Category Archives: relationships
Charlie Sheen: Winning. But Is He Happy?
Charlie Sheen is obsessed with winning, as in, “The only thing I’m addicted to right now is winning…” “Just winning every second…” “Winning, anyone?…” “Duh, winning!”
What’s winning? To Charlie it’s sleeping with all the attractive women he can buy, and treating them anyway he wants. When he abuses women does “beating” carry a double entendre – batter and win?
Two trains of thought prevail on the source of happiness. One side advocates freedom. The other, deep bonds.
Charlie, the libertine, seeks the former. Devoid of moral or social restraint, he feels more deserving of freedom than others. After all, the libertine’s liberty comes through other’s bondage.
Winning. Conquering. Total liberty as burden heaps onto others.
While your classic libertine could indulge in rape, murder and mayhem without much thought for the victims (think Marquis de Sade), Charlie may actually experience some, uh, “concern for others” (quotes indicating irony) seeking to believe his victims enjoy it, too. A little narcissism can help with that: I’m feelin’ good, so you must, too.
When Andrea Canning asked in a 20/20 interview how he thought the women felt, Charlie explained, “I expose people to magic. I expose them to something they’re never otherwise going to get to see in their normal, boring lives.”
Let’s see, death threats, beatings, shooting, a rampage. Magic, indeed.
It helps when others are things – objects, sex objects – to be treated anyway you want. Yet as the “thing” becomes dehumanized, so does the dehumanizer.
Charlie Sheen: part libertine, part narcissist. Either way, it’s all about himself. Me, me, me without any real concern for you.
Yes, two perspectives prevail on the roots of happiness: freedom versus deep bonds. Social research suggests that deep connection is what actually creates bliss.
In fact, some see addiction as arising out of deficiencies in deep spiritual bonds, whether the craving is for drugs/alcohol, sex, or thrills. Sheen may be exhibiting each of these. Making us wonder how joyful he really is.
Some suspect Sheen is mentally ill. If former child star, Todd Bridges, is right there may be a connection between drugs and this illness. In a discussion on The View this week, Bridges said that stopping cocaine use led him into “cocaine psychosis,” which he believes Sheen may be experiencing now.
Of course, Charlie thinks he’s fine. He’s winning. And he repeats it so often that you have to wonder who he’s trying to convince.
What is happiness’ source? Deep connection? Total freedom? Treating others like objects to be used, abused and tossed away? Drug use?
Winning and happy? That depends on your pursuit.
Georgia Platts
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Charlie Sheen: Celebrating a Bad-Boy Who Abuses Women
Men Finding Fewer Women “Porn-Worthy”
Real Women Competing With Porn Stars
Sex Objects Who Don’t Enjoy Sex
Share this:
Sex Objects Who Don’t Enjoy Sex
Sexualizing women can have its perks in the bedroom, with breast fetishes and butt fetishes heightening men’s arousal.
But surprisingly, sexualizing women can have the opposite effect, harming both men’s and women’s enjoyment. And in many ways. Here’s one: self-objectification.
Drowning in “sexy women” images, men and women can both come to see women as the sexy half of the species. So what happens in bed? Because men aren’t seen as especially sexy (at least by comparison) men are focused on women and women can be focused on themselves.
Caroline Heldman, assistant professor at Occidental College, found that some women become preoccupied with how they look instead of the sexual experience. “One young woman I interviewed described sex as being an ‘out of body’ experience,” she said. “She viewed herself through the eyes of her lover, and, sometimes, through the imaginary lens of a camera shooting a porn film.”
Sounds a bit like Paris Hilton: “My boyfriends say I’m sexy but not sexual,” she mused. “Being ‘hot’ is a pose, an act, a tool, and entirely divorced from either physical pleasure or romantic love.”
Heldman feels that girls and women are learning to eroticize male sexual pleasure as though it were their own. She feels they need to explore their sexuality in more empowering and satisfying ways than this vicarious act.
Cultural theorist Jackson Katz has similar concerns. “Many young women are now engaged in sex acts with men that prioritize the man’s pleasure,” he reflected, “with little or no expectation of reciprocity.”
