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Women Seeing Women as Sexier than Men
Girls are so inundated with sexualized images of women that they learn to see women as sexier than men. Women come to see women through male eyes?
In the bedroom, this can make women’s sexuality a bit convoluted, which I’ll discuss later.
But consider my students:
“Women’s bodies are just naturally sexier than men’s,” my class tells me when I ask why women are portrayed as sex objects.
In this belief, my students are not alone.
A few years back Lisa Kudrow, of Friends fame, told Jay Leno that female nudity is displayed more in movies because, “Who wants to look at a guy?”
Hugh Hefner thinks women are natural sex objects, “If women weren’t sex objects, there wouldn’t be another generation.”
I’ve talked before about how the breast fetish is not natural, but is learned by both men and women. But how do we all learn that women are sexier than men in ways that go beyond the fetish?
Growing up, girls are bombarded with visions of women as sexy, with skin selectively hidden and revealed, the camera focused on those intriguingly concealed parts.
When I was little my mom took me to the Ice Capades. After noticing that the women were half dressed while the men were fully clothed, I asked why. Mom told me that women just have better legs.
Do they? One warm summer day an adult from my church youth group commented, “It’s too bad the guys have the best legs.” (Thanks!) But what is our cultural ideal? Longer, leaner. Young men typically have longer legs, and they don’t have the extra layer of fat that women do. So most young men’s legs come closer to our ideal. Yet we say women have better legs? When I think about it, I actually think men have pretty nice looking legs. But nothing and no one directs our attention to them.
On Dancing With The Stars, women are half-dressed and men are fully-clothed. During an advertisement, the camera lingers on women’s breasts and legs in a Victoria’s Secret display. Next, a commercial for shoes focuses on women’s behinds: See this Rebook ad for EasyTone. Try to imagine the same focus on men’s butts (which actually are pretty attractive)!
Watch a football game and see big, fully-dressed, aggressive guys playing on the field, while scantily clad cheerleaders show off their stuff from the sidelines. In the Bikini Open men sport golf wear while women dawn bikinis. When does Sports Illustrated most focus on women? In the swimsuit edition.
Through it all, the camera gazes at women’s body parts, but not men’s. Telling us what’s important to notice. What’s sexy and what’s not.
Men’s bodies are rarely sexualized outside infrequent underwear ads.
Historically, men have had control of media, and they’ve portrayed what they see as sexy.
Bombarded with these images, girls come to see women as sexier than men. As I’ve said before, when I tell my class that I find a Playboy pinup sexier than a Playgirl pinup, women’s heads nod in agreement.
Meanwhile, when women answer surveys about what they find sexy they say “men.” But when they are wired up, blood flow to the vagina is stronger when viewing an image of a nude woman than a nude man – conscious responses and bodily responses not agreeing.
Oddly, and yet logically, women come to see women through male eyes.
So women come to see themselves as the sexy half of the species. Being sexy has some advantages. It can just be fun, it’s easier to attract mates (consider the success of women versus men in singles bars), and sexiness is a source of power.
But there’s a downside, too, including the narrow construct that leaves so many women feeling they exist outside the “sexy” box, with a drop in self esteem kicking in.
Taken to extreme, some women can become sex objects, taking an unhealthy one-dimensional focus on themselves, feeling that how they look is all that matters. And some men may see them as objects whose sole purpose is to be used for their pleasure.
It ain’t so great to be, or be seen, as mere object.
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. And to those who think this means women don’t find men sexy or desirable, see this: Men Don’t Feel Sexy–and It Sucks.
Related Posts on BroadBlogs
Women Learn the Breast Fetish, Too
Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze
Women Gazing At Men
Do Women See Sexy Men As Sexy?
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How to Look Like a Victoria’s Secret Angel
“How to be a Victoria’s Secret Angel” Jezebel’s banner teased. “Not that you can be one. You can’t,” ran the verdict following the hopeful headline.
“What people don’t realize is that they’re rarer by far than superstar athletes,” proclaimed Ed Razek, Limited’s chief marketing officer (they also own VS). “The numbers of people who can do this are probably under 100 in the world.”
