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Women: Climax Less Likely in Relationship Sex
Researchers at Indiana University recently released the most comprehensive sex survey since 1994. They made some surprising discoveries. Among them: men are more likely to enjoy sex and reach orgasm if they are in a relationship than if they are not. But women have more difficulty with arousal and bodily response when they are in a relationship.
This goes completely against stereotype. It also goes against what women and men report about their preferences.
What’s going on?
Today let’s explore women. We’ll look at men in an upcoming post.
When I’ve asked who likes sex better, males or females, I repeatedly get the same response from women. It begins with “Women enjoy sex as much as men, but…”
Some of us prefer to be with someone we love and who loves us back rather
than some crazy one night romp with a random person.
Women place more emphasis on the emotional aspects of sex.
Women like sex more when it has depth and meaning. It is much more intense
and romancing to women when they are in a relationship.
Researchers at University of Texas, Austin concluded that for women, sexuality is more linked to love, emotional bonding and connection.
Yet recent data suggest something different.
Indiana University researchers asked women and men 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?
Finding: Women were less likely to climax when they were in relationships.
What’s going on? Here are some possibilities.
Women who really love sexuality may be more likely to have sex with different partners, affecting the average.
What about more typical women? Women need to feel sexy and desired to get aroused. They want to feel chosen. With a new partner, a woman will feel she’s been chosen because she’s so attractive. But in committed relationships it can seem that her partner is simply trapped into having sex with her. Not a big turn-on.
Men also seem to experience a slight drop in interest over time with long-term partners, and women may sense that, leading to an even bigger drop in their own libido.
Why a bigger drop for women? Marta Meana, a psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, says women have a lower sex drive (influenced by a culture that represses women’s sexuality) and need a bigger jolt to turn on libido. “If I don’t love cake as much as you,” she told a New York Times reporter, “my cake better be kick-butt to get me excited to eat it.” Something for men to think about.
At the same time relationship is helpful because women (and men alike) need to feel relaxed in order to climax. The Indiana University data isn’t clear on whether the more-aroused women were having sex with men whom they saw as potential committed partners – the beginning of relationship. In that case they might have felt an excitement at feeling chosen, but also safe enough to create the necessary comfort to climax.
But sex isn’t just about orgasm. The emotional component of feeling loved and connected creates a rich, multidimensional experience which may be what so many refer to when they say they want more than a quick roll in the hay.
Meanwhile, some advice for men: let your lady know she’s desired and chosen.
Georgia Platts
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Bridalplasty: Competing to be Plastic on Reality TV
Brides-to-be compete for plastic surgery on Bridalplasty, which premiered this week on E! The show promises, “each week one lucky bride will … get one piece of her dream body – going under the knife for one of the surgeries off her ‘wish list.” Grand prize is a full-body makeover, just in time for the wedding.
As Jezebel reports, in the first episode contestants covered their “gross” bodies with what were deemed more appealing photoshopped pictures of themselves. The show’s surgeon told one woman, “You have perfect breasts…for doing a breast augmentation.” Next, he marked too-fat areas on size 0 women for liposuction.
One commenter responded with an image:
Really, can you get more objectified than dissecting and judging body parts? Or seeing a woman’s worth primarily in those parts? Then creating some Frankensteinish creature in response?
Some women die in plastic surgery, from infections or complications from anesthesia, as though the shell of the outer self were worth the sacrifice. Surely these women didn’t expect to die, yet they gave up their whole selves in worship of their “parts.”
Continuing the shallow theme, Bridalplasty is as much about sales as anything. Like much of marketing, the show focuses on making women feel bad about themselves so they’ll go out and buy.
You’re size 0? You can still rid yourself of any remaining fat with just a little surgery. You name it, you can buy it: breast implants, liposuction, chin lift, nose job. BUY, BUY, BUY!
Bridalplasty is one big advertisement.
As contest winners were told to “Grab your syringe and go down to the injecting party” I felt transported to a Brave New World where surface is All.
Brave New World brought me an appreciation for delving beneath the superficiality of physical “perfection” and Prozac feel-good, which never scratch the surface into intellectual or emotional depth.
All this focus on physical perfection. Whose notion of physical perfection?
What’s deemed beautiful varies from culture to culture. Tribal societies prefer the equivalent of an A-cup, while parts of West Africa celebrate roundedness — the bigger the woman, the better!
Instead of following like lemmings, why not promote real beauty and create healthy notions that appreciate variety as the spice of life – whether lovely rounded-curvy or AA sexy cute.
