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Woman, Not the Sum of Flawed Parts
By Linda Bakke
Star Magazine. Full of faces covered by question marks, bodies sliced up. Women diminished to the details of their flaws, circled in bold. A dissection of celebrities’ body parts.
I was working as a receptionist at a hair salon when I discovered Star. I picked it up and paged through. It was awful. I could not put it down.
One article divulged a star’s “hairy secret,” detailing the frequency of her waxing regimen and suggesting her pubic area was overly hairy. A two page spread highlighted shameful “sausage fingers.” Another asked who had the worst toes.
It all oddly evoked the serial killers who keep articles – or worse, dismembered body parts – as trophies.
And what is the triumph here? A sensed superiority over the goddess’ faults as we lie in judgment?
And who can blame us? Their supposedly error-free bodies stress us out! Destroying them and their presumed perfection just might lift our spirits.
But maybe scrutinizing them only returns scrutiny to us, as the judgments tell us we must correct our own “blemishes,” whether buttocks, breasts, fingers or toes.
The message: women’s imperfections cannot be tolerated.
As we eat it up, we fail to see how we become victims, too, unconsciously nodding agreement that this treatment of women is acceptable.
While the pictures and text underline our preoccupation with facade over character, men’s bodily foibles are untouched by these tabloids. Who can imagine placing a man in such light?
Hopefully one day we will take on realistic and healthy expectations so that women will no longer be seen as the sum of flawed parts.
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Should Women Give Men The Porn Star Experience?
A lot of guys have come to expect P.S.E. [the “Porn-Star Experience”] … and plenty of women are more than happy to provide. A few might enjoy it, but for most it’s harrowing. I think there’s a fear that if they can’t make it happen, their boyfriend will retreat online.
That’s from Sadie, a real estate agent, talking about what women do for men who find “normal” sex dull after extreme online porn.
Davy Rothbart blames porn for his own difficulties enjoying real sex with real women:
For a lot of guys, switching gears from porn’s fireworks and whiz-bangs to the comparatively mundane calm of ordinary sex is like leaving halfway through an Imax 3-D movie to check out a flipbook… (So women) willingly play along by a new set of rules in order to keep their men interested.
Should women give men the porn star experience?
If they’re both loving it, why not?
But should women undergo pain to supply their men over-the-top pleasure?
Robert Jensen, a University of Texas professor and feminist who speaks on pornography, says women frequently ask him whether they should fulfill their guys’ disturbing requests. Or they ask why men want them to perform acts that they find upsetting, whether
ejaculating on her face, anal sex, a threesome with another man or woman, rough sex or role-playing that feels inauthentic to her.
“I love him,” they say, “and I want to be a good partner. Should I do it?”
Here’s the perspective of this thoughtful feminist man.
Some women are game, he recognizes, but those who are not are under no obligation, no matter the level of commitment, to participate in any sexual activity that causes pain, discomfort or distress.
It’s great to honestly discuss desires and be open, he adds, but partners should also be clear about what crosses the line.
Asked, “Why does he want to do that to me?” Jensen points out that, “In patriarchy, men are socialized to understand sex in the context of men’s domination and women’s submission.” Pornography, he says, isn’t “images of ‘just sex,’ but sex in the context of male dominance” that includes “little recognition by men of the potential for pain, discomfort or distress in their women partners.”
Ejaculating on a woman’s face is largely about humiliation. Rough sex often enacts male dominance, and threesomes can be seen as male ownership of sex-object women who fawn over him.
Next, women wonder why their men can’t understand that they don’t want to do certain things.
Jensen says strong sexual desire plays a role. But so does an absence of empathy – the ability to imagine what another person is feeling. These men think the acts sound exciting and they can’t envision their partners not feeling the same way.
A lack of empathy may be a warning sign when people are unwilling to grow, for healthy relationships require it.
Jensen recommends a vision of equality and moving away from objectifying women to overcome these problems.