When having sex, these young women may be enjoying themselves, and how nice they look. They may gain a boost to self-esteem as they dwell on their “hotness.” But they’re not enjoying sex.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Women Seeing Women as Sexier than Men
Women Learn the Breast Fetish, Too
Surprises in Indiana University Sex Survey
Share this:
What Abusers and “Pro-Family” Conservatives Have in Common
Birth control sabotage has been revealed to be a common form of partner abuse. In a report released earlier this week by the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 25 percent of women callers to the hot line, who voluntarily answered questions about birth control and pressure to get pregnant in their relationships, reported some form of reproductive coercion.
The callers said their partners hid birth control pills or flushed them down the toilet. Some refused to wear condoms or poked holes in them. One woman’s partner became furious when she recently got her period.
The study’s authors state firmly that reproductive coercion is a form of abuse. Family Violence Prevention Fund president Esta Soler says, “While there is a cultural assumption that some women use pregnancy as a way to trap their partner in a relationship, this survey shows that men who are abusive will sabotage their partner’s birth control and pressure them to become pregnant as a way to trap or control their partner.”
And physical and emotional abuse go hand-in-hand with birth control sabotage: Another study on reproductive coercion found that one-third of women using reproductive health clinics (of five studied), whose partners were physically abusive, also said their partners had pressured or forced them into pregnancy, often hiding or destroying contraception.
This tactic should alarm feminists and anti-domestic-violence workers. It also suggests a revealing political analogy.
It seems these ostensibly “pro-family” men, who are busily destroying contraception in pursuit of children, have a lot in common with the “pro-family” (read: anti-reproductive rights) political agenda.
So why aren’t we willing to call the anti-choice agenda abusive, too?
The conservative political agenda is anti-women working outside the home, anti-abortion, anti-birth control, and once upon a time, anti-battered women’s shelters (the better to keep women inside the home and attached to intact nuclear families). Each of these stances, in some way, disempowers women.
It’s easy to see how restricting shelters keeps women under the thumb of abusive men: It’s a no brainer. If there’s no safe place to go, you’re trapped.
The same holds for denying women access to birth control or abortion. If you’re pregnant with this man’s child, you’re attached–you’re trapped, again, by an unwanted pregnancy.
And women who don’t work outside the home tend to have less say within it. Not to mention that a lack of income makes it hard to leave an abusive partner.
The “pro-family” political agenda may claim to uphold “traditional” American values, but for for many young men claiming to want “normal” nuclear families, pregnancy coercion is a form of abuse and control. What kind of “family values” are those?
Georgia Platts
This post originally appeared in the Ms. Magazine Blog, February 18, 2011
Related Posts on BroadBlogs
Are You Pro Life, Or Do You Just Want To Control Women?
Patriarchy’s Role in Shielding Pedophile Priests
Is Sexism Men’s Fault?
Share this:
Passionate Love: Like a Drug, or Mental Illness
The passion of early love! Giddy, and intense. Heart thumping in the yearning breast. Can’t eat, can’t sleep. Can think of little else.
In fact, passionate love is like a drug. Or a mental illness.
Researchers asked volunteers to look at photos of their partners. Those in passionate love responded in ways similar to drug addiction, as captured in brain imaging. Lead researcher, Helen Fisher, commented, “When I first started looking at the properties of infatuation,” she said, “they had some of the same elements of a cocaine high: sleeplessness, loss of a sense of time, absolute focus on love to the detriment of all around you.”
According to Psychology Today, a brain chemical connected to falling in love rises with infatuation, heightening euphoria and excitement.
Meanwhile, brain areas that control impulses, fear and negativity become less active. Obsession and reckless behavior increase. As Dr. Fisher put it, “Infatuation can overtake the rational parts of your brain.” Passionate love resembling mental illness.
The turbulent times are marked by ecstasy and fulfillment when love is returned; but sadness and despair when it is not.
Over time passionate love settles a bit. Not a bad thing, really, for who can function drug-addicted and mentally ill?
Something is lost, but something may also be gained as greater intimacy and commitment join passionate affection, rounding out the three pillars of love, which psychologist, Robert Sternberg has identified in his “triangular theory of love.”
Sternberg calls love that is marked only by “intimacy,” but not passion or commitment, “liking love,” or good friends.
