Monday, March 13, 2006
Female desire
My first's sex drive (even if I took advantage of it) was something of a revelation to me, which may partially explain why I was never laid before then.
I grew up with the sense that women don't really want to have sex. They may work up to the point where they want it, or at least will have it, but without that seduction, they'd happily go through life without sex (except for the purpose of procreation).
Now I know in my head that is wrong. But I can't quite kick it out of my inner beliefs.
Consider the cultural norms, etc., of growing up in the 1970s and '80s, and maybe you'll see how I got there.
1. It's a fact of nature that women are the ones who get pregnant and at least before marriage this is not desireable, even something to be shunned in that era, and so it is they who have the motivation to stop, to say no.
2. In social sciences, men have motivation to "spread their seed" as far and as wide as they can to assure the continuation of their genes and can potentially have many women pregnant at once. But women have motivation to have one caretaker -- a hunter/gatherer, a security force, a provider -- for their young, since they may only have one birth at a time and it takes nine months to do that.
3. A woman flashes her breasts and men are like, "All right!" A man flashes his penis, and women are disgusted and/or threatened.
4. The constant complaint of married men that sex stops at the altar.
5. The jokes, like "When it comes to sex, women are crock pots, men are microwave ovens."
6. The general notion that good girls don't.
When I grew up we were in the throes of the sexual revolution and coming to grips with that and what it meant for feminine desire. Women were finally told it was OK to have sex and their orgasm mattered, too.
My household was conservative, so the word feminism was probably a bad thing. But when I look back on it, I also realize my parents were political conservatives but not social conservatives. They never had much to do with the ingraining of this belief. My parents never once counseled me to wait till I was married or that sex was a sacred thing between a man and a woman and was reserved for marriage.
They couldn't have, I later came to realize, because that would have made them hypocrites. I didn't know it when I was young, but they were both quite randy, before and after they were married. Even now, and they're in their 70s. (Good for them!)
So the cultural and the church -- actually, a fairly liberal denomination, at least these days -- had more to do with my belief that I should wait till marriage and that good girls, the kind that I wanted to date, won't, anyway.
The fact is, good girls do and would. At least many of them do and will.
But it's hard for me to ever realize that at the deepest, most base place in me -- even with contradicting evidence from living life.
So female desire is always fascinating to me, always a revelation. I know it shouldn't be, but the truth is, I suppose it always will be.
I'm all for it, really. But don't expect me ever not to be amazed by it.
I grew up with the sense that women don't really want to have sex. They may work up to the point where they want it, or at least will have it, but without that seduction, they'd happily go through life without sex (except for the purpose of procreation).
Now I know in my head that is wrong. But I can't quite kick it out of my inner beliefs.
Consider the cultural norms, etc., of growing up in the 1970s and '80s, and maybe you'll see how I got there.
1. It's a fact of nature that women are the ones who get pregnant and at least before marriage this is not desireable, even something to be shunned in that era, and so it is they who have the motivation to stop, to say no.
2. In social sciences, men have motivation to "spread their seed" as far and as wide as they can to assure the continuation of their genes and can potentially have many women pregnant at once. But women have motivation to have one caretaker -- a hunter/gatherer, a security force, a provider -- for their young, since they may only have one birth at a time and it takes nine months to do that.
3. A woman flashes her breasts and men are like, "All right!" A man flashes his penis, and women are disgusted and/or threatened.
4. The constant complaint of married men that sex stops at the altar.
5. The jokes, like "When it comes to sex, women are crock pots, men are microwave ovens."
6. The general notion that good girls don't.
When I grew up we were in the throes of the sexual revolution and coming to grips with that and what it meant for feminine desire. Women were finally told it was OK to have sex and their orgasm mattered, too.
My household was conservative, so the word feminism was probably a bad thing. But when I look back on it, I also realize my parents were political conservatives but not social conservatives. They never had much to do with the ingraining of this belief. My parents never once counseled me to wait till I was married or that sex was a sacred thing between a man and a woman and was reserved for marriage.
They couldn't have, I later came to realize, because that would have made them hypocrites. I didn't know it when I was young, but they were both quite randy, before and after they were married. Even now, and they're in their 70s. (Good for them!)
So the cultural and the church -- actually, a fairly liberal denomination, at least these days -- had more to do with my belief that I should wait till marriage and that good girls, the kind that I wanted to date, won't, anyway.
The fact is, good girls do and would. At least many of them do and will.
But it's hard for me to ever realize that at the deepest, most base place in me -- even with contradicting evidence from living life.
So female desire is always fascinating to me, always a revelation. I know it shouldn't be, but the truth is, I suppose it always will be.
I'm all for it, really. But don't expect me ever not to be amazed by it.
# posted by Frankly Speaking @ 7:13 AM 
