Category Archives: sexism
Did Women Create Burqa Culture?
The upcoming French vote on the burqa ban has got me thinking. We hear talk of how women should keep their culture. But did women have equal power to create the burqa? And who benefits from this garment?
Meanwhile, 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 garments like burqas or niqabs (facemasks).
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 nice?
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 the 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 the family honor?
Did women clamor for a burqa that limits their power and autonomy – keeping them from driving 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 and 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
Also see: Early Islam’s Feminist Air
Don’t Reject Your Culture, Even When It Mutilates You
The Burqa and Individual Rights: It’s Complicated
Cultural Relativism: Must We Be Nazis to Criticize Them?
Why Are We More Offended By Racism Than Sexism?
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“Why I Left the KKK”: One Man’s Revelation
In The Republic, Socrates asked whether we should be good and just, and why.
A listener suggested that if we are trusted we’ll do better in our business and personal relationships.
But what if no one knows you are a good person?
“The gods will know, and reward us,” observed another.
But what if the gods don’t know that we’re good? Socrates pressed.
Later, I read Emerson on the same topic. His Minister had lectured that while the wicked are often successful, and while the righteous can be miserable, at least compensation would be made in the next life.
Emerson felt that the fallacy lay in conceding that the base estimate of the market constitutes success, and assuming that justice is not done now.
What REALLY makes us happy? Doing ill to others? Stepping on others so we can get ahead?
What Emerson and Socrates were getting at was made more real to me when I heard a man talk about why he had left the KKK.
He and his wife had become so filled with hatred in that organization that misery had overtaken their lives. They left because acting hatefully, hurting others, had ended up mostly hurting themselves.
As it turns out, when we work to harm others we harm ourselves.
Georgia Platts
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Ways of Seeing: Ravaged or Ravishing?
We are bombarded with thousands if not tens of thousands of images every day. Occasionally, two images come into such sharp contrast that they can’t be ignored. Such was the case when I opened the New York Times on Sunday, May 2. On page ten of that issue is a color photo of a 23 year old Congolese woman. The caption says her lips and right ear have been cut off by rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Her shorn head, the blackness of her face, the swollen pink oval around her mouth where her lips had once been (like the exaggerated lips of “Sambo” or minstrel characters once popular in American culture), and the sideway glance of her eyes as someone (perhaps her mother) touches her remaining ear with what seems tenderness. It is an image so heartbreaking as to make one weep.
In Ways of Seeing John Berger says, “The meaning of an image is changed according to what one sees immediately beside it or what comes immediately after it. Such authority as it retains is distributed over the whole context in which it appears.” Thus . . .
Immediately across the page from this photo is a full page Lord & Taylor ad of a beautiful white woman with long flowing dark hair, green eyes, perfect lips and two ears from which dangle long bejeweled earrings. She is arrayed in such opulence—necklace, pendant, bracelets, a giant opaline or turquoise ring, that the contrast with the Congolese woman is shocking. The juxtaposition of the two images is heightened by the fact that the Congolese woman wears a simple hand-crafted red and black blouse whereas the model wears what looks like an expensive hand-knitted ivory-colored chemise over a pink lace skirt. She holds in each hand a knitted handbag (“only $89”), each covered with roses and each holding a small dog, so laden that she seems barely able to hold them up. This cornucopia of luxury, this picture of desire would never be found in the Congo, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The ad’s caption—“We all have our creature comforts. . . Some of us more than others”—is so ironic as to be almost beyond irony. The motto compounds the irony: “Shop more. Guilt less.”
Again, John Berger, “A woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her. Her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste—indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence. . . . To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men.”
The Congolese woman, like the Greek Princess Philomela whose husband Terus cut out her tongue so she could not reveal that he had raped her, has likewise likely been raped and brutally silenced. The severing of her left ear compounds the violation. She will be so disfigured that probably no man will ever touch her again and no compassionate god will turn her into a nightingale.
The woman in the Lord and Taylor ad will be ravaged by the eyes of a million men who will yet never touch her skin except in their imaginations. And yet in her wildest imagination this white goddess could never see herself in the place of the black tongueless Congolese woman, nor the Congolese woman ever imagine herself in such a space as the woman in the ad inhabits.