When love consists only of “commitment,” nothing but duty keeps a couple together. He calls this “empty love.”
But when intimacy and commitment meet passion, a couple moves into “consummate love,” the best of all worlds.
Few couples continually stay in a state of consuming love. And many will go through various loving styles as feelings rise, fall, and rise again.
Perhaps the trick is going with the flow and creating ways to enliven the relationship.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Men Watch Porn, Women Read Romance. Why?
Men Have Higher Sex Drive. Why?
Orgasm: It’s All in the Mind
Share this:
Men Have Higher Sex Drive. Why?
While some women have stronger sex drives than some men, generally the pattern goes the other way.
Why is the male sex drive usually stronger?
Researchers at Indiana University say,
Women had a wider range of response, with some loving sex, and others feeling uninterested. Generally, women have more difficulty with arousal for both anatomical and psychological reasons.
Difficulty with arousal won’t likely lead to a strong sex drive. Biology and psychology both seem to play a role. Let’s start with biology.
Sexual Biology
According to Louann Brizendine, author of the books, The Female Brain and The Male Brain, the area governing sexuality takes up twice as much space in the male. And the part that controls desire to pursue is 2½ times greater, and more quickly activated. (This is exaggerated and stereotyped in the accompanying photo.)
Brizendine tells us that when the male brain is sexually activated pretty much everything but thoughts of sex shut down. Women certainly can stay focused, but they are more likely than men to be distracted with concerns about the kids’ lunches, a scheduled business meeting, or whether they’ll be labeled a “slut” the next day.
But Dr. Brizendine’s book has met criticism. Dr. Cordelia Fine is a University of Melbourne professor who specializes in social psychology and neuroscientific research. She points out that 1) neuroscience is in its infancy, 2) you cannot determine whether any particular brain is male or female at the individual level, and 3) brain structure is affected by experience. If a woman’s sexuality is punished and repressed, the parts of her brain associated with sexuality will be affected. If a man’s sexuality is celebrated, his brain will also be affected.
But anatomy could have an effect. A penis must ejaculate on a regular basis to create fresh sperm. A penis is also larger than a clitoris. Both of these things might make its workings more obvious so that boys are more likely to masturbate, and girls are less likely to get to know their bodies and what arouses them. An erect penis also gives men a lot of feedback, while women’s genitals seem to provide less: Men looking at a naked body are much more likely to feel aroused than women doing the same thing. But women’s bodies are also much more sexualized by our culture — that may play a role. And the repression of women’s sexuality in our society may also affect genital feedback to the brain.
Of course, men do have much more testosterone, crucial to sex drive. Even when women and men are both treated with testosterone for low libido, the hormone is less effective in women, according to Dr. Glenn Braunstein of Cedars Sinai Medical Center. But women are more sensitive to the testosterone that they do have.
But in women’s favor, they seem to be more capable of multiple orgasm. Some think women’s sex drive could be innately stronger than men’s for that reason. Who knows?
Sexual Psychology
Because psychology affects biology, I’ve already mentioned that women’s sexuality is more punished and repressed in our culture. Men who have sex have been variously praised as players, studs, Casanovas, Don Juans, and lady killers. They are “high-fived” for “scoring.” But women are called sluts, hoes, whores, skanks… Men sport a cocky cock, while a vagina is called “down there.” Or, women get screwed, rammed, nailed, cut, boned, banged, smacked, beaten, and f’d, in street parlance.
Sexual violence doesn’t help, either, and it’s something that more egalitarian, sex-positive societies lack.
Meanwhile, because women’s bodies are so much more sexualized and sexually revealed, men get far more provocation on a daily basis.
In societies where women’s sexuality is not repressed and not objectified, they greatly enjoy sex and behave in ways that are similar to men.
But in our repressive world, women experience more sexual problems. In fact, nearly half of American women report having experienced some form of sexual dysfunction. University of Texas, Austin researchers reported in Why Women Have Sex that one-third of women, aged 18-23, felt little sexual interest in the prior year. But only 14% of men did. Meanwhile, 30-40% of women reported difficulty climaxing. Among those in a relationship, 75% of men said they always had an orgasm, but only 26% of women did. This difference likely affects how much each gender desires sex, since one is more consistently rewarded.