The one bright spot? The show’s poor ratings give us hope.
Georgia Platts
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Men Finding Fewer Women “Porn-Worthy”
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Women Learn the Breast Fetish, Too
Women Learn the Breast Fetish, Too
Meredith Chivers, a highly regarded psychologist at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, showed men and women, both straight and gay, short film clips of heterosexual sex, gay and lesbian sex, a man masturbating, a woman masturbating, a nude well-toned man walking, a fit woman doing nude calisthenics, and bonobos (an ape species) having sex.
Chivers then asked the men and women to rate how aroused they felt. But she also used probes to gauge penile swelling and vaginal blood flow.
Men’s responses were as expected.
But women’s genitals and minds seemed to belong to entirely different people. For instance, hetero women’s bodies were more aroused by the exercising woman than by the strolling man – though they claimed otherwise.
In other research, she asked men and women to wear goggles that track eye movement, and had them look at pictures of heterosexual couples in foreplay. The men gazed mostly at the women – their faces and bodies. But the women spent equal time looking at both sexes, with their eyes focused on the men’s faces and the women’s bodies.
In these two pieces of research we find hetero women more aroused by nude pictures of women than men, and spending more time looking at nude women’s bodies than men’s.
Odd huh?
Chivers isn’t entirely sure what to make of it all. Since women’s blood flow rose in every sexual situation they viewed, including the bonobos – and because lubrication (and blood flow) also increase among rape victims when sex is unwanted – she speculates that women’s bodies may lubricate whenever a sexual signal arises in order to reduce discomfort, and the possibility of injury, during penetration. With this need, women’s bodies may simply be much more sensitive to any sexual signal than men’s, whether or not they feel sexually aroused.
Okay, but why were women more aroused by looking at the nude woman than the nude man? “Possibly,” she said, “the exposure and tilt of the woman’s vulva during her calisthenics was processed as a sexual signal while the man’s unerect penis registered in the opposite way.”
The notion that the women were less turned on because they couldn’t see an erection seems odd given that Playgirl, until recently, has had a long history of hiding the penis. Many women are ambivalent, at best, about the penis as a visual turn-on.
Perhaps Chivers is referring to some primal response that women aren’t consciously aware of, responding to a sexual stimulus requiring need for lubrication. Yet a nude exercising woman is no more likely to penetrate than a flaccid man.
Also, straight women spent more time looking at the bodies of nude women than nude men during sexual foreplay. Why did women’s bodies draw greater interest?
Many will seek out biological explanations, but as a sociologist, I think culture may explain the oddity.
Society teaches us how to see the world: How to think about it, feel about it, and react to it.
The male body is pretty much ignored in our culture. Billboards aren’t splashed with sexy men. No men in Speedos. Nothing much but an occasional underwear ad.
Women’s bodies are focused upon, with breasts selectively hidden and revealed, creating a captivation, leaving us wondering about that which is hidden. The camera gazes, zeroes in on women’s bodies. We talk about women’s breasts as alluring. So they become a sexual signal to both men and women. We don’t treat any part of the male body in the same way.
Men learn the breast fetish, too. In cultures that don’t selectively hide and reveal the breast, they are no big deal. So tribal men, who see them all the time, aren’t especially interested. European men’s attraction waned when topless women suddenly appeared all over local beaches and billboards. And men can become numbed to titillation with overexposure to porn.
Hetero women likely experience all this a bit differently from men. For one thing, the fetish isn’t attached to their natural sexual interest, which may weaken the allure. Homophobia may also lead to repression. Women might also see other women’s breasts as competition, distracting from the erotic. Or, they may become angered by female objectification — another distraction. But research suggests that women often do experience the fetish, none-the-less.
I’m hetero, but ask me which image I find more erotic, a nude female or a nude male, and I’ll choose the girl. Many of my hetero female students nod in agreement.
I used to think that was odd, until I realized that the breast fetish is learned, and not based in biology.
To anyone who plans to inform me that I am bi, please see this post first (I’m tired of answering repetitive comments): Men Know My Sexuality Better Than Me
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Don’t Reject Your Culture, Even When It Mutilates You
With recent new good news, I’m updating a past post and expressing my thanks, first, that only a very small part of the world lives under the Taliban, and second, that a young girl now has a new nose.
The August 9, 2010 cover of Time shocked the world as an 18 year old Afghani named Aisha gazed from behind her mutilated nose. Punishment for running away from home. Aisha had run away because she feared she would die from her in-laws’ abuse.
