That’s where the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace comes into play: if the publicity machine sets forth a totally absurd standard of “hotness”, eventually we will figure out that maybe we should be more realistic, or else we’re gonna spend a lot of time at home with a box of tissues. Lemme just say that though I would certainly enjoy the view of an entire freshman class of Britney/Beyoncé clones conducting experiments in minimalist clothing, I would heartily laugh at the very idea of actually trying to hook up in that crowd.
I’d probably try to strike up a conversation with someone who’s dressed like she knows what makes herself feel at ease.
I guess that in the Shallow Universe, the criteria for attractiveness involve for females minimizing clothes, and for males maximizing bankrolls. Sexual power v. economic power. After all in the MTV videos the girls are nearly naked and hot and rarin’ to go; but the guys are wearing 20 pounds of bling (or $5,000 suits, or BOTH), driving pimped-out Hummers or Lambos, pouring Crystal like it were Bud Lite, hanging out in 25-bathroom mansions, and just “own” the room the instant they walk in. Women are set up to emulate Beyoncé or Brittney, men are set up to emulate P.Diddy.
Guess what: anyone can take off her clothes, not everyone can fake a swagger convincingly and hardly anyone can affect being filthy rich. Thus you see more women visibly falling for the ploy.
Yes and no.
People in society hold and propegate certain views and memes.
But individuals still have their own standards of attractiveness.
I, for instance, have a thing for ‘quirky chicks’. Can’t explain it, wasn’t programmed with it, just like 'em. Likewise, I couldn’t see myself being married to a woman who didn’t appreciate the more cerebral/artistic/creative side of life, and that’s certainly not been programmed into me by popular culture.
I’ve never thought of mating as a competitive sport… it’s an odd paradigm to me.
I think you may also be giving the media too much influence over how people actually choose life partners. (And if the divorce rate is any indicator, mischoose life partners)
But even in our society, some people find buxom women sexually attractive, some find skinny women sexually attractive, some find foreign women sexually attractive, etc…
Is finding a husband really such an important goal that you would compromise on the basic quality of character that a man possesed? Is a man who’d judge your worth as a partner for the rest of his life, based on how much cleavage you showed, really worth your time? (you in the plural)
If there are requirements, why isn’t it fair that they should evolve to reflect the desires of those who are requiring something?
Oh, of course. I personally find pajama type lounging clothes to be very sexy. But that’s not the point, because I also can find skimpy/painted on clothing sexy. Sometimes on different days, sometimes to lesser or greater degrees, etc…
Women are not?
Not all men do. Some women do.
I know women who scope out guys, who get excited at a thought, who masturbate at least daily.
I’m not totally sure it’s all that different from female sexuality.
Because more women don’t want us to.
I remember a certain broadcast and Elvis…
It’s cool because evidently those men can still find women to sleep with them (or they don’t care if they do or not).
In my experience we’re about equal, in different flavors.
Because we don’t. Ricky Martin was definitely showing something off, right? It’s just a gimmick, just a tool. I can hook you into buying my stuff by being witty, or being well marketed, or being charismatic, or having a great smile, or…
Someone is buying the porn that is made for women. Personally, I suspect women.
Depends. I think the word ‘objectification’ is almost useless. It’s perfectly natural for people to meet and feel like having sex, and feel like doing nothing other than having sex, and are interested in nothing about the other person than what sort of sex they can have with them. Treating (a willing and eager consentual) someone like someone who you just want to have sex with isn’t necessarily wrong. Heck, treating a total stranger like someone who you’re only interested in sexually isn’t wrong.
Perhaps it would be helpful if you told me what you believe objectification is?
Why do you assume that this is the closest these women will come to wielding power? Why is this coming close to wielding power and not actually wielding power?
How do you know? Do you think you’d be attracted to smart and creative women if you had grown up in a society that branded “quirky” women as witches with nasty venereal diseases? I’m laughing as I say this, but I think the answer would be “hell no”.
So you’re saying you’ve never had a problem hooking up with someone? You’ve never had a woman turn you down for a date so she can go out with someone else? Do you think ugly people have the same chance of finding a girl/boyfriend as good-looking people?
Of course mating is a competitive sport! It’s the very nature of sexual reproduction and natural selection. If mating wasn’t a dog-eat-dog contest, men wouldn’t be able to give their girlfriends pretty flowers on Valentine’s Day. And the NBC logo would look a lot different.
The media as we know it has not existed for very long. It’s a different thing even from our parent’s generation. I grew up watching TV. My childhood: Wake up in the morning and watch TV over breakfast. Talk about TV at school. Rush home from school and watch TV. Do homework while watching TV. Eat dinner while watching TV. Watch TV with parents or with friends on the telephone. Go to bed with the TV blaring from the other room. Now that I’m an adult, I don’t watch it too much. But I still turn it on when I get home because the habit has been ingrained in me.
Last Christmas, I caught my neices singing that horrible Kelis “milkshake” song and mimicking the booty shaking. They didn’t even know what a “milkshake” was (and I wasn’t about to tell them), but no one can tell me that that isn’t disconcerting and that the media had nothing to do with it.
When our parents were coming of age, did they spend hours playing video games–many of them graphically violent and showing women as sexual objects?
