The above doesn’t sound selfish at all, so what is it about this outcome that strikes you as self-serving to men?
Gonna go out on a limb and speculate that you think sexual equality means that men will get to experience the kind of sexual objectification you yearn for. I don’t think this is a given.
I think what AHunter3 is positing may be something that occured to me quite a while ago:
If women weren’t afraid that men might hurt them, then some women (not all) would be more willing to have casual sex.
Imagine a world in which one could agree to go to a private place with a stranger or casual acquaintance and have sex with them, in the absolute or near-absolute certainty that the person would not only not do you any physical harm, but would not insist, once they got you alone, in having sex in some fashion that you didn’t like, or in continuing after you wanted to stop, or in acting afterwards as if they had some sort of claim on you; and also in the certainty that they wouldn’t afterwards mock you to their friends or to yours. [ETA: and of course in the certainty that they wouldn’t kill you.]
I think that in that world heterosexual men would indeed find it easier to get laid. Still not guaranteed, of course, because at any given time a lot of people don’t want to have sex right then; for any given person not every other person wants to have sex with that particular person; some don’t want to have sex at all; and some will have the desire but have other reasons not to act on it. But easier, because one of the reasons not to agree to sex – the fear of being deliberately harmed – would have disappeared.
I was thinking about that too. The culture we live in is full, absolutely full, of people (of any gender) giving women advice on how to avoid being raped. We not only swim in a sea of the possibility of rape, we also swim in a sea of advice on the subject, starting when we’re small children. And while I’ve certainly seen/heard people (most of them women) object to this advice on the grounds that much of it’s bad advice that won’t work, on the grounds that much of it assumes that only strangers can be dangerous and advice constructed on this theory may actually increase risk, on the grounds that much of it is unreasonably constricting, and on the grounds that it’s unfair to expect women to do the work of preventing rapes committed by men: I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody object on the grounds that there’s nothing to worry about anyway. It’s always flat out assumed that of course women need to be worried about the possibility of rape.
So, this would mean that the #1 reason for reticence to have casual sex comes from fear of being physically hurt, subjugated or mocked?
What would be reasons #2 and #3?
In an exclusive relationship? Doesn’t ever want to have sex with a man? Is asexual? Doesn’t like casual sex because it tends to be unsatisfying? Has issues with birth control that make it difficult to navigate proper contraception on a casual encounter? There’s no end of reasons why a person would not engage in casual sex. Y’know, like all the ones there are right now, minus the fear factor.
It seems very laudable … although I think that for women to be treated in an egalitarian way, truly an enormous shift in American culture would have to happen. “Hidden” work like housework and childcare would either have to be compensated in wages or in some other way. Men would have to start being responsible for many tasks that now are only, or mostly, required of women. Men would have to stop talking and start listening. I don’t know how that would happen.
I think the whole idea of free-market capitalism with its built-in disinterest in anything which supports communities over profits, like easy affordable childcare for all, just as an example, would have to be re-examined. Or raping land for profit and leaving it poisoned and dead. Or destroying communities and cultures because they stand in the way of profit. These things are all linked to patriarchy, and far more eloquent people than I have explicated how this is so.
There can be no true equality of women without equality for everyone. Without a living wage for everyone. Without equal rights for everyone.
So, a high bar.
No. It would mean that one of the reasons is that fear. It wouldn’t mean that that is the number one reason.
I don’t know what the ranking would be; there are lots of possible reasons.
ETA: if we could get rid of that fear, we might find out what percentage of that reluctance is due to it. I agree that doing so would be quite a heavy lift.
I don’t think the fear of men is the main thing that keeps women from seeking casual sex. Slut shaming and the belief that good men devalue women who “give it up” too freely are factors much more at work.
I agree. But casual sex is not the same thing as sexual objectification, at least to me. Having carefree, no strings attached sex with a FWB doesn’t mean seeing and treating them as just an assembly of sex characteristics that exist to get you off. That’s what comes to mind when I think of sexual objectification.
Exactly, and I rarely see men showing an appreciation for how all this advice and sermonizing impacts regular guys who want baggage-free fun with women. Women are told that it’s bad idea to party alone and get drunk around strange men? A guy will hear this and be okay with it. Why wouldn’t he? He’s not having his behavior controlled and furthermore, he doesn’t see himself in that population of people called “strange men”. “Strange men” are all those other dudes. So when a woman—after 20 plus years of being told stuff like this—says she’s cautious around men because of the potential harm they may pose, suddenly that’s when the indignant outrage comes out. Not when she’s getting pounded in the head with a million and one tips to stay safe from rapists.
There is plenty of evidence that women as a group simply are not as interested in casual sex as men as a group are, no matter how safe or shame-free it might be. One piece of that evidence is in the vastly different sexual behavior of lesbians and gay men. When women are truly free to engage in casual sex, they mostly don’t. The reverse is true of men.
So if one of your big goals in ending patriarchy is to have considerably more sex without emotional attachment, it may not work out for you as well as you think.
The “selfish” aspect would never even have occurred to me, and now it’s been said, I’m just not interested in it. When I meet someone who’s right for me, and I’m right for her, we overcome fear by gradual familiarization. It might slow down the initial stages of dating a little, because, yes, there is a curb or barrier because of social fear.
But since one of the best ways men and women meet is by being introduced by mutual friends, and that helps a lot in overcoming fear.
For me, I’ll just paraphrase Abraham Lincoln: “As I would not be afraid, so I would not be fearsome.”
I agree with that. The thread has drifted somewhat.
This is very likely true on average; but there are certainly some women who are interested in casual sex. Some of them are only interested in it for a while, possibly for a few years after they start having sex, but become only interested in sex within serious relationships when they get older; some remain interested in it, or become interested in it when they get older.
This is one of many things in which if you look at the averages, you see differences; but there are nevertheless significant numbers of people who don’t fit the pattern.
Can’t speak for other guys but I’m not interested in more sex without emotional attachment. I’m interested in being in a world where women’s behavioral motivations for their sexual behavior is pretty purely their own sexuality and not all the distortions imposed by their social position within patriarchy. I’m interested in sex on a more mutual basis, but I’ve always been totallly up for the emotional attachment part 