Both of these images are part of the world we live in, although we tend to keep them in separate compartments of our consciousness. The one is horribly real, the other an unreal arrangement by Madison Avenue designers. On another day when they are not juxtaposed, we might consider each separately, but when they are thrust before us in such stark relief, we can turn from neither–only ponder what they tell us about how some of us have more creature comforts than others and how we can remain “guilt less”—and that we are somehow complicit in both.
Robert A. Rees teaches at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.
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Early Islam’s Feminist Air
The founders of three great religions, Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed (in order of appearance) were remarkably feminist in their leanings. In the month of Ramadan I would like to explore the feminist air of early Islam.
For centuries Muslim women enjoyed greater rights than most women in the world. The Koran gives women the right to work and to own property. Mohammed abolished female infanticide, slavery, and a widow’s obligation to marry her husband’s brother. Indeed, women were given the right to give their consent to marry.
Some things that look sexist today were a great step forward at the time. Women could become heir to one third of what a male inherited. (Since men’s role was to support women they were given extra help.) Muslim women were able to inherit much sooner than their Western sisters.
Islamic men are also allowed to marry up to four wives, and each wife must be treated equally. Doesn’t sound too heavenly to our ears, but this was progress from a time when men could marry as many women as they wanted.
Even the most problematic scripture in the Koran was an improvement. Chapter 4 verse 34 reads, “As for those women whose rebellion you justly fear, admonish them first; then leave their beds; then beat them.” This scripture actually gave women some protection against abuse in that men were cautioned against battering as the first response.
Some Islamic feminists note that there are other definitions for the word “daraba,” than “to beat,” one of which is “to go away.” Something to think about.
With early feminist beginnings it is not surprising that one of the largest, most egalitarian and peaceful societies is West Sumatra, Indonesia.
Yet over time the religion has become increasingly patriarchal in most corners of the world.
In what is claimed “countering Westernization,” Islamic states have kept busy restricting women’s rights, sometimes going against the Koran, as when the Taliban took away women’s right to work, or when the right to consent to marriage is ignored.
As one Islamic feminist put it, “Islam needs to go back to its progressive 7th century roots if it is to move forward into the 21st century.”
Sources:
Asra Q. Nomani. “A Gender Jihad for Islam’s Future.” The Washington Post. November 6, 2005
Neil MacFarquhar. “Translation of Koran Verse Spurs Debate.” San Jose Mercury News. March 25, 2007. (Originally published in the New York Times.)
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Readers Discuss: Porn, Pro and Con
This discussion comes mostly from the post I made to the blog, FreeMeNow. Also see Porn: Pro and Con and reposted Porn: Pro and Con on BroadBlogs.
Love most things pornographic. Not thrilled with Snuff flicks and underage porn at all!!
Pornography destroys men. They get hooked on it and cannot be satisfied by normal sex. Unless you have seen what porno has become – You cannot possibly know just how degrading, demeaning and humiliating it is to women.
Porn is not what it was 50 years ago, it is now not enough to have sex and look at the women’s parts — now the woman must be hurt, urinated on defecated on and humiliated in every way imaginable all while smiling and seeming to love it and beg for more.
I agree! Equal rights do not mean equal absurdity, equal stupidity or equal degradation. We don’t stoop down to reach their level and call that equal do we?
Instead of asking for more money, more representation in government and the highest job in the nation we are asking for PORN? We are asking for the right to be used as urinals to be jacked off into and onto? We are asking for the freedom to screw all over the place and be hog tied like swine so we can squeal like pigs for the pleasure of perverts.
God help us and then we wonder why we are murdered at the rate of 4 a day and our little girls are yanked out of their sleeping beds and raped then buried alive after he has had his fill. Porn leads to more porn which leads to kidde porn.
Women are women’s worse enemies. And I agree we don’t need laws to stop PORN – we need women to stop porn – the animals who use it won’t. If we elevate ourselves and unite- as a majority we will have the power to get for ALL women exactly what we want and need and will never again have to be used like this.