Bottom line for women: Stay true to your values and to who you are.
Men and women might also want to have a conversation about what they want in their relationship and how these sort of experiences fit into that – or don’t.
And, I’m guessing that most men are into sex enough to be able to enjoy things that their partners also enjoy, even if that doesn’t include threesomes, facials, etc.
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12-Year-Olds Wanted Rape, Judge Says
Six British soccer players confessed to gang-raping two 12-year-old girls last March. But an Appeals Court recently freed the men because, “The girls wanted to have sex,” explained Lord Justice Moses.
They wanted sex? Even Moses admitted, “They had pretty miserable, fleeting sex in a
freezing cold park.” Now that sounds like what girls want.
Apparently one of the 12-year-olds had been texting the players, and she and her friend agreed to meet them in a park. There, five of the men gang raped one girl while a sixth assaulted the other. When they didn’t return home, one of their mothers called the police, who found them wandering alone in the early morning hours.
At the least this looks like statutory rape. The girls were only twelve after all. They claimed to be sixteen, but shouldn’t adults use some judgment?
Most importantly, the men admitted to rape.
Yet those “frank confessions” convinced the judges of the soccer players’ “positive good character,” suggesting they had been duped into sex.
Huh?
Colin Horgan, a regular contributor to The Guardian, looks to Men’s Studies professor, Michael Kimmel to consider why men sometimes side with rapists over victims.
In some men’s eyes a girl is seen as offering herself for a sexual encounter just by “being there.” The men feel entitled to sex because, deep down, they all “know” that’s what she wants. So gang rapes end up being seen as something the victim actively did or encouraged, and not something done to her.
Horgan says porn plays a role, not as an instruction manual but as a projection of the fantasies and validation of the feelings of men who consume it. Some studies do suggest that certain types of porn promote the myth that women secretly want to be raped.
Meanwhile, Stephanie Hallett, over at Ms., observes that rapists are continually let off the hook because, “The girls were dressed provocatively, the women were drinking, women lie about rape, there was “sex in the air,” yet:
Research has shown that most rapists are serial rapists–and those serial rapists commit 90 to 95 percent of all rapes. What’s more likely–that these repeat perpetrators just happen to get “tricked” by underage women or receive “mixed messages” from unconsenting women, again and again–or that the overwhelming majority of rapes aren’t really committed “by accident”?
She makes a good point.
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You Are “Less Than”?
How could anyone ever tell you
you were anything less than beautiful?
How could anyone ever tell you
you were less than whole?
How could anyone fail to notice
that your loving is a miracle?
How deeply you’re connected to my soul.
The song “How Could Anyone,” has had a worldwide healing impact. The lyrics have touched AIDS orphans, cancer survivors, disabled teens, and women and girls redefining beauty.
These words by Libby Roderick have touched me, too.
I first heard them soon after I’d broken up with a boyfriend. This man had said nothing outright about my being “less than,” but sent heavy cues by his occasional gaping at women who took up all the space of his vision while I disappeared.
When I asked about it, he said, “Well, yeah, other women are more attractive than you.” And added, “There’s an archetypal image that men are just naturally drawn to.” Archetypal Playmate, that is.
Men are naturally drawn to something unnatural? Plastic-chested, unnaturally starving and airbrushed? The current ideal is actually both new and strange.
In his eyes I felt less than beautiful. And less than whole.
But this song made me reflect on whether I wasn’t whole or whether he simply had a partial view.
Just what is whole, really? What is beautiful?
False, synthetic, shallow?
Genuine, sincere, heartfelt, deep connection?
When we meet those who dwell on the surface, living with limited sight – whether ourselves or others – forgiveness begs. For blocked vision brings suffering to the seer.
And remember:
Every loving thought is true
Everything else is an appeal for healing or help
From Accept This Gift
It’s not that we’re not whole. But in obstructed vision, we aren’t entirely seen.