After all, angels must be skinny and buxom, but also fit enough looking to believably hold up heavy wings. Hard to do all three at the same time (or even two).
Sometime-angel, Angela Lindvall told the New York Times she jumped rope and ate nothing but spinach, chard and kale to lose 20 pounds, post-pregnancy, to “make weight.” Others hire personal trainers, take many-mile runs, do squats and lunges, and generally “kill ourselves,” as one put it.
The models “kill themselves” for a few months to acquire angel status. Yet the message is that all women can look like them by simply dawning VC bras and panties.
Much of advertising works by making people – in this case women – feel inadequate about how they look – which comes easily when an unachievable ideal is placed before us. But Victoria’s Secret offers a product to help! Really?
The message must be working. Sales are up.
A little VS can add some fun. But don’t stress if you don’t look like an angel. Most of the time, the angels don’t either.
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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
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Steal $11, Get Life Sentence
Jamie and Gladys Scott had been serving double consecutive life sentences for helping others to steal $11. Until December 30, that is, when Mississippi’s governor granted a pardon. Happy holidays!
The case is hard to believe:
Amidst ambiguous evidence, the two sisters were accused of luring two men to a spot in rural Mississippi so that three of their teenaged acquaintances could rob them.
The teens who actually committed the hold up pled guilty and implicated the sisters to get lighter sentences. Each of these young men served two years in prison and were released.
Meanwhile the sisters sat behind bars for 16 years, one gravely ill with kidney failure, hoping for a pardon. Bob Herbert of the New York Times said, “Keeping the two of them locked up any longer is unconscionable, grotesquely inhumane.”
Even their prosecutor, Ken Turner (now retired), felt a reprieve was “appropriate.”
Governor Haley Barbour finally granted a pardon, not because of a gross miscarriage of justice, but based on Jamie’s life-threatening kidney condition, and with a contingency: Gladys must donate a kidney to her sister. An unreasonable sentence isn’t sufficient reason to pardon?
Governor Barbour didn’t have much trouble granting pardons, without restraint, to others who had done far worse. A sampling:
- Bobby Hays Clark had shot and killed a former girlfriend and badly beaten her boyfriend.
- Michael David Graham had stalked his ex-wife for years before shooting her to death as she waited for a traffic light in downtown Pascagoula.
- Paul Joseph Warnock had shot his girlfriend in the back of the head while she slept.
- Clarence Jones had murdered his former girlfriend, stabbing her 22 times. This was his second suspended life sentence, courtesy of a previous governor, Ronnie Musgrove.
How are these four different from Jamie and Gladys Scott? All were men who killed girlfriends. Maybe Barbour could identify with their plight. Women can be such trouble!
On the other hand, all of these men had also worked in a prison program that had them doing odd jobs around the governor’s mansion. Maybe Barbour is just friendly. It helps to know people in high places.
Or, perhaps Barbour simply didn’t know about the Scott sisters’ plight until the case got widespread media attention. Still, his reasoning behind the pardon is baffling.
Life can be especially hard if you’re poor, black, and female. It all makes me wonder, what kind of justice is this?
Georgia Platts
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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.
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Beating Your Wife, Child OK in United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates’ High Court ruled a few weeks ago that men can beat their wives and children. Wives are always fair game, but children may only be beaten if they are young enough to be properly defenseless (only “young” children may be battered). Also, husbands and fathers must leave no visible mark. So keeping wives and daughters properly covered could come in handy.
Sharia law expert, Dr. Ahmed al Kubaisi, reasoned that wife beating is sometimes necessary to preserve family bonds, “If a wife committed something wrong, a husband can report her to police,” he explained. “But sometimes she does not do a serious thing or he does not want to let others know; when it is not good for the family. In this case, hitting is a better option.”
It’s all so clear to me now.
Except for the part about why men are qualified to discipline women. Is it that men are more wise and compassionate? And we know this because wife and child abuse come so easily to so many of our less evolved brethren? And why would God want anyone to beat anyone else?
Islamic scholars don’t all feel that beating women and children is consistent with Islam.
