Women’s dislike of eroticism means that men learn to keep their responses to themselves. Men’s embarrassment over communicating their sexual needs (due to the disgust women express over sexual urges) contributes to the confusion over female sexuality. Women can claim to have a sex drive because men never explain in explicit and graphic detail what it means to have a sex drive. Women gain the impression that a sex drive is just a nice feeling. So while male sex drive is associated with explicit and crude (in women’s eyes) erotic turn-ons, the equivalent female phenomenon, called libido, has a much softer and emotional image. Women need to feel in the right mood to offer a partner sex. This behaviour relies on women’s emotional amenability. It has nothing in common with the male sex drive.
A drive involves both positive and negative emotions. It is also difficult to ignore. This is the biological imperative. It is triggered by physical proximity or virtual images of an attractive potential partner. Negative feelings arise from the sexual frustration that arises when the need cannot be satisfied by intercourse. If we want something badly enough, we can convince ourselves of anything. Although men typically initiate sexual activity, they still convince themselves that women want sex. Women are blamed for encouraging men because their bodies provide a pleasure that men want. It is difficult for women to understand because there is nothing they need that badly. We all need air to breath, water and food but none of these depend on another person. Women have only recently been free to move about society because of modern laws that protect them against assault. This freedom of movement is a right for any woman in a civilised society. But that does not mean she has the right to roam about half-dressed without ever encountering difficulty.
In society, men are obliged to contain their sexual urges. But when law and order disappear, some men are willing to take their pleasure by force. This is called sexual assault and rape. But a woman cannot force a man to provide intercourse. No one can evolve a need that they cannot satisfy reliably. We only have a drive to engage in activity that we can control. A person must be able to respond to a drive by obtaining what they need to satisfy it. The idea that women need a loving partner to enjoy sex, is evidence that women look for emotional rather than erotic rewards. Some men like to imagine that women obtain gratification from sex because it helps with their own arousal.
Men assault women, they suffer sexual frustration and they are proactive lovers (motivated to obtain their own sexual release). Men don’t do these things on a whim. Men do them because they experience a strong biological drive to engage in intercourse with a degree of urgency that cannot be ignored. Women do none of these things because they lack a sex drive. The fact that the contraceptive pill has increased women’s sexual amenability is evidence that men and women are different. Men have always had a sex drive regardless of the availability of reliable contraception. The survival of the human race has depended on the persistency of men’s need for intercourse. The timidity of most young women is incompatible with having a sex drive.
An activity that relies entirely on male motivation does not equate to a woman having a sex drive. The only attractive force is from the mind of an aroused man towards a vagina as a repository for his semen. A man’s mental arousal causes increases blood to flow to his penis. A man is highly conscious of his penis because of the acute sensations of having an erection. The clitoris is never erect, which is why few women have any interest in the clitoris. Female arousal is subconscious. The vagina is only ever stimulated when a man thrusts into it. Once he has an erection, a man is typically motivated to penetrate another person. A man admires a woman’s buttocks because of his desire to penetrate her vagina. A woman never experiences an urge that causes her to focus on a man’s pelvic region. A woman is not motivated by any physiological stimulus to engage in sexual activity of any kind even alone.
No one can have a drive to be penetrated by a penis or any other object. Neither can we have a biological drive for someone else to do something to us. A heterosexual man has a drive to ejaculate into a woman’s vagina. But a woman cannot have a biological drive for a man to ejaculate into her vagina. If women had a drive to be penetrated by an erect penis, we would see them running around eager to impale themselves on the first erect penis they saw. Women don’t do this. Instead, they are inclined to run in the opposite direction if they see an erect penis. Intercourse with an unknown lover not only involves a risk of pregnancy but also provides no emotional rewards.
A man is aroused when he wants to engage in penetrative sex, which is when he has an erection. So men assume that if a woman is willing to engage in intercourse, she must be equally aroused. Women don’t have erections. Having an orifice to offer a lover has nothing to do with arousal. Anyone can provide a mouth, a vagina (women only) or an anus for a male partner to penetrate. These orifices are not sex organs. No matter what kind of stimulation or for how long it is applied, the receiver will not have an orgasm.
Many men travel away from home for extensive periods. They never give a thought to their partner’s needs in their absence. Women’s needs are for affection and companionship, which they obtain from others. Most women are happy to look after their children. But if the wider relationship with their partner has broken down (emotional intimacy has been lost) some women may look for another lover to obtain the emotional rewards of feeling loved.
When I hear sexperts on TV give advice about how to help women with their “dysfunctional sex drives” I get suspicious that we’re all feeding into the convenient male fantasy of the sexually voracious woman. (Joan Sewell)
Excerpt from Learn About Sexuality (ISBN 978-0956-894748)