How Could Anyone http://www.libbyroderick.com/cd_new.html
Words and music by Libby Roderick c 1988
From the recordings “How Could Anyone” and “If You See a Dream”
Turtle Island Records Anchorage Alaska
www.libbyroderick.com libbyroderick@gmail.com
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Men Are Naturally Attracted To Unnatural Women
Ask a guy why he looks at porn and he’s likely to say that men are just naturally attracted to women. But the women in porn don’t look too natural.
Actually, women in fashion magazines and billboards don’t look too natural, either.
Women and men both learn to admire a feminine ideal that ends up frustrating both men and women.
Most women have to starve themselves to be ideally skinny. Many models are so thin that they have stopped menstruating. Isn’t the natural instinct to stay alive and well?
And how about fake breasts? If men are naturally drawn to breasts, why do so many women go under the knife and mutilate themselves so that men – and society – will find them attractive?
Then there’s the preference for blondes. Few women past puberty are true blondes. But unnaturally bleached hair is the top color of choice, both for men and for women who want to look beautiful. Well, at least peroxide doesn’t require enormous amounts of money or risk much bodily harm.
So models go through all their pain and suffering, but it’s not quite enough. Next, the malnourished, plastic-chested, bleached out images go to be photoshopped and airbrushed to look even more fake than they already are.
So women try in vain to match ridiculous notions of beauty. Then get depressed because nothing they do seems to work.
But the models don’t look like “themselves,” either!
At the same time, male students have told me that all this hurts them, too. “What’s wrong with me?” they wonder. “Why can’t I get women who look like THAT?”
Well, those “picture perfect” women don’t actually exist.
So women can never achieve the ideal. And men can never have the ideal woman.
Meanwhile, men are left feeling “naturally” attracted to something that isn’t natural.
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Why Did Nancy Garrido Help Kidnap Jaycee Dugard?
Jaycee Dugard told Diane Sawyer in an ABC interview that after kidnapping her, Nancy Garrido was intensely jealous. So why did she do it? Beyond the question of how she could commit such an atrocious crime, I’d like to focus on why Nancy Garrido made herself miserable by actively acquiring a sexual rival.
I don’t know the specifics of why. Nancy clearly wanted to please her spouse, even if that entailed personal anguish. But in asking why Garrido assisted in her own torment, we might as well ask why women too often stay in distressing, and even abusive relationships, in some ways imitating her – if on a lesser scale.
Everyday women mimicking Garrido?
In one section of Why Women Have Sex, psychologists Cindy Meston and David Buss talk of women reluctantly agreeing to bring other women into their relationships in order to keep their men. As one put it:
Right now, the guy I am with is into swinging. I am not comfortable with that lifestyle… I just pretend he is my master and I am to follow his every command and it makes it easier for me to get through the night… He keeps asking me to have a threesome with my best friend and I keep acting like it is okay, but I am dreading it.
Others tolerate the incest that partners inflict upon their children. Some endure marital or relationship rape and battering.
That’s quite a range. But all of these women are allowing their hearts and souls to be hurt, and sometimes they are letting others be harmed, as well.
Why?
They may feel they love these men. More than they love themselves – or anyone else for that matter. A sick sort of love swimming in injury.
They may think they have no better options. They don’t deserve much and can’t expect better. They aren’t lovable or attractive enough, or they can’t survive on their own. They can’t find a better man. And their partners willingly prop up the downbeat assessments. And so they desperately try to please, and appease, their men in hopes of gaining love.
Poor self-esteem anchors their submission.
But they also hold their own sex in low regard. Women who endure pain to give their men pleasure see men as better-than and more deserving than women. And so they sacrifice so their men may have all.
Some stay in relationships due to “sunk costs.” Having invested so much – emotion, all of the work gone through to create only small changes in partners, resources – they can’t bear to give it all up with nothing to show.
But if we’ve learned something is the cost really sunk? We could take what we’ve learned and move on.
