False data. Powerful women take no chances and kill their lovers before things can sour, confident in their abilities to obtain a new dick when they want it.
Powerful men are still only men and are, therefore, less practical about such things.
The Peg Bundy style frustrated housewife is also a stereotype, and I’ve seen plenty of letters in advice columns from women who complain that their boyfriends or husbands aren’t interested in sex.
I don’t think there’s any fair way to judge whether men or women are “more sexual”, first because there’s so much individual variation, second because there’s still a large difference in social expectations for men and women, and third because only women face the physical discomforts and dangers associated with pregnancy. All of this means that a woman may often have more reasons than a man to consciously decide not to have sex, even when she wants to.
Don’t forget the debilitating effects of a marriage in a decade long rut. There may not be any sexual desire there, until the new secretary or pool boy comes a knocking.
I have my own little pet theory that society conditions women not to be sexual creatures. “But Diosa!” you’re saying, “how could that be? Women are hyper sexualized everywhere they go. From the time they are wee girls, they are beaten over the head with images of sexy sexy women and that is set as the standard for what they need to grow up to be!” And you’re right, that’s 100% true. But that’s the weird thing: women are taught to be sex objects, but society isn’t too fond of women who truly enjoy sex.
Besides the obvious sexist bias in sexual activity (see: player vs whore), I think it even goes deeper than that. How many of us have heard our married, female friends lament about “having” to have sex with their husbands? Usually one will say something, then more will pop in until a group is discussing what a chore fucking their husbands is. Now, I’ll concede that sometimes the girls involved are just joking- but the fact that this joke is so darned prevalent in our society and that attitude is the expected default for middle aged married women . . . well, that says something about the standard society is setting for women.
Then you go into the whole idea that women can use sex a bargaining chip to get what they want out of their spouses, something else that is pretty prevalent. I recently was discussing this with a guy I was dating after he made some lame, sarcastic joke. He said, “Uh oh, I better watch out or I’ll be in the dog house and out of your bed!” And I said, “Why in the hell would I do that? That’s punishing ME- I like sex, too! It would have to be pretty goddamned serious for me to not want to have sex with you at all.” He expressed some shock at this, saying, “Wow, you’re literally the first girl I’ve ever dated who has said that.” And, frankly, I can’t think of a single one of my female friends off the top of my head who hasn’t talked about sex being a bargaining chip (though, that might just be me misremembering). I guess I just don’t get this attitude: if you like sex, you aren’t going to punish yourself to get something else that you want.
So, long story short: I think women do like sex just as much as men, but society has conditions most women to feel that liking sex is not only not ok, but also expected.
Perhaps your friends are less eager for sex than for the things they can obtain by rationing it.
Well, obviously.
What are the things they use sex to bargain for?
Desired behavior in their husbands. Usually, they’re mad because he hasn’t done X,Y, or Z- rational or not- and instead of telling him, they just withhold the fucking into he catches on. Often times, when I point out the stupidity of that, I get told that I wont understand what it’s like until I myself am married- then I wont want sex as much anymore anyway.
Look, I’m not pretending they’re in healthy relationships ;).
I think that desire for sex varies in all individuals regardless of gender. In my case I think I have almost always been more sexual than the men I have been with. I’m almost 50 and at the end of menopause and this hasn’t changed. There are definitely many that may disagree with this opinion and will always believe that men are more sexual. I don’t think so, however.
Women aren’t as sexual as men. This covers pretty much all the angles, even going into things like success of clerical celibacy (nuns are much better). Combine all the datapoints there with the huge number of women who are inorgasmic or who need to move heaven and earth to have a single orgasm and it’s pretty obvious stuff really, if your every day life experience made you think otherwise for reasons I can’t even begin to imagine. If women were more sexual than men our society would be pretty interesting. Prostitution and strip clubs would be pointless, porn would be aimed at women, advertising would be completely different. Straight men could leave work and go to a bathhouse for an orgy. God knows what the world population would be.
It is true though that the horniest multi-orgasmic women can put the average man to shame, but that’s mostly because of the refractory period. There are techniques around that, but then you have the thing where you have to sleep after too much. Women don’t seem to get that brain reaction.
Even in a case like that it’s one component, physical. Mentally I’d argue it’s not even close. Many women don’t have sexual inner lives as most men could understand or relate to. 110 year old men ogle their caretakers. A man could get shot in a war and be bleeding out and his last thoughts in this world will be of his nurse’s tits. Deviant sexual practices and subcultures are invented by, cater to, and are mostly composed of men wishing they could somehow get their partner to do this without shunning him. If you see a woman poster partaking, or blogging about these practices it’s even odds at best that it’s not a dude. Because guys like to do that too.