We are immersed in media. Take away our TVs, and most of us wouldn’t be able to think. I don’t think we can really say what the mass media can or cannot do. We haven’t lived with it long enough.
Right, but understand that these attractions are context-specific. If our society was more homogenous, you would not find very many males being attracted to foreign women. If all women were obese, your number of skinny-women lovers would dramatically diminish. If women had mammory glands comparable to men’s, buxom women would not be sexually attractive to anyone but a couple of freaks.
I know there are plenty of men out there who appreciate women’s minds over their bodies, and think smarts are just as important as beauty. The ratio of men-who-love-smart-women to men-who-love-“hot”-women may be 1 or considerably greater than 1. But there’s no reason to believe that this ratio is fixed in stone. I will dispair if it drops below 1. But maybe JRDelirious is right and we won’t let it get that far.
I know the answer to these questions is “no”. But does a thirteen year old girl know this? If she believes she has to show her butt crack to be asked to the school dance, does it really matter if she’s wrong?
On NPR last week, they talked about the phenomona of “bigorexia”, a male version of body dysmorphia in which they obsess over getting big muscles. A study showed that men tend to grossly overestimate the degree of “buffness” women find attractive. Women find muscle appealing, but not to the degree that men assume they do. But this doesn’t stop lots of men from working out obsessively.
Back in the day, an “appealing” woman was one who was comely, cooked and cleaned well, didn’t talk too much, did her wifely duties, and raised children properly. Men were raised to believe these things made for an attractive spouse, and women tried their best to meet these criteria. A woman would have had a hard time finding a mate if she didn’t. It wouldn’t have helped her any to tell her not to waste her time looking for a man who only cared about her domestic prowess and submissive personality. You might as well tell her not to waste time looking for a man, period.
(Please note that I don’t think it would ever get to the point when what makes a “quality” wife would rest solely on her breast size. I don’t think it would ever get that bad.)
It’s not fair if one party is expected to cater to the other’s changing whims, but not vice versa. But I guess pointing out the unfairness is pointless since sex is inherently unfair.
I know you have a problem with generalizations, but come on. Do you really think women, as a group, are as lust-driven as men? Do you think women have the same sexual urges as men? Do you think women enjoy sex as much as men do? Do you think the biological differences between men and women (biochemical and morphological) would lead to similar sexual feelings between men and women?
Don’t you think it would make sense, from a biological point of view, for men to be more sexual than women?
Have you ever heard of women who have spent most of their adult lives never experiencing an orgasm, self-induced or otherwise? I have.
I have never heard of men who have never realized the pleasure of their sexual organs. Have you?
I suppose it’s difficult for either of us to say for sure, since we can’t experience what the “other” sexuality feels like. But I have a strong feeling it isn’t the same.
No, we aren’t. When it comes to human sex, one party–the one that produces millions of gametes a day–is doing the pursuing. The other is waiting to be caught. The two parties may be participate in sexual intercourse equally, but the power they wield getting to that point is not the same. The energy behind their drive is not the same.
Right. A male celebrity can be popular using his wit, charisma, wealth, intelligence, business acumen, or talent, even if he’s got a face like a bulldog. But a woman celeb has to have one thing going for her before anyone gives her the time of day: looks. Beautiful face, nice body, “hotness”, etc. If Ann Coulter looked like Charolette Rae, do you think she’d have anyone’s attention? Hell no!
Which do you think is more popular: Playboy or Playgirl?
YMMV, but I don’t think it’s “perfectly natural” to hook up with a person just for sex. For a man, this might be the case. But for most women, the stakes are too high to go having random sex all over Creation.
A person is objectified when they become an assemblage of body parts rather than a complete human being with feelings and a soul. A woman is objectified when she is referred to as “that piece of ass”. I know someone who refers to “hot” women as “monsters”. Look at that monster over there, he’ll say. When they reach that level of sexual attractiveness, they apparently cease being human to him.
Music videos that have lots of close-up shots of female ass, tits, and legs objectify women’s bodies. Clothing that accentuates these things facilitate objectification.
It’s not a useless term because it describes a real phenomenom.
I dunno… I grew up in a society where the brainy girl is only hot in the movies once she takes her hair down and gets a makeover. I like 'em with the glasses on.
In order: No I"m not saying that, yes I have had that happen, and no, probably not.
But I still don’t look at it as a competition, I look at it as clickage.
Interesting. I generally go a least a few days if not a few weeks without turning the idiot box on.
I don’t grok what you’re getting at.
First, yikes!
Second, perhaps… I think that before we ascribe effects to it though, we need to know what it can and cannot do. Otherwise we’re just guessing.
Maybe…
I think it does matter, yes. Parents should help educate their daughters instead of letting TeeVee do it.
Wouldn’t this means that men work and suffer to make themselves attractive to women?
Being an individual is always hard.
But you just talked about men wanting to be more buff to cater to women. If women are selective, men will try to ‘get them’ in different ways. Right?
I don’t know about ‘as a group’. I do know that I’m a highly sexual person and I’ve met more than one woman with similar drives.
Judging by some of the women I’ve met, yes, some women have the same sexual urges as some men.
Yep, it not more so.