I think the porn that is available today is gross and should go the way of the dinosaur. Having said that, if porn were more female friendly (i.e. consensual sex with a partner, foreplay etc) it could be a good thing for society.
A recent content analysis of the 50 best-selling adult videos revealed that across all scenes, a total of 3,376 verbal and/or physically aggressive acts were observed. On average, scenes had 11.52 acts of either verbal or physical aggression, ranging from none to 128. Forty-eight percent of the 304 scenes analyzed contained verbal aggression, while more than 88% showed physical aggression.
Seventy-two percent of aggressive acts were perpetrated by men; 94% of aggressive acts were committed against women.
The most common responses victims expressed when aggressed were either pleasure or neutrality. Fewer than 5% of the aggressive acts provoked a negative response from the female victims, including flinching and requests to stop the action. This pornographic “reality” was further highlighted by the infrequency of more positive behaviors, such as verbal compliments, embracing, kissing, or laughter.
I think when we outlaw anything it increases the desire to have it.
That being said, porn is an estimated $13 billion industry. While I do not think that it should be celebrated I also do not think that porn of the 2000’s is as objectifying a porn of say the 70’s. It is also a plus that more women in the industry are getting behind the camera and creating a woman’s version of porn.
Men view sex differently than women. Porn just shows that difference on a mass level. The majority of porn is done with consenting adults. No matter the loose subject matter. On the other hand kiddie porn and snuff films deserve the attitude some have towards all porn. Some S&M gets way beyond what some people can watch comfortably, but again, done with consenting adults and fairly well paid adults
As to the question of whether or not porn decreases rape. I would say of those that have overactive sex drives, yes it does. However, there are many out there that feed off what they view on the screen. It can lead to needing harder core porn on an increasing level. But that is the name of the game with anything and American’s as a whole, suffer from that notion in all aspects of life, not just sexually speaking.
But, the question is how much of that need is driven by societies “distaste” of the subject. Some get off on knowing that if they watch porn they are now one of the sinners of this world. It is very titillating to sneak through a painted door with age warnings and walk into an expanse that is hidden from the world and is a playground of possibilities and beautiful girls and guys. Very heady stuff.
Perhaps the better question is this…If we embraced sex in all its forms….would there be less rape in this country? If we started treated women as equal to man would there be less objectification of women as a whole? Both are very big “ifs” but I would sure like to try it.
As to the law….when we can not or will not self govern….this is when the law steps in. If American truly wants to keep “big brother government” out of their lives…perhaps they had better start talking – and listening – and solving issues on their own. Signing something into law is a cop-out. The lazy way to address issues. Even if there becomes a law that forbids porn of any kind….what manpower will be there to enforce it? And in the bigger picture of things is porn worthy of law enforcement at the level of catching a murderer? Pick your poison.
I feel porn is degrading and dehumanizing for women. The female becomes an object; males view them as an object, a piece of trash, especially if females submit to the degradation.
The video games Grand Theft Auto; the musical lyrics of the Rapper Two Live Crew were so filthy; disgusting that a Florida attorney was so repulsed he sued them, to prevent the public airing during normal day hours… and won.
I absolutely agree with that stand …our children should not have the smut forced upon them under the guise that freedom of speech allows it! What about decency laws??? Parents shouldn’t feel compelled to keep their children under continual surveillance either. Sadly that atty after 30 yrs of clean honest practice of law suffered the wrath of Hollywood’s enormous power to force the smut …he was disbarred by the state of Florida and has fought a valiant fight but even the feds are submissive to the powers of the Hollywood elite at the detriment of the people ….and I want to know why Hilary Clinton won’t take a stand on that??? She had supported the lawyer during the initial battle but abandoned him in his time of need, as did the US Supreme Court; the so called justice system.
Back to the issue of porn…..I think a poll of HS and college students would also be very revealing; I’d bet the findings would speak loud & clear that porn is dehumanizing for women …and beauty has nothing to do in the equation …it’s a tool to exploit the female!
Exposure to X-rated films among 522 black females aged 14 to 18, was associated with being 2.0 times more likely to have multiple sex partners, 1.8 times more likely to have sex more frequently, 1.5 times more likely to have not used contraception during the last intercourse, 2.2 times as likely to have not used contraception in the past 6 months, more than twice as likely to have a strong desire to conceive, and 1.7 times more likely to test positive for Chlamydia.
