The sexual politics of female sexual desire

All the modern day hype about female sexuality was in part sparked off by the work of Alfred Kinsey. Kinsey’s report ‘Sexual behaviour in the human female’ (published 1953) documented for the first time women’s accounts of how they also enjoyed sexual desire.
The world was not so different in the 1950’s. Technology may appear to have changed the world beyond recognition but attitudes are slower to change. Human nature does not change at all.
So if there are women today who can insist on how easy orgasm is with a partner, despite all the experiences of other women to the contrary and a few inconvenient facts, then why not in the 1950’s? After all, Kinsey’s researh only documented what women told him.
Even today, women who claim easy orgasm with a partner can rarely explain how they reach orgasm. Orgasms ‘just happen’. Very few women have an appreciation of the eroticism that leads to sexual arousal, which explains why so few women masturbate.
Sure there are women who enjoy adventurous sex play with a lover. I know because I’m one of them. Sure there are women who enjoy their own sexual arousal and orgasm through masturbation. But this is very different to saying that all women are as sexual as all men.
It’s quite clear to me that men have a much greater interest in eroticism than I do. They also masturbate (on average) more than I do and they are more likely to pay for sex than I am.
It is ludicrous that we are not able to talk about the ‘male sex drive’. ‘Modern’ women are assumed to have an equal ‘female sex drive’. How do we explain that prostitution still thrives as much as it ever did? Children have to work it out for themselves.
Why do women have to be more like men to be valid?
In order to prove ‘equality’, some feminists insist that women can enjoy their own sexuality (through pregnancy, child-bearing and breast feeding) as well as a definition of sexuality that was originally based on the male experience.
So all women have been put into the awkward position of having their sexuality assumed for them. Any woman who cannot fit within the definition of ‘normal’ is deemed to be sexually inadequate. Instead of sex becoming more open and honest it just got a whole lot more embarrassing. Now women are not able to discuss their sexual experiences at all even if they wanted to.
Women’s difficulties with sexual desire are hushed up. Thus any possible chance of understanding women’s range of experiences from ‘easy orgasm during sex’ to ‘no orgasm ever’ can never be explored. Most sources never even admit the facts.
“Between 10 and 15 percent of women never reach an orgam at all, even during masturbation. Another 10 to 15 percent achieve orgasm only through masturbation. Only approximately 30 percent of women reach orgasm through intercourse alone. Perhaps as many women have never reached orgasm during intercourse. Inability to have orgasm during intercourse is the second most common sexual complaint of women – behind lack of sexual desire.” (p194 Secrets of Better Sex 1997)
Today women have a much higher level of general education and higher confidence. They are less dependent on men both financially and emotionally. They can question their sexual experiences much more confidently. There is less taboo about sex.
My discussion of sex is for those women who are confident of their sexuality and their ability to evaluate their own experiences. If you have not found any answers elsewhere you may find my more logical presentation helpful. If not, then no harm done.
Women should feel free to share their experiences whatever they are. At the end of the day much of what is said about sex is purely opinion. If we are to find a common basis for discussion, we have to first find other people who share our own opinions.