Similar in a general sense, yes. Pleasure centers of the brain still light up, and orgasms still feel good.
Depends on what you mean by more sexual. If you mean that men would have evolved to desire more partners, then yes. If you mean that men would have evolved to enjoy sex more and want to have sex more often, then no.
Yes, I have. I’ve also heard of women who have multiple orgasms until they’re quivering gasping sighing jello-esque forms.
It’s easier for a man to climax, in general, than it is for a woman. But I also know a few women who love sex whether or not they have an orgasm.
Fair enough.
I kinda like forward/agressive women sometimes. And plenty of them exist.
Well, if the female demographic cared more about looks, I’d wager we’d be seeing a difference in some male entertainers. Just a hunch.
Playboy. (But only for the articles ;))
But, so what?
My experience in college suggests otherwise
Eh… I don’t know if I’d agree. I see little difference between “She’s hot.” and “She’s brilliant.” Each is a single characteristic which can be fosuced on. Can you elaborate a bit please?
I don’t know why that means a woman is being objectified. I can point out a girl I’d like to fuck and still have respect for her as a person.
And yet, aren’t attractive men sometimes refered to as ‘an Adonis’ ? Is there really such a huge difference?
Why? Does a recorded lecture of a woman speaking which focuses on her mind objectify her?
I’m trying to pin down what, exactly, this phenomena refers to. I can’t quite figure if you’re using it interchangeably with ‘sex appeal’ or not.
monstro, I am very much in awe of your posts, especially that last one. ZING!
As I sat tonight watching C-SPAN and the vote in the House on Terri Schiavo, I kept remembering that all of this happened because a beautiful woman thought that she wasn’t thin enough. She dieted until her heart gave out and she was brain damaged.
Many of the images that are seen on TV and in magazines are now altered by computer imaging. We are now competing with women who don’t exist in real life.
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf is a real eye-opener.
When who are appreciated only for their bodies and sexual appeal often have self-esteem problems. No one wants to be treated like a slab of meat.
If women choose to exploit their good looks and can still maintain a sense of identity and inner strength, then more power to them. But I do wonder how they will feel about themselves when gravity and age take their toll on the superfulous aspects of being a woman.
JRDelerious, I really don’t think that women are as impressed by money and cars as you make them out to be. You rarely find those qualities at the top of any woman’s list of things that attract her to a man. Don’t buy into the hype you see in ads and movies.
I believe you’re wrong here. In my experience, and according to my reading, discussion and reflection, women have the capacity to enjoy sex much mroe than men. And the majority of women in the West would, I contend, actualise that capability.
I don’t know whether you are male or female, but isn’t it your experience that women orgasm more freqently than men during one session of sex - and in more than one different way - and that their orgasms last longer?
Eh, I dunno, the Beatles were great musicians, but something would have been missing from the Sgt. Pepper cover if they were standing there wearing T-shirts. And Bootsy Collins would still be an excellent bassist without the sparkly space-cowboy-pimp getup, but he would be a lot less fun to look at, you know?
I am attracted to a group of men who are considered ‘unsexy’ by 90% of women. Society does influence our choice of mate, but a lot of it is genetic.
I think we can tell by comparing our culture with cultures who do not have mass media. Mass media has only been around for so long. If the changes of it are very drastic, they should be easy to see.
Most 13-year-old girls do not think or feel this way. And nor do men instantly gravitate towards the women who are dressed the sluttiest. In fact, I have many times heard men make fun of a girl because she was not attractive at all and showed too much skin. Men seem to love seeing the skin of women they find attractive, but an unattractive women will get nothing but negative attention.
What a horrible way at looking at things! I wear fairly conservative clothes for my age group and location and I’ve managed to bag some pretty hot guys while wearing boring and non-exciting outfits.
Yeah, women have all the power!! Most women I know can get sex whenever they want it. Not so for the men.
Yes.
No, basically men desire to have as many women as possible and women desire to have the studliest men possible. However, without societal restrictions, both men and women end up having the same amount of sex
I think we enjoy it more.
No, men and women are looking for different things. But even these are just tendancies, there are plenty of poeple within the groups that for nearly every sexual taste, preference, there are people. For example, most women like men who exhibit signs of testosterone when they are ovulating. I, myself, don’t and never have. And it’s a good thing that I don’t and plenty of other women don’t otherwise the feminine guys would have less chance of getting laid and producing babies!
No, just to desire more sexual partners in a lifetime. Desiring large numbers of sexual partners != sexual desire. I have only had one sexual partner yet my level of sexual desire is very high. Just because most women do not desire the same numbers of sexual partners as men does not mean their sex drives are less.
That’s only because of our society. I’ve never heard of such a case in ‘primative’ peoples.
It’s not the same, but it isn’t as different as most people think.
No it isn’t, and women clearly have more power. The X chromosome is more important than the Y chromosome, females are better genetically than males. The whole purpose of a male is for females to have sex with each other. Females are the ones, in their natural state, who are more picky about who they sleep with and who do the sexual selection. Why do you think that in animal species, men are the ones who dress up fancy and try to attract females? Because the power of sexual selection resides in the female.
Why do you think humans appear to be different?