And it’s not anything to be jealous of. We’re absolute monsters. For women to be as sexual as men they’d have to do things like set up international human trafficking networks where they kidnap and rape little boys or lock their sons in a dungeon for their entire life and impregnate themselves multiple times. You’d have to invade the neighboring village, kill all the women, and take the men for yourselves. Because that’s the sort of thing we do.
How effective do you suppose a cultural program to dampen male sexuality would be? Remember all those ancient urban legends about male masturbation? A hallmark of male sexuality is pushing the envelope despite obvious consequences. There’s a subculture of men who fantasize about doing it without condoms and catching HIV or other STDs.
Slut shaming does exist, will persist and is an interesting subject on its own. But your description overall hasn’t really applied to Western culture in like 60 years at worst, even in a lagging culture like America. If you want an example of a society trying to dampen female sexuality look at a fundamentalist Islamic state. Or the ultimate example: African tribes that perform clitoridectomies.
No.
Women are more likely to be asexual than men. Take of that what you will.
Clearly I have been dating the right women. I should count my blessings.
Yes, men are all evil vile monsters while women are wonderful, superior beings. :rolleyes:
Quite often historically in part because the women want us to. “Come back with your shield or on it”. And at any rate if women had the same sex drive as men there’d be less of a sexual reason for any of that because there’d be less of a scarcity of freely available sex.
I disagree with most of this post. First of all, social conditioning doesn’t need to be extreme or violent to have an effect on women and girls growing up in Western societies. The words slut, slag, whore, ho are still insults directed by and large at women. This doesn’t get rid of female desire. It just teaches us to hide it.
Secondly, I HATE the link you made between rape and male lust/sexual frustration. Seriously, rape is not caused by men wanting to fuck. Most men who really badly want a fuck have a moan and jerk off. They don’t rape.
Thirdly, you make me think that no woman in this thread can prove you wrong because No True Scotswoman would post online about her dirty fantasies.
I think a lot of people in this post are making the mistake that because women don’t always enjoy sex in the same way as men they don’t enjoy it as much. E.g., women don’t tend to visit strip clubs. But what about erotica? Smutty fanfiction that’s written and read largely by women? Bonkbusters like Jilly Cooper - again targeted at women?
I do agree that going without sex for a long time is harder for men. IIRC a recent theory posits that women’s sex drive is the other way around - the more they get, the more they want.
In my opinion, women are just as sexual creatures as men. I know I want sex as much as my husband does. However, wanting sex does not equal actually having sex. In addition to societal factors, there are other practical things to consider.
It takes a lot of women a long time to get aroused enough to orgasm. That means that you’ll be having sex for a long time. Many women, especially if they work, have kids, are busy at home or some combination thereof, are tired after a full day of work, cooking/cleaning, childcare, etc.
Even though things are getting better, many women still shoulder the lion’s share of the burden of cleaning, cooking & childcare. So sex is sometimes just one more thing you have to fit into an already very long day. It sucks that it turns into that, but if you’re getting up at 5:30 a.m. like I am and only wrapping things up with the kids at 9:30 and have to deal with a wakeful baby at 2 a.m., sex should be high on my list of priorities, but there’s so much else to do before I get to go to bed at 11 or so that working myself up to it is difficult. Don’t get me wrong - I’m horny as hell. But actually getting around to the act isn’t easy.
I’m guessing my situation is pretty common, which leads me to believe that although it’s a massive generalization, it’s applicable to a lot of women.
Even a “plain jane” can go to a bar or even to the market and if she wants get laid in five minutes. Same cannot be said about men. If it were so simple I would not have spent so many nights home alone when i was single. My point being I guess that women are much more selective about who they sleep with. No big news there I know.
Compound OverlyVerbose’s statements with the male stereotype of ‘stick it in any warm moist hole you can find’ and the dichotomy is easy to see.
As far as ‘any woman can walk into a bar and get laid’, I think that’s a hard statement to -quantitatively- back up. There are LOTS of women I wouldnt want to bed. Looking at the hard-wired behaviors in our reptilian hindbrain: if a guy gets some, he can hop on his horse and head to the next town with his Mongol horde buddies. If a gal gets laid, she could get stuck with an 18 year commitment. ( or however long it takes…you see my point). It’s the chicken and pig situation: where breakfast is concerned, the chicken is involved (egg), the pig is committed (bacon).
Biologically speaking, that’s not very shocking, right?
And you’re not alone. Even desperate men have standards, just like women do.