Interest and enjoyment needn’t be such a problem for women. And culture, more than biology, seems to be the culprit. The University of Texas researchers note that women are easily orgasmic in cultures where women are expected to enjoy sexuality. But they aren’t in places where they are repressed.
While women are taught that they are bad if they like sex too much, men are taught the opposite. The male role casts men as being ever-desirous, which could propel them to live up to expectations.
Meanwhile, both men and women learn to see women as the sexier sex. So men can be with someone who’s very physically alluring. But women aren’t taught to see men in the same way. Men can focus on a breast fetish. What are women supposed to pay attention to? No fetish is attached to the male. No wonder we’re less interested.
Sex also provides one of the few vehicles for men to experience emotional closeness. Men need that intimacy, yet the male role leaves them repressing their emotions. Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity, feels that “For men, sex is the connection. Sex is the language men use to express their tender loving vulnerable side.”
So how do women and men come together? Large cultural changes would help. Seeing women primarily as the sexy half of the species doesn’t aid women’s sex drive. It would help women to live in a less sexually repressive culture, while men would gain from a less emotionally repressive society. But given that this is our reality, perhaps both women and men could use some counseling or therapy. Communication and acting from a place of love to accomodate each other would surely help, too.
Sure, some women really take pleasure in sexuality, but the heightened and more widespread enjoyment of our sisters who come out of non-shaming cultures tell us that women could be loving sex a whole lot more.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Sex Drive: How Men and Women Match Up
Women Seeing Women as Sexier than Men
Orgasm: It’s All in the Mind
“Cock” vs “Down There”
Share this:
Sex Drive: How Men and Women Match Up
According to Marta Meana, psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, data overwhelmingly show that, typically, men have a higher sex drive than women, when measured by the frequency of fantasy, masturbation and sexual activity.
WebMD concurs, noting that study after study shows men with the stronger drive: “Men want sex more often than women at the start of a relationship, in the middle of it, and after many years of it,” according to Roy Baumeister, a social psychologist at Florida State University. Most men under 60 think about sex at least once a day, but only one-quarter of women do. Older men fantasize less, but still twice as often as their female counterparts. Men say they want more sex partners in their lifetime, they are more interested in casual sex, and they are much more likely than women to buy sex.
Norah Vincent passed as a man in an attempt to get inside the male psyche. After living as a “man” among men for a year and a half, she described the male sex drive as “relentless,” an “obsession with f’ing.” Male reviewers of Self-Made Man found her insights credible.
Or as one man described the unyielding obsession, “Someone needs to invent a drug which has no hormonal imbalance side-effects but is able to erase a man’s sex drive and attraction to women. It would increase productivity rates to incredible heights. I’d be free and happy. I’d feel complete. I’d be able to concentrate on my biochemistry studying.”
Some women want more sex than their partners, but in general the pattern goes the other way.
Given their lower drive, it’s not surprising that women are also choosier. Most men find most women at least somewhat sexually attractive, whereas most women do not find most men sexually attractive at all, according to the University of Texas, Austin researchers who wrote Why Women Have Sex.
And, women are pickier about both “who” and “how.” They tend to want more connection and romance. Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity, says that women’s desire “is more contextual, more subjective, more layered on a lattice of emotion.” She says, “For women there is a need for a plot — hence the romance novel. It is more about the anticipation, how you get there; it is the longing that is the fuel for desire.”
Life can be difficult with such a large gap between the sexes.
Next week I’ll discuss which biological and cultural factors create this gap, and how we might even things out.
Georgia Platts
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Women: Climax Less Likely in Relationship Sex
Men: Climax More Likely in Relationship Sex
Orgasm: It’s All in the Mind
Share this:
Real Women Competing With Porn Stars
Overconsumption of porn is having unintended consequences.
Once upon a time men were hesitant to purchase pornography. Walk into an adult bookstore or movie house? Ring up a purchase with the girl at the counter? Way too embarrassing. But now internet porn is easily available in the anonymity of home. It’s even free. Porn has gone mainstream. Who doesn’t do it anymore?
But porntopia has an unexpected downside. Standards of sexiness are growing narrower. Some men expect their partners to act like porn stars. Sometimes both. Everyone ends up disappointed.
Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training, and this is having a huge effect on how they interact.
So said Naomi Wolf after a college campus tour.
In sum: women are now expected to behave like actresses in porn flicks. Emphasis on “actress.” Even porn stars don’t behave that way at home.
And how do the actresses act? It’s male fantasy: It’s all about the guy.
Pamela Paul found something similar in her research for Pornified:
Among men who overconsume porn, real women are now expected to: Howl and moan with delight at the sight of the male member, or in anticipation of oral sex. They must enthusiastically swallow, let their boyfriends ejaculate on their faces and bodies, or maybe be peed upon. Suggesting an interest in lesbianism is always good. And through it all, they’re expected to have quick, easy orgasms. Ideally without much foreplay.
A man named Luis reported,
I’ve broken up with women who wouldn’t perform certain things.
Some recognize the problem. A man named Harrison stated,
I think that a guy’s expectations of his partner might be affected by the images he sees in porn. People’s expectations of their partner’s sexual performance or of what their partners might be willing to do might be unrealistic.
A 2004 Elle-MSNBC.com poll found that 35% of men felt sex with real woman had become less arousing. Twenty percent said the real thing couldn’t compete with virtual sex.
If women want to compete, they’ll need to become actresses, too. Not so much fun for them.
Women who bed these men end up feeling empty and unsatisfied. After watching porn with her boyfriend, a woman named Cara observed,
The women were all fake. No intimacy, nothing sensual. Even when he and I were intimate, the sex wasn’t intimate.
Perhaps this is what happens when sex objects have sex — and not when flesh and blood human beings have sex.
Distracted by candy, everyone ends up missing something more nourishing and substantive. We miss out on the deep, connected intimacy that brings so much meaning to relationship. Soul needs.
Why act in ways that leave us empty and spiritually wanting? Is he that into you to be worth it? The focus on his pleasure, only, suggests he is not.
Popular posts on BroadBlogs
Men Finding Fewer Women “Porn-Worthy”
Real Men Competing With Porn Stars
Men Watch Porn, Women Read Romance. Why?
Share this:
Men: Climax More Likely in Relationship Sex
Indiana University’s recent sex survey found that men were more likely to climax if they were in a relationship. But women had more difficulty with arousal when they were in one.
Surprising! What’s up?
Today we’ll explore men. (A past post explored women.)
On the one hand, men say they’d like a lot of partners. According to The Male Brain, men report wanting 14 partners, lifetime, while women say they want only one or two. In my women’s studies classes many men felt that their friends would like to have sex with as many women as possible. Researchers at the University of Texas found that men were far less picky than women, and were more likely to have sex simply because the opportunity presented itself. An awful lot of porn (men’s fantasies on screen) revolves around sex with lots of random women, too.
So the Indiana University study doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. You’d expect that men would be more sexually satisfied with a lot of casual partners.
But that’s not what the data showed. Researchers asked men and women about the last time they had sex: Were you with a relationship partner or not? What activities did you engage in? Did you have an orgasm? How much did you enjoy the sexual experience?
When controlling for age and health, men aged 18 to 59 were more likely to enjoy sex and achieve orgasm when they were in a relationship than when they were with a new partner. They indicated greater arousal, greater pleasure, less pain, fewer problems with erectile dysfunction, and greater chance of orgasm.
So what’s up?
Imagination versus reality: Fantasy may seek novelty and variety, but men feel more comfortable and relaxed with their partners, who show patience and give reassurance if there are problems, leaving men with less performance anxiety. Partners who have been together a while may have honed their techniques, too.
Sure, men can feel relaxed with dream partners. Reality can be different.
Something deeper may be at play, too. Women often say sex is best in a context of love and connection. Men don’t talk about this as much, but sex can take on a deepness and richness in relationship that casual sex can’t match, whether you are male or female.
Popular culture sees women as out to trap men, becoming the old “ball and chain” when they succeed. But men need companionship. They rarely leave their partners unless they’ve got someone else lined up. After a death or divorce men are much quicker than women to remarry, forgoing an unfettered sex life. Partly because women care for men, support them, and create emotional closeness.
But relationship may also bring men better sex.