Eventually discovered, a Taliban-run court ordered her nose and ears be cut off, declaring she must be made an example. This was effectively a death sentence, since it was assumed she would bleed to death.
A death sentence? For running away? From people who might kill you?
Her husband took her to a mountain clearing where he slashed Aisha and left her to die.
Yet she lived. After passing out from pain, she eventually awoke, choking on her own blood. Then Aisha summoned her strength and crawled to her grandfather’s house. Fortunately, her father managed to get her to an American medical facility.
Alive but disfigured, sympathy arose around the world, and the non-profit Grossman Burn Center in California has now fitted her with a prosthetic nose. They are hoping to eventually do reconstructive surgery.
The Taliban tell their people that women’s rights are a Western concept that breaks away from Islamic teaching. But the Quran says nothing of cutting away ears and noses, and leaving girls and women to die. Early Islam actually had a feminist air.
I’ve often thought that if Asian women had gained the vote before their American sisters, the powers that be would warn us away from rejecting our religion and our culture.
Is it really a loss of culture or “religion” that is feared? Or do these men just worry that women might gain equal footing?
Meanwhile, beware: Don’t reject the culture that mutilates you body, mind and soul.
Georgia Platts
A version of this article was originally published August 3, 2010.
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Sources: Baker, Aryn, “Afghan Women And The Return of The Taliban.” Time Magazine. August 9, 2010; Bsimmons; Daily Mail
Men Finding Fewer Women “Porn-Worthy”
Feminist, Andrea Dworkin, had feared that easy access to internet porn would turbocharge women’s objectification and turn men into wild, raping beasts. But internet porn actually seems to be having the opposite effect, deadening male libido in relation to real women, with men who over-consume finding fewer women “porn-worthy.
This is what author, Naomi Wolf, noticed when students talked about their sex lives during her speaking tours of college campuses.
Others have made similar findings.
Pamela Paul interviewed over one hundred people, mostly men, in her research for Pornified, and found that porn-worthiness was a common concern among those who over-indulged.
One young man talked of his change in perspective:
My standards changed. Women who are otherwise good looking but aren’t as overtly sexy as the women in porn don’t appeal to me as much anymore. I find that I look more for women who have the attributes I see in porn. I want bigger breasts, longer hair, curvier bodies in general.
I find that when I’m out at a party or bar I catch myself sizing up women. I would say to myself, wait a second. This isn’t a supermarket. You shouldn’t treat her like she’s some piece of meat. Don’t pass her up just because her boobs aren’t that big.
Paul went on to cite a 2004 Elle-MSNBC.com poll which found that one in 10 men admitted he had become more critical of his partner’s body with exposure to porn.
Meanwhile, 51% of Americans believe that pornography raises men’s expectations of how women should look.
Many of the college women Wolf spoke to complained that they couldn’t compete, and they knew it.
Men, she said, learn about sex from porn but find that it is not helpful in teaching them how to relate to real women. She ended with this observation:
Mostly, when I ask about loneliness, a deep, sad silence descends on audiences of young men and young women alike. They know they are lonely together, even when conjoined, and that this imagery is a big part of that loneliness. What they don’t know is how to get out, how to find each other again erotically, face-to-face.
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Rape Victims Shamed Into Suicide. In Pakistan. In America.
Assiya was sixteen when a “family friend” sold her to two Pakistani criminals who beat and raped her over the next year. Eventually the criminals traded her to the police in exchange for pinning one of their robberies on the girl.
Assiya had thought her troubles were over. But instead, the officers took their turn beating and raping her for several days before letting her go.
The police weren’t worried Assiya would tell. She was expected to commit suicide, as sexually assaulted girls had always done to rinse the dishonor of sexual assault from their families.
But instead, Assiya did the inconceivable. She accused her attackers.
This story is shocking. Why would anyone, or any culture, expect a raped girl to commit suicide? As though the shame were hers.
Yet sometimes America doesn’t seem so very different.
Cut to the U.S. where fourteen-year-old Samantha Kelly’s mother told police that her daughter had sex with eighteen-year-old Joseph Tarnopolski. He was arrested, though it’s unclear whether the charge was statutory or forcible rape.
After a local Fox News affiliate identified Kelly by name, she was bullied so much at school that she finally committed suicide. Yet another reminder of the stigma victims can face when they report this crime.
It’s sad to see that even today, in Pakistan and in America, rape victims can be shamed into killing themselves.
Georgia Platts
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