Islamic law scholar, Dr. Jamal Badawi, says the Quran seeks “the prohibition of any type of wife beating.” Lawyer and women’s rights activist, Summer Hathout, observed, “To those of us who know Islam and the Quran, violence against women is so antithetical to the teachings of Islam.” Islamic feminists note that the word in the Quran which is commonly translated as “beat” (daraba) can also be translated as “to go away.”
Basing prescriptions for battering women and children on religion, the word of God, seems odd. How is violence of any sort good for the soul?
Beating women. Killing women to preserve “honor.” Throwing stones at women in a stadium. A woman is hit by a large stone. She screams out in pain. And cheers rise up from the crowd. This is ennobling?
What happens to a person’s soul who behaves this way? Only dehumanization comes from this mindset and behavior.
Georgia Platts
Related Posts: Early Islam’s Feminist Air
Don’t Reject Your Culture, Even When It Mutilates You
Cultural Relativism: Must We Be Nazis to Criticize Them?
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Military Rape: Assailants Promoted or Wrist-Slapped. Why?
Captain Jennifer Machmer was discharged from the army for being raped. But her rapist got promoted.
What?
Most often offenders receive only a reduction in rank or pay. Eighty percent of convicted rapists are honorably discharged.
No wonder sexual assault is rampant in the armed services. As Nancy Gibbs of Time described the risk:
What does it tell us that female soldiers deployed overseas stop drinking water
after 7 p.m. to reduce the odds of being raped if they have to use the bathroom
at night? Or that a soldier who was assaulted when she went out for a cigarette
was afraid to report it for fear she would be demoted — for having gone out without
her weapon?
Representative Jane Harman reports, “A female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.”
One woman expressed the dilemma, “I’m willing to give my life for this guy next to me but how do I know that he’s not going to hurt me?”
Military women who serve our country are more likely to be sexually assaulted than the average American woman. Twice as likely, in fact.
The Pentagon refuses to release documents that could shed light on the problem. (The ACLU and others have filed suit to access these records.)
Why is the rate of sexual assault so high? And why does the military keep mum?
Surprisingly, social psychologist Elliot Aronson sees nonconformity at the root: Women can’t conform to being male.
Why is that a problem?
A little thing called gender ranking is rampant in our culture. That is to say, we rank males as having higher value than females. (That’s why men constantly have to prove their manhood – showing they deserve that exalted status.) Fields that strongly associate with manhood put gender ranking on steroids, as when firefighters plastered a firehouse with spread-eagled centerfolds to harass a female hire.
When Shannon Faulkner braved the Citadel as its first female cadet she was harassed and ostracized for threatening soldierly manhood. So were the women who followed her.
Trying to conform, one military woman explained her strategy of rape avoidance, “You figure out how to turn the guy off, and become one of the guys,” she said. “That’s your safety mechanism.”
Unfortunately it didn’t work. She couldn’t manage to be male enough, and her squad leader attempted sexual assault. Another soldier raped her.
The Pentagon believes 80% to 90% of sexual assaults are not reported. Most victims feel nothing will be done, and more than half worry about being labeled troublemakers – more nonconformity!
Why is the rate of rape so high?
It appears that military culture resents women’s presence and lets boys be boys in order to punish women soldiers.
Georgia Platts
Source: Elliot Aronson, et. al. Social Psychology, 5th ed. Prentice Hall. 2005
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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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Are Women Brainwashed Into Polygamy?
Kathy Jo Nicholson began sewing her wedding dress when she was fourteen. If she faithfully served her husband, and accepted at least two other wives, her husband would invite her to join him in heaven. But if she refused polygamy, she would be damned to hell.
Are women brainwashed into polygamy?
In some ways, polygamists aren’t so different from the rest of us. Those who accept “plural marriage” simply accept the way of life that lies before them. Most of us do the same thing.
Why?
When we’re born we don’t have many thoughts in our heads. Knowing nothing, the world around us seems pretty chaotic. So much information! What to do with it? We need to know how to cope and put order to chaos.