That’s not because women don’t enjoy porn, but because women tend to enjoy different types of porn than men do. Most women enjoy pornographic stories because they just aren’t as visually based as most men are. There are exceptions of course.
Not if he is the perfect man. In many species in which the animals form a lifelong pair, the females often trick the males into raising offspring that isn’t their own. The more masculine, testosterone filled men are used for mating while the kinder, more feminine men are used for life partners and for raising of the babies.
There’s nothing wrong with that. I like looking at men. When I see a very hot man, I imagine fucking him. I am sure men do the same when they see a hot woman. That is part of the human experience. That man is not worse off because of my thoughts. I have never been worse off because some man imagined what it would be like to have me suck his dick. We objectify people all the time over all sorts of things.
I’ve done bikini modeling and I can assure you that I have plenty of self-respect. I have a lot of female friends who have done the same or more and they also have plenty of self-respect. In fact, I don’t know any other group of girls so self-confident. It takes a lot of guts to prance around half-nakkid.
I have a friend who ‘models’ for various groups. Last month she did a thing for Nascar where she just dressed in tight clothes and posed for pics. You should see the amount of money she makes for doing absolutely nothing. She’s a very intelligent girl, in addition to being drop-dead gorgeous, and I see no reason why she can’t use both gifts of nature to the best she sees fit. Especially since there is a lot of money to be made in showing a little bit of ta-tas every once in a while.
I think just about every kind of woman has been called every kind of thing by society at some point or another. I can think of quite a few bad names that sexy women are called, but it doesn’t seem to stop anyone.
No, but dumb people have a lot harder time hooking up than smart people. Lazy people have a harder time than active people. Mentally ill people have a harder than stable people. Poor people have a harder time than rich people. We all win or lose some in the dating game, and some win or lose more than others. But that doesn’t symbolize some deep imbalance in society, just the same old competition for scarce resources (healthy mates) that permeates everything else we do.
Besides, the “pretty” girls are rarely the ones that look like supermodels. Just like the “great” guys arn’t always the most caring. Most of attractiveness is about how you present yourself, with a lot of attention towards how confident you are about who you are. Of course guys are going to want a girl that is confident with her sexuality- they like sex a lot, after all. But it goes both ways. Girls look for guys that are confident about their sexuality, too. Thats where the whole “nice guy” debate comes from. Sex is part of dating. Confidence is better than none. You can’t get around it.
And when I was a kid, my mom caught me singing “I Like Big Butts” and was horrified because the song is very sexually explicit. To me it was just a funny song. The funny thing is, it still is. Novelty songs with sexually explicit meanings go back to times inmemmorial. At some point kids make the leap to understanding what the lyrics mean. At that point, they either get horrified and start asking for their smelling salts, or they start laughing because it’s pretty clever.
I’m a young’n, but when my mom was growing up she was watching headlines about “Deepthroat” the movie and listening to Guns’n’Roses come up with new things to say about women.
We’ve lived with televisions for fifty years, and before that there were movies on a massive scale that rivals television. I think you overestimate how important it is across the board. I’ve never even owned one.
And if not so many women were scared and uncomfortable with their sexuality, men wouldn’t seek out the ones that flaunt it. The problem here is with women, not with men. A good chunk of us have never used a mirrior to take a good long look at our privates. There have been lively debates here on the dope about whether or not girls pee through their vaginas. Despite the prevelence of sex in our society, women are still not comfortable and fully in control of their sexuality. They don’t even know some of the basic anatomy, much less what to do with all the feelings.
We need to accept, and even nurture sexuality in women. We need to tell girls that it’s okay to masterbate. We need to see pictures of pussies so we don’t think of them as these wierd scary hairy things. We need to have a clear vocabulary of sex and learn to feel comfortable using it.
Do you really think this is true? I don’t know any couples (and most my friends are male) who picked their girlfriend mainly on looks. Men enjoy looking- just like I enjoy a good Chomsky speech- but when it comes to finding a partner, looks will never be more important than pure chemistry.
And who is harmed if a thirteen year old shows her butt crack to be asked to the school dance? When I was thirteen, I was just wishing someone would ask me to drop my pants so I could relieve some of that adolescent sexual tension. But thats besides the point. Ideally we’d arm thirteen year olds with the knowledge and understanding to make informed decisions about showing their butt crack (“Do I want to present myself as a sexual creature right now?”, “Is this guy really worth showing my butt to”, etc.) and make them comfortable with that instead of freaking out about the whole thing and confusing her so she thinks sex is bad and shameful and convincing guys that butt cracks are the forbidden fruit.
In my experience, man get a lot more rigid expections than women do.
We want men to be strong. We never want to see them cry. We want them to take pain with dignity. We want them to be virile. We want them to be agressive in a non-intimidating way. We want them to protect us at times and take care of us when we are weak. But we rarely want to offer the same. We want them to have strong morals. We want them to work hard at a steady job. Women reject “nice guys” roundly and repeatably.
And the worse thing is, there is no escaping these roles. There is no acceptable social place for the weak man like there is for the strong woman. Men pretty much get one mold, and every deviation from it is a discredit. Even in the gay community this is a problem. It causes a lot of men I know a lot of angst.