Women's sexual desire

Women who live alone or do not have an active sex life with their partner sometimes perceive themselves to be sexually needy because they start to doubt their ability to attract men.
Margaret (early fifties, children, relationship 30 years) was confident that she was highly sexual and interested in sex. However, her sexual relationship with her partner had broken down and she admitted that she did not consider female masturbation remotely interesting.
Given that she made no mention of a lover, I found it difficult to see that she had any outlet for her sexuality. When Margaret described herself as sexy, it was in terms of looking attractive, being young-at-heart and being physically active at her local tennis club with like-minded women.
A man’s sexual arousal can be very flattering and women often enjoy the compliment. Women tend to define their sexuality in terms of their emotional sense of well-being and their attractiveness rather than by the existence of any kind of sex life. As they grow older men worry about impotence; women worry about losing their ability to attract men.
“Married women are facing more sexual problems than single girls, with problems ranging from a lack of interest in sex to failure to reach orgasm. What a surprise!”admits Linda Kelsey in her article ‘The truth about Married Sex.’ Linda acknowledges that “For married women today it’s difficult to square our expectations of sexual fulfilment with the realities of long-term relationships.”
She suggests that the influence of the modern youth culture means that middle-aged women today “still feel like a woman with sexual needs, or at least a woman who wants to feel she’s still sexually attractive.” (pages 48/49 Daily Mail UK newspaper Thursday, October 6th 2005)
Some people even define female sexuality in terms of women’s ability to arouse a man sexually. Long-term sexual relationships involve making effort from time to time and a man needs to ensure that he is not the only person enjoying sexual pleasure from the couple’s sexual relationship.
Men hope for sex for life
Older women often imply that marriage involves both sides ‘putting up’ with a non-ideal compromise. Life in the past was about survival but expectations have increased. Men in the past were grateful just to have sex of any description but now they hope that their woman will engage on a variety of sexual activities and that she will be enthusiastically orgasmic.
One summer’s evening at a barbeque, a man in his fifties commented that he had almost forgotten what sex was because it was so long since he had had any. Understandably everyone was embarrassed, including his wife, and a few years later I heard that they had divorced. I assume this stand-off explains why so many married women prefer to say nothing about sex.
The sexual revolution claimed that men and women should be equally capable of enjoying a sexual relationship. So we tend to blame the wife for being ‘unloving’ even though we all know that he probably has an orgasm every time they have sex and she quite possibly has never had an orgasm in her life. Men enjoy sex fairly spontaneously but it is much more difficult for a couple to find ways of including some pleasure for the woman. Men cannot always expect to receive without giving anything back.
In the marriage scenario, all pretence of romance or companionship/affection leading to ‘making love’ can be lost. Everyday pressures and routine reduce sex to the minimum required to keep a man’s sex drive at bay, satisfying neither party. WWO would like to hear success stories from couples who have overcome these pitfalls in longer-term relationships.

The marvel of male sexuality

The film ‘The way we were’ (1973) stars Barbra Streisand (I’m a fan) and Robert Redford (the Brad Pitt of my mother’s generation).
She’s the young woman from a humble background driven by political ideals; he’s the young man from a privileged family who has no ideals. Of course she’s a virgin and she ends up one night with him in the bed naked. He’s so drunk that he’s just thrown up in her bathroom.
But none the less she hopes that he will notice that he has a naked woman next to him: she undresses and gets in beside him. Well we’re watching movies so, of course, he revives enough to climb on top of her.
It’s not clear what happens but enough for her to ask afterwards: “You realise it’s me, Katie?” Her main concern is not orgasm but that she should matter to him; that he should care about her as a person.
Instinctively we do not expect a woman to enjoy an equal sexual pleasure from sex. Neither do we expect her to approach sex insisting on her own orgasm before his. Nature has designed women to be more co-operative and accommodating than men.
When a woman has sex with a man she marvels at his ability to perform sexually. We have no similar experience. A man’s sexual passion for a woman can be intoxicating. The marvel of sex, for a woman, is not her own arousal but that of her man.
This is the true glory of sex.
The woman’s sexual arousal is a different and less romantic story. Why do bridal magazines rarely discuss a woman’s aspirations for her sexual relationship? Of course women think that to keep a man happy they must simply be attractive. So they diet, they eliminate body hair and they put on make-up. The fact is that most men want a woman to be more adventurous in bed.
Men feel guilty if it is suggested that women get less out of sex than they do. They shouldn’t. Women enjoy their children; men enjoy sex. The travesty of the sexual revolution was that it set false hopes for women with sexual aspirations. Women cannot be men any more than men can be women. Neither can women hope to experience sex the exact same way a man experiences it.
Sex is a gift that a woman offers to a man she loves. She offers her body for his pleasure without necessarily hoping for anything in return except his devotion to her. In the end, all any of us want is to be loved and appreciated – just in different ways.
Boys grow up trying to impress their fathers. Perhaps they don’t realise that girls are never able to impress men in the same way. When a woman offers a man sex, she can enjoy being the object of his sexual desire, the key to his sexual arousal and orgasm. The woman hopes for his adoration of her beauty and his appreciation of her ability to arouse him sexually.
That sexual adulation is important because a woman worries that if it’s not there then he may be devoted to someone else. Sex is the barometer of the relationship but more importantly the sign of the man’s commitment to the woman and her goals for family. Sadly this novelty wears off and male sexual arousal is not so automatic after years with the same partner.
The couple’s sexual relationship comes under pressure because men look to sex for their emotional sense of well-being. I have certainly questioned why I have needed to make effort when I have less to gain directly from sex. It’s important for men to realise that over the longer-term they need to overcome their inhibitions and communicate over sex and relationship issues.

Sexual desire

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