Wingood, G., DiClemente, R., Harrington, K., Davies, S., Hook, E., & Oh, M. (2001). Exposure to X-rated movies and adolescents’ sexual and contraceptive-related attitudes and behaviors, Pediatrics, 107(5), 1116-1119.
We live in a male dominated society, and throughout history, woman who are celebrated are valued as a care takers, as lovers. As creatures to try and put effort to gain their attention. That’s a great thing! Prostitution is the oldest profession. If it wasn’t for prostitutes, the women who were sexually powerful, they wouldn’t have known what pleases a woman and what doesn’t. And that’s what encouraged loosening restrictions on females, and so that changed so much in sex with men and their wives. Women just need to take charge of their sexuality, and recognize their bodies are amaz-ng, especially in this society. So if they by whatever reason, enjoys to have sex on camera, you can’t criticize them for doing so. Its erotica and expressional and sexy if its done in a positive aspect. But when it crosses the line, with anything in life, it has its potential to be dangerous. But porn can be healthy. And normal. Fantasy. And nice done in small amounts. Fair.
Porn is a sickness …a cancer that breeds cancer!!! What a repulsive excuse for behaviors even lower than the animal kingdom!!
We think we have a civilized society but is it really??? Pretty lowlife when even our children cannot be safe.
That pretty much says it all. And keep in mind this shit gets to our young boys and shapes their impressionable minds, then our young girls go walking down the street half naked…
You know — it doesn’t take a genius to figure this out ladies. Either you have been brainwashed to think this is ok or there is something seriously wrong and help needs to be found.
Most girls have been abused in one form or another from birth either verbally, visually or physically and this is the result!
It is not equality that allows us to have our bodies mistreated – it is pure stupidity and to think that you like it is sick and requires attention!
Some people cut themselves, take drugs, drink themselves to death too. That doesn’t make it normal- Get help!
Related post on BroadBlogs
Porn: Pro and Con
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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
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.”
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?
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Go Topless for Equality?
I once heard a man say he wished women would go topless all the time. Many men have probably desired this.
Be careful what you wish for.
If it actually happened, men would likely lose interest.
In cultures where women go topless all the time, as with tribal societies, breasts are no big deal.
A similar phenomenon occurred in Europe in the 80s when women went topless at the beach, in magazine and television ads, and on billboards.
Female nudity was used in European advertising because it caught the attention of both men and women.
But after a while, people stopped noticing. Nudity became blasé.
Male European students studying in the U.S. began asking why American men thought breasts were such a big deal. They’d grown up seeing so many of them, they couldn’t fathom the mystique.
National Topless Day protesters say women should have the same constitutional right as men to bear their chests. They want women to see that their breasts are noble, natural, and not something to be shamefully hidden.
The Go Topless campaign argues that feminism has led women to repress their femininity, which is “a powerful asset.” Go Topless doesn’t get that in the end, uncovered breasts would likely lose that very power.
In fact, some feminists have advocated going topless, arguing that if men were continually exposed to breasts, they would lose their status as sex objects – and so would the women who are attached to them.
Is Go Topless really concerned with women’s equality? As Jezebel reports, their founder, Claude Vorilhon, who now calls himself Rael, says a UFO inspired him to start a church, complete with an “Order of Angels,” really, a group of women who sexually service Rael and his friends. Go Topless looks more like shock PR for his church than a real concern with gender equality.
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Are You Pro Life, Or Do You Just Want To Control Women?
When I was young I heard feminists say that “pro-lifers” were more concerned with controlling women than preventing abortion.
That line of reasoning didn’t make sense to me at the time. Now it does. I don’t think that everyone who is prolife is disingenuous. But some are.
The Food and Drug Administration recently approved new emergency contraception known as ella, aka “Plan C.” Unlike the emergency contraception currently available, Plan C can be taken up to five days after unprotected sex, and is 98% effective when properly used. The drug stops fertilization by preventing eggs from being released.
Some pro-lifers protest that Plan C brings us one step closer to “over the counter abortions” – though medical studies prove otherwise.