Actually, yeah. The orgasmic experience is about the same in males and females, except that females can experience multiple orgasms. Women are sexual from a much earlier age. We all have the same nerves, except that our are all in one neat bundle.
In many- perhaps most- cultures, the woman is considered to be the one with the insatiable sexual appetite, and the men are the ones that impose rules to keep it in control. One of the justifications for the Islamic veil and female circumscision is that us girls just can’t keep their pants on unless we make it impossible. The biggest fear is not that women will be seduced by men, but that women will seduce. One of the reasons why women are banned or seperated in some houses of worship is that woman’s raw sexuality would disrupt all the holy stuff going on.
And in these cultures where women’s sexuality is at least aknowledged, women relish sex. Open and graphic conversations about sex are one of the main features of gathering among women. The stuff heard in the backrooms of Riyadh would make the Sex in the City girls blush.
It is because our culture adamantly denies, shames, refuses to talk about and crushes women’s sexuality that we don’t live fuller sexual lives and don’t seem to enjoy sex like males do.
Female humans are only fertile for a short period of time each month, which isn’t immediately discernable. From a biological point of view, it makes sense of women to screw as many people as she can to make sure she hits that window.
Sad, isn’t it? It doesn’t have to be this way. This is the product of a broken society, not of biology.
I’ve never heard of a 15 year old boy that didn’t masterbate and didn’t know his friends masterbate. I’ve never heard of a boy that can’t draw his genitals or figure out how the whole thing fits together. I’ve never heard of a boy that hasn’t heard exactly whats gonna happen on his wedding night. I’ve never met a boy who doesn’t have the words for “Yes, this feels good, keep doing it” and “No, I don’t want to do this, please stop.” And it’s been a damn long time that I’ve heard a boy told some crappy parabel about a rose that gets destroyed as a metaphor for his virginity, or told that he’s shameful for feeling sexual at all, or that his greatest worth is how much sex he doesn’t have.
But actually, there are plenty of men who have trouble reaching orgasm during intercourse or orgasming at appropriate times. In my experience, quite a few guys have their own hangups and troubles when it comes to getting full sexual pleasure.
Girls don’t get pregnant by laying on their back and waiting for someone to mosey along. Girls have to do their thing to attract mates, and when it comes to fertilizing those eggs, the more the merrier,.
I agree with you on this one, but I don’t think it has much to do with sex. Women first took public roles as physical beauties, and it’s hard to break out of that even know that we can do other things. I would like to see this go away, but it’s not girls in bikinis that are causing it. It’s deep social and economic systems, not music videos.
Who do you think writes more slash? Who do you think reads more trashy romance novels? Who do you think writes all those really nasty stories on usenet?
I disagree with you, but thats besides the point. We have ten thousand years of human history behind us- enough to leave the apes swinging in the trees. Now sex, done right, is good clean fun. Why not use the power of humanity to use it the best way we know how- which to some might mean putting on some hoochie shorts and picking up some hotties?
Heh, I’m not even a “monster” to my employer, just a number. I literally have a barcode. And I’m selling my smile, my hands, a tiny part of my brain and my speaking voice. We’re all objectified to someone at sometimes. And we do it to others all the time. When you called that guy that cut you off an “asshole”, did you really consider that he might be a good father and might have nice looking ankles? When you refused to hire the kid that smelled like pot, did you keep in mind he might be an excellent pianist and might have got straight As in middle school? We’re looking for specific things when we meet with different people for specific purposes. Good looks are really nice in sex. Even you probably don’t want to screw a 500 lb guy with huge scars and no nose, even if he is a sweetie.
And movies with guys in expensive cars objectify a man’s earning status. Books about men who save women from pirates objectify their courage and wrecklessness. Songs about guys who dance well objectify their dance skills. Nobody is claiming that music videos are the best way to get a complete view of a person. At least they are honest about which aspects they are interested in.
But does this mean that the ultimate messege is that women are inhuman objects? No more than a picture of your son means you only value how he looks at school on portrait day.
But it has to be a competition, FinnAgain, if the kind of people we “click” with are limited in number, which they are. You may not see it as a competition if you don’t have to struggle that hard to find dates. But biologically and socially speaking, it’s a game with rules, winners, and losers.
Who’s more unusual, you or me?
I’m “groking” that that saying “there’s nothing new under the sun” is not completely true. Young people today are being exposed to things in ways that have never existed before. The media has brought us into a brave new world.
That’s my point. You say I’m assuming the media holds more power over us than it actually does. I say we don’t know how much power it holds…and if we don’t know how in the hell can we say it’s harmless? Does the media represent what people want? Or does the media tell us what we want? We don’t really know, do we? Wouldn’t you like to slow things down so we can find out?
I agree, but unfortunately kids spend more time in the company of the Media (TV, radio, magazines) than their own parents. And parents spend more time in the company of the Media than their own children. A mother can tell her daughter that her mind is just as good as her body, but if all the girl sees on TV is the opposite of this, there’s no telling what the child will believe.
The men who suffer from this disorder do, yes.
I’m not following you.
I don’t doubt this at all. But probability-wise, a randomly drawn male will be more sexual than a randomly drawn female. As I said, it makes sense biologically, even if we want to ignore the morphological differences. Men are reproductively “available” every day of their adult lives. A woman is “available” only a small fraction of her adult life. We don’t have to think about sex on a constant basis. Guys do.