For whatever reason, too many women don’t realize they don’t have to put up with crap.
Too bad Nancy Garrido never figured that out.
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Women Want Emotionally Connected Sex. Why?
Women want emotionally connected sex.
Not all women, all the time, but University of Texas psychologists, Cindy Meston and David Buss interviewed over 1,000 women around the world for their book, Why Women Have Sex, and what did they find? Both women and men have sex because they are physically attracted, for pleasure, because they are in love, or just because they’re horny… the list goes on. But most women want emotionally bonded sex.
Why?
Conventional wisdom looks to evolutionary psychology which says that women are genetically driven to be more monogamous so that fathers will stick around and provide resources, helping children to survive. So perhaps women pass up casual sex with whomever in favor of the connected sex that would provide those good-for-baby resources.
Yet not all women are terribly monogamous. And in some cultures, none are. Women who belong to tightly-knit, interdependent tribal groups often have sex with many men, often outside their marriages or partnerships. In these places the entire tribe raises children so paternity is unimportant and women’s sexuality is not guarded. These sex-positive cultures produce women who are highly orgasmic and who greatly enjoy sex.
But when these societies are destroyed (as with the Cherokee and Iroquois) immersion into a sex-negative culture (for women) can quickly turn their sexuality around.
Today in the U.S. a sexually interested and active woman may be called a slut, whore, ho’, tramp, skank, nympho, hussy, tart, loose, bitch, promiscuous, and perhaps most tellingly, freak or super freak.
Women leaving the frat house Sunday morning may be chided for taking the “Walk of Shame” as frat boys returning from the dorms stroll the Walk of Fame.
Slang for our privates? “Cock” versus “down there.” Put another way, cocky versus unspeakable.
And who gets screwed, f’d, banged, nailed and rammed?
Meanwhile, women are the sex objects in our culture, with busts and butts ogled in word, picture, and x-ray vision, offering men a trove of sexual stimulus. What do women have to look at? Not much.
But as sex objects, women may also become more focused on how they look in bed (whether good or bad) than enjoying anything erotic.
Add to this the sexual violence that so frequently ends in lost sexual interest.
All of this leaves women less responsive, with a University of Chicago study finding 43% of women experiencing dysfunction.
Any wonder men are more interested in random acts of sex, while women are more inclined toward emotional bonding? In the arms of someone she loves a woman may feel free from slut-shaming. She may focus on intimacy and not how fat or thin she is. She is freed from worry about being screwed. And if she has difficulty achieving orgasm, she can still revel in her man’s love-filled attentions.
On top of this, women are more often taught that “sex is okay if you love him.”
Of course, women have varieties of social experiences and personalities, so despite the culture, some will certainly be up for sex with anonymous others.
The longing for bonded sex emerges from sources other than the horrors listed above. And certainly, many men want loving, connected relations, too. Justin Garcia, an evolutionary biologist at Binghamton University, observes that, “Having deep relationship with someone can be really magical and people all over the world experience that… (it) can really change someone’s life.” But for all the reasons listed above, sex-for-fun may not be so fun for a lot of women, which can leave other options out.
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Virtually Attack Women, But No Nudity
A gamer creates an avatar resembling himself and plots to kill a three-dimensional, lifelike woman. The avatar grasps an axe and raises it to strike. He hears the thud as the axe slices her head. He hears her cry out in pain. He sees her split skull and feels the sensation of blood on his hands and face.
I’ve just paraphrased one part of Supreme Court Justice, Samuel Alito’s opinion on whether video games of this sort should be protected as free speech in sales to minors. Yes, he uncomfortably concludes.
In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer wonders why Playboy is off-limits to thirteen-year-olds, yet interactive games that allow those same boys to actively, if virtually, bind, torture and kill a woman are perfectly fine – so long as she’s not topless.
Justice Antonin Scalia counters that violent scenes have long been part of the American tradition.