These same folks say stem cell research equals abortion. Yet they don’t worry that fertilized eggs are thrown in the garbage if they aren’t used for research. Garbage isn’t constantly publicized while breakthrough science is.
Pro-lifer, George W. Bush, didn’t seem to have a problem sending young men to die in Iraq and Afghanistan. But as one cartoonist put it, “No stem cells were hurt.”
I once heard Christopher Reeve pose the following question: if you were in a research lab with a two-year-old and a fire broke out, would you save the child, or would you leave her to die so that you could save thousands of stem cells? I suspect most of us would save the actual child.
Utah Senator, Orin Hatch, says it’s fine to use fertilized eggs for research. But destroying eggs implanted in a woman’s womb equals murder. In one case a woman’s body is controlled. In the other, it isn’t.
Pro-lifer, Pat Robertson opposes a woman’s right to choose abortion in America. But he supports forced abortions in China. Once again controlling women is the only common denominator.
Pro-lifers don’t seem to be too concerned with making sure poor women get prenatal care, or that their babies have food once they are born.
Pro life? Sometimes it’s all about controlling women.
Georgia Platts
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Readers Discuss: Are Women Polygamous?
Below are comments on the question: Are women naturally, or culturally, monogamous? They’re edited for brevity and clarity. I’ve organized them and added my comments in italics.
Polygamous women
- I seem to be different than the study, but then so are most males I know.
- 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 at 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 my husband, and could survive financially on my own, my sexual behavior changed as well.
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.
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.
Meeting social expectations: Women
- 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 feel pressured to have sex, but they 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.
Agreed. 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.
A man’s view:
- 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.
There’s also plenty of research on how men feel pressured to notch up “conquests” in order to be valued by other men.
Shallow, one-dimensional vs deep, connected relationship
- 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 too:
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 the come from, themselves.
SOURCES: Comments from:
Blogs: BroadBlogs and FreeMeNow
Facebook
Various lists responded either to the list, or to me via email
Student discussions
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Are Women Culturally Monogamous?
We know that women aren’t destined to be monogamous by nature. Culture affects our sexual psyches.
Polygamist inclinations vary from person to person, but today’s Western women are much more monogamous than our Tahitian or American Indian sisters were before European contact. We are now also much more monogamous in our inclinations than men.
In surveys, men say they would prefer to have 14 partners over a lifetime. Over that same lifetime, women prefer to have only one or two.
A friend suggested that women were lying because they feared seeing themselves as sluts. Yet women admit to five real-life partners. (Here they are certainly underestimating. The real number is likely 8 or 9 for both men and women, given men’s estimate of 12.) But if they’re so worried, why not say they’ve had only 1 or 2 partners?
I was surprised by the low number of “one or two” as the preference, but I doubt women feel the need to go that low just to feel socially acceptable.
Younger women’s preferences may be higher. During the first year of college many willingly experiment with sex – and freely admit to it. But they quickly tire of random sexual contacts. Most drop out of the casual sex scene by sophomore year.
Men, on the other hand, don’t tire of the casual hook up, and want to continue even after college.
When it comes to open marriage or swinging, men are usually more enthusiastic, and more often initiate the idea.
So women seem less interested in casual sex than men. Quite likely because they are more repressed.
I feel that women are more repressed than is healthy. But I’m not sure that limits are all bad, for women or men.
When I read women’s studies literature, women are often advised to have sex more the way men do: have fun without guilt.
Yet men’s studies, which comes from a feminist perspective, often advises men to have sex more the way women do it. Don’t follow the 4 F’s: Find ‘em, Feel ‘em, F- ‘em, and Forget ‘em. Do not use women as a means of gaining a notch on your belt. Have sex in a context of love and care.
What do you think? How would you describe women’s ways and men’s ways of having sex? What are the positives and negatives of each approach? Is one way better than the other? Is there an optimal in-between? Do men and women tend to have different views on this issue?
I’m interested in exploring the matter. I’d like to year your thoughts, too.
Georgia Platts
Sources: Brizendine, Louann. The Male Brain. Crown. 2010, Kimmel, Michael. Guyland. Harper. 2008
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