Unconsciously, the brain notices patterns and it starts categorizing things. “Oh, usually it’s women who stay home with children. I guess women are family oriented,” the brain concludes. Scientists, presidents, artists, and corporate managers are usually men. White ones. “I guess scientists, presidents, artists, and corporate managers are white males,” surmises the mind. In the 1950s this is how the world looked. It seemed normal and natural and few thought to question it. The oversimplification is also the source of stereotypes.
If we start to understand that people from other cultures can think differently, we might open our minds. The Western world is multi-cultural. We are plugged into the world wide web and connected to satellites. So we know that there are other ways of seeing, even if we don’t necessarily agree.
Isolated groups like polygamists aren’t much exposed to alternate ways of thinking. And that limits possibilities.
Kathy Jo grew up in isolated southern Utah. Her prophet warned against the world’s wickedness: “Leave television alone. Do away with videos. Do away with headphones and listening to radio. Hard metallic music is the devil.”
She didn’t know people who didn’t practice polygamy. It was just how the world was supposed to be. How God wanted it.
Some polygamists live in suburbia, but are isolated amidst the masses. Harassed and ostracized, they keep to themselves. Persecuted people bond more closely together.
But something rocked Kathy Jo’s world. Her prophet had prophesied he’d live until Christ’s second coming. But then he died.
“How can you trust the Prophet,” she asked her father, “if he doesn’t keep his promise?” She was told to stop questioning.
“The key to living the Principle was unquestioning obedience,” Kathy Jo explained. “Never question Father. Do as he says. Never question the Prophet.”
But she kept wondering, silently. Some personalities are more inquiring than others. That some do question is the key to social change.
Later she fell in love and fled the fold to elope. But she could barely cope in the outside world – so used to every decision being made for her. Kathy Jo also worried about going to hell. After many years, she eventually got over it.
Now she worries that her nieces and nephews are trapped in an oppressive world they did not choose.
Are polygamists brainwashed?
Not exactly. That would involve washing something out of the mind that had previously existed there. A synonym is “thought reform.”
What polygamists undergo is similar to everyone’s socialization. We all live with our culture’s understandings in our heads. Every time we feel any sense of racism, sexism, or homophobia (you’ll be surprised how much you do; go to Harvard’s website to find out), or simply believe that the feminine ideal is skinny with large breasts, we have internalized our culture. That is, society’s beliefs now exist in our own minds.
But the polygamists’ experience is more extreme because they hear few competing voices, have a fierce focus on obedience, and are more likely than most to believe that their ways are God’s ways.
But if you want to call it that, we are all brainwashed into our cultural ways of knowing. Some are just more brainwashed than others.
Georgia Platts
Note: Kathy Jo’s story comes from “Escape From Polygamy,” Glamour
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Raping Children under Pretext of Marriage
Saudi Arabia: A Hepatitis B infected 65-year-old man married an 11-year-old girl. Soon she’ll be infected.
Yemen: A 10-year-old was forced to marry a 30-year-old deliveryman. He took her out of school and beat her regularly. (Due to some smarts and luck, she later became a ten-year-old divorcee.)
Saudi Arabia: A father married off his 13-year-old daughter to a man in his 50s because he wanted dowry money to buy a car.
Afghanistan: A 14-year old was married off to satisfy an obligation. Abused, used as a servant, and forced to sleep in an outbuilding with animals, she eventually (and famously) ended up on Time Magazine’s cover with a severed nose as punishment for fleeing her abuse.
One Saudi social worker told Al Riyadh that she knows of three thousand cases where girls, 13-years-old and younger, were forced to marry men old enough to be their fathers or grandfathers. Or as Eman Al Nafjan at change.org described it, “forcing children to be raped under the pretensions of marriage.”
All of this is ironic as staunchly pious Muslim states somehow forget their religion: The Quran gives females the right to consent to marry. But forcing children to marry removes their say. Early Islam actually had a feminist air, and many Muslim feminists are working to return to that more woman-positive time.
Fortunately, a movement against child marriage is rising in Saudi Arabia. If you would like to read more, go to change.org, where you can also sign petition.
Hopefully, one day the right to consent to marry will not be just an empty promise.
Georgia Platts
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Don’t Reject Your Culture, Even When It Mutilates You
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