True enough. One Super Bowl Sunday America went ballistic over Janet Jackson’s exposed nipple. Justin Timberlake’s choreographed battering beforehand went unremarked. No nudity on the national networks, but Law & Order: Special Victims Unit weekly dwells on the rape, battering and torture of sex victims.
Developmental psychologist James Prescott looks to America’s preference for sexual violence over sexual pleasure with wonder. “Apparently, sex with pleasure is immoral and unacceptable, but sex with violence and pain is moral and acceptable,” he reflects.
But why?
New York Times columnist, Timothy Egan sees prudery at base. “Ultimately, the back-and-forth by the high court reinforced the notion of a nation that will always be a little skittish about sex, while viewing violence as American as apple pie,” he writes.
Naomi Wolfe’s The Beauty Myth adds insight. In the 1960s pornography portrayed beautiful women playfully and joyfully enjoying sex. By the 70s this sort of imagery suggestively seeped into popular culture.
As Wolf described it, mainstream beauty pornography looked like this:
The woman lies prone, pressing down her pelvis. Her back arches, her mouth is open, her eyes shut, her nipples erect. The state of arousal, the plateau phase just preceding orgasm… for Triton showers, a naked woman, back arched, flings her arms upward… for Opium perfume, a naked woman, back and buttocks bare, falls face down from the edge of the bed… The reader understands that she will have to look like that if she wants to feel like that.
But later, something shifted as beauty pornography was replaced by a glorification of violence against women. Again Wolf highlights the imagery in advertisements, which sound very much like those we see today:
In an ad for Obsession perfume a well-muscled man drapes the naked, lifeless body of a woman over his shoulder… In an ad for Hermès perfume, a blonde woman trussed in black leather is hanging upside down, screaming, her wrists looped in chains, mouth bound.
By the 80s violent sexual imagery centering on abused females had surged. Film titles like Dressed to Kill, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! and 9½ Weeks filled movie theaters while female corpses, in sexy bras and panties, piled up in thrillers. By ‘89 The New York Times was discussing sadomasochism in kids’ comics.
Why the shift? Wolf maintains that sexual imagery follows politics. As women gained power as a result of the feminist movement, male anger and female guilt about taking power created a backlash. Something “needed” to be done, like socialize and eroticize male dominance.
On the one hand, depictions of women’s freely given and enjoyed sexuality was restrained. On the other, men were reassured that women weren’t so powerful. And everyone got the message that women were most attractive when they were dominated and powerless.
Wolf points out that court rulings have enforced these values from the top-down. Women taking pleasure in sex has been named obscene, while sexualized violence against them has not – so long as they are clothed.
Wolf makes an interesting argument.
Oddly, even as more and more women and men today have taken on values that support women’s equality, this way of seeing has become such a taken-for-granted part of American life that it has come to seem natural and normal to most of us, including many feminists.
Something to think about.
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Women Want Good Sex, Men Want Cuddling
What makes happy long-term relationships?
Everyone’s happier when touching, kissing, hugging, and sex fill our lives. Surprisingly, hugging and kissing are more important to men’s happiness. Men who snuggled were three times happier than non-snuggling husbands. So much for the stereotype that men don’t cuddle.
Psychologist, Aline Zoldbrod, talks of the importance of touch.
Touch from a person you love and trust is a major emotional resource and a way that people can regulate their emotions when they are upset. Couples who use touch to comfort, to compliment, and yes, to seduce and arouse, are bound to be happier.
Surprisingly, cuddling has less impact on women’s contentment, perhaps because culturally, women have a greater range of emotional outlets than men.
Instead, sexual satisfaction had a bigger impact on women’s happiness, and typically, the sex got better the longer a couple stayed together. Yet, as TIME put it, “a man’s happiness rose 17% with each additional point he rated the importance of his partner’s orgasm.” Caring husband, happy wife? Happy wife, happy husband?