But are these “somes” the same. Same in terms of number? What about power?
If this is the case, why do so many women–millions of women–fake orgasm. Where does the old “I have a headache” excuse come from, if women enjoy sex as much as men? Why is it that it’s the boy who usually put pressure on the girl to have sex? Why is date rape almost exclusively a crime perpetrated by men on women, if women enjoy sex as much as men?
A female orgasm is arguably better since one can trigger others. However, my point is that it is harder for a woman to get to that point, and therefore sex is a totally different experience for her than it is for her male partner.
If I tell you there’s a bowl full of strawberry ice cream waiting for you next door, you won’t waste a beat rushing over to it. But if that bowl of ice cream is waiting at a top of twenty story building, you aren’t gonna really want it so much, will you?
Men make millions of sperm a day. Millions. Every day.
A woman only lays a single egg each month. A single egg. And the egg’s office hours are limited to three days out of the month.
Explain to me why it would benefit a woman, evolutionarily speaking, to have sex as much as a man does.
How many men do you know love sex even if they don’t come or even have an erection? We have a billion-dollar industry devoted to this “affliction”. But funny, we don’t see Viagra or Cialis for women on the market. Perhaps it’s because no one really cares if we enjoy sex. Including ourselves.
You seem to be dodging my points by bring up your own personal preferences and encounters. But the points still remain unchallenged.
That’s easy.
Brilliance is an attribute of one’s self. Their mind, their soul, their personality, whatever word you want to use. Brilliance is something you can be born with, or it can be the product of hard work and elucidation. You can use it to create and control things, but the primary benefactor is the individual who has it. If I meet a brilliant person, I want to be like them. I want them to teach me. Brilliance is a timeless quality. A brilliant 20-year-old is a brilliant 70-year-old. Brilliance is not easily damaged. Fads don’t determine whether someone is brilliant or not.
“Hotness” is an attribute of one’s outer shell, so it’s superficial by definiton. Hotness is usually something you’re born with, and if it isn’t–you have to go to unnatural lengths to get it. Hotness is defined by others and is developed/maintained for others. It says nothing about the inner depth of that person. Hotness does not make people think. Hotness does not inspire you. Hotness is not a timeless quality. A “hot” twenty-something will not be an equally “hot” 70-year-old. Hotness changes at the drop of a hat. Today Kate Moss is “hot”. Tomorrow Kristie Allie is. Too bad if you can’t gain weight in 24 hours.
Why don’t females care about more looks, if they are just as sexual as men?
If men and women are equally sexual, wouldn’t you expect porn usage to be equal too?
Who’s this person though? Do you fuck her body or do you fuck her brain? Which represents the “person” the best?
You can’t see the difference between calling someone an epitome of a handsome man (an Adonis) and calling someone a monster? Are you for real?!
I would argue that since the mind is considered one’s self, then no it would not. Do you think the mind and the body equally represent “self”?
Sex appeal is swishing down the aisle on the bus so all the good-looking guys notice how sexy your hips, butt, and physical grace are put together.
Objectification is wearing a huge sign on your ass that reads “LOOK HERE”.
So what ya’ll are saying is that women are just as likely–or even moreso–to experience climax as men during sexual intercourse?
Men don’t have a huge advantage during sex? It’s not easier for them to experience pleasure since their sensory organ is 100 times bigger than a clitoris?
Wow.
Of course. Heterosexual women like penises for the same reason that female apes and monkeys do.
Your unusual choice of mate doesn’t have to be societal or genetic-induced. I don’t think every preference comes down to either/or. For instance, I like gingerbread Victorian houses. Society hasn’t forced me to like these houses, I don’t think. Nor do I think think there’s a “gingerbread Victorian house” gene swimming around in my cells. Rather, I think it has something to do with the fact that I grew up in a gingerbread Victorian house. Or maybe I just like gingerbread Victorian houses because they remind me of edible gingerbread houses (mmmm).
I never said that conservatively dressed women can’t get dates or positive attention. What I have said is that there is no reason to think this is won’t change in the future. I was using the “back in the day” to illustrate why.
This is true, and this goes EXACTLY to my point about the power differential between men and women. Women can get all the sex they want because there is always someone (read, man) looking for “some”. If I walk out onto the street right now butt-ass naked, there will be someone (read, man) who will stop and service me. If a man walks out onto the street butt-ass naked, how long will he have to wait before a woman pulls over for him?
Yes, we hold the power of selection. It is the woman who decides who fertilizes her precious eggs. But we aren’t usually roaming the streets hungrily, busting at the seams. All we have to do is sit pretty and wait for them to knock on our door.
It’s really hard for me to imagine this, though, but it’s probably because I hardly ever think about sex.
I’m reminded of another piece that I heard on NPR about two or three years ago. It was a story about a female-to-male transexual and how the process changed his mind. According to him, prior to receiving testosterone, he hardly thought about sex. But the moment the juice kicked in, he was all about sex. He couldn’t stop looking at asses and breasts. His mind was always focused on fucking. He was horny all the damn time, and it frightened him because it was such a different experience than what he was used to. His story made me grateful for being a female because I can not possibly imagine how hard it must be, constantly thinking about genitalia.