Georgia Platts
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Surprises in Indiana University Sex Survey
Women: Climax Less Likely in Relationship Sex
Orgasm: It’s All in the Mind
Sex Lessons from Mom and Dad
Share this:
Gay Marriage Protects Marriage
“Mamma, don’t let your daughters grow up to marry gay cowboys.” A headline I once saw.
I get that. Because some of my friends have tried it. Except for the cowboy part.
One of my friends married a man, only to come home early one day to find him in bed with another man.
Another acquaintance, raised in a religious family, married a woman in hopes of living a good Christian life.
They’re all now divorced.
Gays marrying straights does not help the divorce rate.
Gays marrying gays could be a relief to single gals. After my friends’ experiences I became paranoid that a gay man would try to marry me, trying to pass or not be gay, or something. I wished that gays could simply marry who they wanted so I wouldn’t have to deal with that.
Meanwhile, some insist that marriage was meant for procreation.
In that case, everyone from my birth family, except for my brother, would have to get divorced immediately. My father and his wife, whom he married late in life, never had children. My mother and her husband married in their 60’s. I’ve suffered fertility problems, myself. My brother, who sired three children, is the only one who’s safe from these folks.
Please, protect my marriage from these “marriage protection” types!
In 2008 Californians passed the California Marriage Protection Act, aka, Prop 8, which states that only marriage between a man and a woman is legal and recognized.
On Wednesday, August 04, 2010, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled the Proposition “unconstitutional under both the due process and equal protection clauses.” The court, therefore, “orders entry of judgment permanently enjoining its enforcement.”
Good.
Gay marriage is good for marriage.
Georgia Platts
This post was originally published August 5, 2010
Share this:
Porn: Pro and Con
When it comes to pornography feminists are divided. Where do you stand?
Pro-porn feminists
Feminists who call themselves “sex-positive” say sexual freedom is essential to women’s freedom. They feel patriarchy represses women’s sexual expression, and say porn can liberate through challenging conventional notions that women should be monogamous, romantic, and that sex should be tied to procreation. They do not believe that laws written in a male-dominated society would serve women’s interests.
Anti-porn feminists
Many feminists who oppose pornography say it turns women into objects, promotes misogyny, eroticizes male dominance, and leads to violence against women. As one anti-porn blogger put it, “instead of being portrayed as individuals, as human beings, they are treated as fragmented body parts; women, men and children are depicted and used as holes, cunts, living sex aids, receptacles for the depositing of waste fluids.”
Others worry that porn can lead men who over consume to become disinterested in real women. Naomi Wolf points out that some porn-users come to find real women less than porn-worthy, in body or in bed, leading to detrimental effects on relationships. High consumption can leave sex without its mystery and men with decreased libido.
Does pornography cause violence against women?
Studies are not conclusive.
Researchers asked male volunteers to administer electric shocks to women, under the guise of providing feedback in learning experiments. Men who had been exposed to violent and humiliating pornography were more aggressive in administering shocks.
Men who were shown violent and humiliating pornography also developed attitudes that were closer to those of rapists’. But the effects evaporated after a couple of months. Of course, men who view violent and humiliating pornography probably don’t wait a couple of months between viewing.
But we still don’t know whether pornography causes actual rape.
On the other hand, correlation studies often find that the more pornography is consumed, the lower the rate of rape. Does pornography decrease rape? Other factors could be in play. Over the last 20 years:
- pornography consumption increased due to the Internet
- women’s power and status rose because of increased opportunity in our society
- the rate of rape decreased according to Justice Department victimization surveys
Has rape decreased because of higher pornography consumption or because women’s power and status has broadly risen despite porn?
Civil Libertarian Feminists
Other feminists believe that pornography is offensive and even harmful, but they feel that protection of individual rights and freedoms is more important.
What should be done?
Should pornography be celebrated as “pro-sex” feminists believe? Should laws be imposed against pornography as many anti-porn feminists advocate, and as civil libertarians fear? Should those who are concerned about negative effects of pornography turn to dialogue and education rather than the law?
Where do you come down on the issue?
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Orgasm: It’s All in the Mind
Women Learn the Breast Fetish, Too
Sex Objects Who Don’t Enjoy Sex
BroadBlogs 