Why would sex so often get better for women over time? Women often talk of the importance of love and connection to sexual enjoyment. With time, the couple can become deeply bonded. But they can also become more skilled. Safety and relaxation are important to a woman’s orgasm and long-term relationships can enhance both. Finally, over time the messages of a sex-negative culture for women can slip away in the security of marriage, where all agree that sex is virtuous.
Co-author and clinical sexologist, Michael Sand, said the study is important in showing that long-term relationships can be filled with “healthy, vibrant sexuality.”
In another reversal of stereotype, men were happier, overall, in their relationships
than women. Maybe it’s not so surprising. In modern marriages, men still have more
power and more say. Women are more likely to nurture and care for their spouses.
But both men and women felt greater relationship satisfaction the longer they stayed together. Are happier couples simply more likely to stay together? Or do the deep bonds that form over long-term relationships create the contentment? Perhaps it’s a bit of both.
Interesting, all. And hopeful.
These findings are based on a survey from the Kinsey Institute of 1,009 heterosexual couples from five countries who were middle-aged or older, and in long-term relationships.
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Keep Your Boobs, Get Better Guys
If I had I been more spiritually evolved, or more grounded at 22 when I got breast implants, I never would have gotten them. Yes I got lots of attention, sexual attention. And for awhile I enjoyed it. But as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. It became apparent that the attention I received was not from quality people… Why did I mutilate my body to appease the tastes of SOME men? We were all duped by the media, the medical profession, our low self esteem. I am now ready to have these D cups removed.
That’s a comment a woman placed on a web site called “48 Reasons Not To Get A Boob Job.” The response followed the male author’s contention that:
If you want more male attention, implants may increase the quantity but only with a corresponding decrease in quality. You’ll probably get your biggest gains in approval among guys who are most prone to objectifying you.
Whether you see all this as good or bad depends on what you’re after. If you want all eyes on you, or random sex, fake boobs could do the trick.
So I’ll address this to those who want something else. Quality men for quality relationships.
Fake boobs seem to create an image of “sex object.” Consider this experience:
A woman asked me about implants last week and I told her about the risks. But I told her the things people don’t talk about, like not being able to buy every little cute top, how no one looks you in the eyes, how people think of you as a bimbo.
Sex may not be so fun, either. Men don’t see objects as having feelings, and feel little empathy in return. Women exist to fill their needs, as far as they’re concerned. In Pornified Pamela Paul talks of objectified sex lives as all about bodies and positions, and not about intimacy.
But the culture worships its fetish, leaving a young woman asking girlsaskguys.com the following question.
Are big boobs important to guys? Because as you can see from the photo, I have really small breasts and I have really low self-esteem because of it. Do guys only think a girl is hot by the size of her bra cuz if that’s true I am in big trouble.
Here’s what some guys thought about guys who judge women by bust size:
- If someone would not date you based solely upon the size of your breasts they would not be worth jack squat anyway.
- If any guy judges you differently because of your breast size, he doesn’t deserve you!
- I like girls more for how the face looks. Nice eyes, lips, smile, hair, eyelashes… Any guy getting with someone just because they have a nice rack doesn’t seem like it could be a stable relationship.
- Don’t worry about your boobs, period. We love you for who you are.
These are some higher quality men.
There’s only a two-inch difference between an A-cup and a C-cup. Or between a B-cup and a D-cup. Two inches! That is the measure by which a woman judges herself? Or the measure by which a man judges a woman? Please! Be glad to lose those guys!
Do you really want to be wanted for your boobs and not for you? Are these types of
men even worth bothering with?
And here’s some good advice:
I’m not busty, nor am I gorgeous, but when I was single, I had NO TROUBLE attracting plenty of great men. I have some hints for women who are interested in attracting men — they have NOTHING to do with your boobs!…. #3 Carry yourself well! Stand tall… #5 — Don’t apologize for your body…. If the man you’re with constantly makes you feel insecure, you don’t need a boob job – you need a new man!
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