“Sexy” women have been called chippies, harlots, whores, sluts, and everything else. And they have always been second best to “good girls”. Maybe they got play on the weekends, but they always had to wait in line at the altar.
The labels do stop people. And the media is great at creating artificial labels (you’ll be “cool” if you drink Sprite, don’t you know?)
I didn’t say mating is anything other than just what you said.
When I was ten, my mother found out that I called a radio station to request Billy Ocean’s “Get Out of My Dream”. I got a loong talking-to. If my mother had caught me singing “Milkshake” (and if she had known just what a milkshake refers to), I would have gotten my ass whipped.
Novelty songs may go back to times immemorial, but there was a time when that Kelis song was all over the fricking place. I couldn’t turn on the TV without seeing that video. Were any of Chuck Berry’s nasty songs that ubiquitious?
We both grew up in the mass media generation, even sven, and we aren’t that separated from my niece’s generation. So citing “I Like Big Butts” kinda proves my point. Find me a mainstream song from the 1950s or 1960s that was just as bawdy and graphic as “I Like Big Butts”, and maybe I won’t worry so much.
Why doesn’t it have much to do with sex and why is it hard to break out of?
It’s not girls in bikinis that cause it, no. But girls in bikinis perpetuate it, yes. Music videos don’t cause it, no (they haven’t been around that long). But they affirm it.
We are a male-dominated society. Even as we see a gradual change of the power structure, the rules that govern this society were created by men and thus serve to perpetuate male ideals and desires. We were a sexist society fifty years ago. We are a sexist society today. Period.
I wasn’t hired for my smile, my hands, or a tiny piece of my brain. I take pride in the fact that I was hired for my friendly personality, the thinking part of my brain, my ability to follow and give directions, and my educational background. These things are “me”. Not all of me, but the most important parts of me. My smile, my hands, and a tiny piece of my brain are not me.
I worked too hard on developing myself to let someone hire me solely because I have a nice smile and a smooth speaking voice.
I call people assholes based on what they’ve done, not how they look. If I call a guy “asshole” because his ass is huge, then I’m objectifying him. They aren’t the same things.
Again, you’re missing the point. A kid who smells like pot is most likely using pot. A person who uses pot is likely to have a bunch of baggage associated with them that I’d rather not deal with. I’m not objectifying him by making this assumption. I might be prejudging him, but not objectifying him.
A woman who wears hoochie shorts will not command respect in the workplace, unless she’s working at Hooter’s or a strip joint. And who fixes the problems in society if all we do is fuck fuck fuck?
Humans devote a ton of energy to sexuality. It was sexual energy that produced the hanging fresco in the Cistine Chapel. It was sexual energy that produced the Moonlight Sonata and formulated the theory of relativity. Michaelango, Mozart, and Einstein weren’t asexual beings, but I’m betting they weren’t constantly cruising for “hotties” either. They channeled their chi into great and wonderful things. It would have been a great waste if they had followed their other “heads”.
I want women to start creating some great and wonderful things too. Things other than new human beings. What’s so wrong with that?
Why do you say that? Using one attribute does not cancel out the others. Sounds like you’re a puritan with moral issues that can only be applied to your own behavior. If you don’t want to dress scantily, then don’t. It is not an indicator of a person’s intelligence or character.
Eh… I don’t have my social callander full all the time, but I still don’t see it that way. But since this seems to be an issue of dueling paradigms, I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I don’t think it’s the media, exactly. I honestly believe that thousands of years of human (cultural and intellectual) evolution are coming to a head. That we’re living in a time of great transition, and possibly the Second Renaisance. Or rather, the First Nascence. I think that the acceleration of technology/information and the breakdown of traditional order will usher in a brave new world. I think that this is a system with emergent properties, and that right now we can’t be sure if it’ll be a paradise or a hollocaust.
You proceed from an asumption and then say we need to run tests because of your assumption. Why should we slow it down? I mean, we can create many hypotheses, but without data there’s no reason to slow anything down. Misgivings are not data. If a study is conducted showing a direct causal relationship between TeeVee and memetics, I’d get behind your plan in a limited manner.
Perhaps… I see the answer as better parenting, although to be fair, I have no children of my own.
And men who don’t suffer from that disorder but still pack into the gym so that women will find them attractive?
My point is that both sexes try to make themselves more attractive to the opposite sex.
Personally I think this is most likely more due to culture than biology. For a long time in human history, female sexuality has been mistrusted, limited, contained. I think that the sexual revolution in America has helped change very old paradigms.
But some women do. What are we to do with them? Simply write them off? It is one thing to point out that in our society at this present time, there is a statistical trend towards behavior in various ‘groups’, it is quite another to show that is the way-things-must-be. I believe that the human organisim is plastic to a very large degree, and that we’re witnessing a memetic evolution.
Probably not the same in number, I don’t know about power. Would a female CEO who couldn’t stop thinking about getting home and fucking her husband silly be lacking power? Does sexuality, necessarily, translate into a power dynamic?
