I agree with you – I just didn’t realize anyone was pretending this. Mostly, I think it’s important to understand the different effects the different media have, even while understanding that anything we say about the effects is at best a gross generalization.
I do think part of the problem is that men (and some women) expect women to have orgasms primarily through intercourse. I’ve only ever been with one woman who orgasmed through intercourse, and from the Dan Savage that I’ve read (move on over, Cecil!), it’s pretty common for women not to come during intercourse.
Maybe that’s part of the solution: let folks know before they become sexually active that there are a lot of ways to have sex, and that if one way isn’t pushing their buttons, they should try another way. That could be something that gender-specific media could work on and maybe do a bit of positive sex-ed.
Personally, if guys are gonna get macho about something, I figure there are worse things to get macho about than pleasing other people.
catsix: “I also wonder if maybe some women do find it harder to orgasm because they’re told by books, magazines and movies from a young age that it IS harder for them, and that it takes a lot of work, and that men just aren’t good enough to please them most of the time.”
I suspect this is only part of the problem. For one thing, I agree with Daniel (and Dan Savage) that a very large # of women need something in addition to straightforward sexual intercourse for orgasm to occur. That is, whether it’s foreplay or afterplay or both it very often requires the (male) lover to do something beyond what is required for him to do with his body for his orgasm to take place. So the problem I think is that foreplay/afterplay may seem like a mere accessory to the sex act whereas–if the goal is orgasm for both partners–it very often must be seen as an integral part of sex performance. But I think that many women don’t accept that and feel guilty that they’re being “difficult,” or feel that something is wrong with them. And I think that men, also, get caught up in this because they either feel worried about their own performance, or mystified by what appear to be the secrets of the female body. (And of course it’s much harder for a man to tell if a woman is faking than the other way around.) Hence, the best lover for a woman, as I see it, is the one who is able to assure her that he (or she) really enjoys and even is excited by the foreplay/afterplay dimension of the sex act.
It’s truly telling, however, that this is such an uphill climb in our sexual culture. I mean, if a guy says or otherwise indicates to his lover that he needs a certain kind of stimulation or other kind of prompting to get an erection, or that a certain position works better for him than another, this is not likely to be considered problematic. (Unless, of course, the prompting takes the form of something the lover doesn’t want/like to do.) By the same token, neither foreplay nor afterplay should be a big deal. But it’s because of the way we view sex–with male ejaculation typically signifying both the raison d’etre and culmination of the act–that foreplay for the man (i.e., what’s required for the erection) is taken for a foundational assumption, while foreplay for the woman is just an option: the garnish on the omelette rather than the breaking of eggs ;).