be lying too since the cultural expectation for them seems to be quantity rather than quality.
- Men also have cultural expectations to live up to: amass notches on their belts.
- I wanted to have threesomes for the longest time. Then I realized it was largely about feeling left out of something I thought everyone else was doing.
Agreed. There are plenty of pressures on men, too. Women claim 5 lovers and men claim 12. Women must be underestimating and men exaggerating. The real number for both is likely in between: 8 or 9. Men also watch porn, think it’s an accurate portrayal of womens sexuality, and end up thinking they are missing out on a lot of action (that no one else is getting, either).
Meeting social expectations: Women and men
- I think you hit the nail on the head when you stated “Western women are much more monogamous than our Tahitian or American Indian sisters were before European contact.” I don’t think any of us are pre-wired to remain with one person all 80 plus years that we walk this earth. Man or woman. As humans we make that CHOICE to do so. What it comes down to is one having their own mind. Neither man nor woman should continue to be concerned with what current society dictates.
Women desiring depth, connection
- Women prefer depth, romance, quality in a relationship. They know that the closer one is in spirituality, emotions, the better the sex. Women need that depth to be fulfilled.
- A purely physical relationship requires little work. You don’t have to concern yourself with messy thoughts or feelings beyond the immediate moment. It’s shallow and one dimensional. Real relationship takes depth: looking at someone’s worth beyond pretty eyes, nice butt, and teeth.
- I have heard some women say they enjoy casual sex – but in 62 years I have heard far more say they haven’t enjoyed any sex let alone casual – meaningless sex. It’s intimacy we want! But I am still waiting for the rush of women who can honestly tell us about all the hot meaningless sex we have been missing! I’m all ears?
Men desiring depth, connection
A woman’s perspective
- I met both kinds of guys when I was dating. I met guys who seemed downright anxious to connect on a deeper level and guys who would lie in a NY minute if they thought it would get them into my pants faster.
A man’s perspective
- Our sexuality and the expression of it before and during (and after) marriage is, I am convinced, one of the more complicated aspects of what it means to be human. One could argue that God created men and women different sexually (in all the ways!) because to come together in meaningful intimacy (erotic or sexual) requires the development and expression of our deepest and highest virtues—sacrifice, humility, and kindness (even long-suffering at times!), and especially love. It is among the most meaningful and challenging dances we do.
And, don’t forget the men in men’s studies. Both Michael Kimmel and John Stoltenberg recommend men do sex from a place of love and commitment, and they say that is where they come from, themselves.
SOURCES: Comments from:
Blogs: BroadBlogs, BroadBlogs, and FreeMeNow
My Facebook site
Various lists responded either to the list, or to me via email
Student discussions
A version of this post was originally published August 23, 2010 as “Readers Discuss: Are Women Polygamous?”
BroadBlogs 