I’d wager that many women fake orgasm because they lack good communication and/or have partners who aren’t interested in treating them right. None of my girlfriends have ever claimed a ‘headache’. There’re times when men, and women aren’t in the mood, but again I’d suspect that the standard ‘headache’ gambit is to get out of bad sex, not sex. Boys put more pressure on girls because girls have to deal with the consequences in a way boys do not. But that doesn’t mean girls don’t get horny. And rape isn’t about sex.
Yes, but I still feel that it’s essentially the same just with different flavors. Some women pretty much never get off from penetration. And some of those women still love sex and want as much as they can get.
I hate strawberry ice cream
But, again, some women love sex even if they don’t get off.
Because it feels good. Humans have a tendency to do that which gives us pleasure, and even if it’s not to make babies, some women can and do enjoy sex with or without orgasms. If a woman is on the pill, something which ‘thwarts’ evolution, then she’s taking control of her sexuality and reproductive future. It benefits her to have/want sex just as much as a man because it’s fun and enjoyable.
To my knowledge it’s pretty much impossible to have sex if a man’s penis is too flacid for penetration. I also don’t chat much with other guys about how much they enjoy sex without cumming… but there’s been more than one time when I’ve outlasted whatever woman I was with, and I enjoyed it just fine.
But isn’t that the rub? If women demanded it, there would most likely be a product on the market. Dollars speak loudly. If enough women don’t ask for that, whose fault is it? The women who don’t ask, or the men who don’t care if the women ask or not?
That’s a very funny way of looking at it. I’m challenging your generalizations by pointing out exceptions. Things are not as black and white as you’re presenting them.
I still think you’re only pointing out cluster-concepts and attempting to ascribe value judgements to them. Brilliance is no more a part of who someone is than ability to play a good game of chess. “Who someone is”, in my mind, is based on character. There are plenty of brilliant assholes.
Because not all sexuality is expressed the same way, and women aren’t as visually oriented as men are.
I wouldn’t expect that. And I think it can be argued that while lots of men watch porn, lots of women read romance novels.
Body. I think, however, the the ‘person’ is best represented by everything, but most importantly by personality/character. In my mind, wanting to fuck a girl because she’s hot, or smart, or a gymnast, or whatever… it’s all the same.
Quite real. I assure you.
There is a difference, but I believe that it is not totally substantive. (And by the way, it’s funny that you talk about me bringing up personal experiences while you claim that they’re not relevant objections, and then you using a personal experience as a relevant objection. You can’t have it both ways.)
In either case, a man or a woman is looking at a potential partner, and making them somehow not-just-human. There’s an almost mythic quality to it. I’ve been known to refer to people as ‘demons’, with intense respect. I do not believe a mythic contruction, in and of itself, necessarily speaks to something bad.
I generally have a bit of trouble with the mind/body dichotomy and think it’s not a useful paradigm. I think a woman’s personality is a better representation of her ‘self’. I think personality includes everything from body language to rhetorical trends to whether or not she likes to cuddle or cries during sappy movies.
I see this as a fallacious dichotomy. The only difference seems to be that one is more blatant than the other. Both are an attempt to say “Look at me!!!” One is simply less subtle.
Ah, but you see, that’s part of the point in discussion with monstro.
Media Hype says girls should be Britney – hot-to-trot and mostly naked – to get a man’s attention. We worry that it creates expectations that diminish the dignity of woman, create an uneven playing field in the competition for mates, lead women to adopt styles that are not really their own, negates empowerment.
Media Hype says men should be Diddy – rich and powerful – to get the attention of the ladies. We go, meh, so what else is new, order another beer, and still try to hit on the next girl the bar.
How come the mind-trick it works for the one and not for the other?
I think that was sort of monstro’s point. Perhaps women have not demanded sex-enhancing drugs as vocally as men, and perhaps the reason is that sex is not as important a hobby to them as it is for men. ::shrug::
IMO, it’s rather easy to say that overt displays of sexuality are okay, if you isolate the discussion to the actions of adult women. But I think of little girls being unindated with certain messages that say that women should use their bodies to get attention. “Shake your boobs/ass and men will drool over you! This is what success means!” I cringe when I see kids wearing suggestive slogans on their butts and buying thongs.
My objections to it don’t really stem from a visceral reaction of sex being harmful to children; I think it troubles me because I feel that presenting oneself as a sex object is like presenting oneself as a clown of sorts. People do not take you seriously. They don’t care about what you’re talking about, how smart you are, or what your goals and aspirations are. They only notice what is on the outside. Body parts. Which is far from unreasonable if you are wearing your typical club getup, with the boobs and the ass deliberately presented to provoke a reaction. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But I do fear that kids today are receiving the message that women garner the most and best kind of attention when they are half naked and shaking their jiggly parts. Which means they will probably devote less time to developing the kind of character traits that society respects more, such as intelligence and a good sense of ethics.
Actually, it’s more the case that women’s sexuality has not been scientifically studied until very recently, which means that the causes of women’s sexual dysfunctions and ways of addressing them are pretty much in the dark ages. The reasons for this all seem to go into power differentials, sexism, and ignorance.
(I have a friend who is, for the most part, asexual; the current best-guess theory is that much of her capacity for libido was destroyed by the Pill. She occasionally writes about the current state of research into women’s sexual issues in her blog.)
