After all, now that women can control our fertility, there’s no longer any need to constrain our sexuality, right? So even if it is evolution rather than patriarchal conditioning that leads women to want a relationship as well as a shag, we aren’t mindless animals. We have agency. So modern women can sack pesky evolution off along with patriarchy, in favour of Tinder hook-ups and twerking in paddling pools.
But just because we want something in theory, doesn’t mean we end up enjoying it in practice. Studies show that intimacy is the best predictor of sexual satisfaction — and women in particular tend to prefer sex that’s connected, intimate and relational.
By accepting a supposedly egalitarian approach to sex, women are suppressing a common, evolved desire for a more emotionally connected sexuality. It’s making many of them miserable. Worse still, in downplaying the possibility that female sexuality differs profoundly from the male sort, we do women a still deeper disservice than encouraging them to have empty and disappointing sex. Because in pretending male and female desire is symmetrical, when it manifestly is not, we’re obscuring another asymmetry — the one that got me free entry to fetish clubs in my early twenties.
We can pretend men and women objectify each other’s bodies in similar ways. But it’s well established that male arousal works differently from the female sort, and men are far more visually stimulated than women. Men are also consistently interested (again for evolutionary reasons) in women at peak fertility. Put simply, that means men are much more motivated to gain visual and sexual access to hot young women than vice versa. No one (at least not in heterosexual settings) is granting free nightclub entry to buff 22-year-old males.
As my 22-year-old self can attest, this grants young women a measure of power. For a while, at least, men seem mesmerised by you, and today’s ‘empowered’ version of female sexuality sees this as a legitimate source of female leverage. As Cardi B puts it: ‘Ask for a car while you ride that dick’.
The reductio ad absurdam of this dynamic is the growing trend among teenage girls for posting alluring shots on Instagram until they’re 18, then shifting their followers to OnlyFans (think Patreon for user-generated porn) the moment they’re ‘legal’, where their simps send them money for nudes.
Here we see what the official narrative of sex egalitarianism wants to brush under the carpet. The young women self-objectifying via OnlyFans don’t seem to stop and wonder why, if we’re all the same, there isn’t an equally voracious market for buff young men stripping to please rich middle-aged women.
The truth, though, is that sex can’t be egalitarian — at least not in the sense of men and women having the same desires and priorities. We’re evolved animals; nothing is more central to that evolution than sex and reproduction; and the different reproductive roles of male and female humans leave us with different priorities. That doesn’t mean we have no agency, but ignoring our animal nature in favour of an abstract vision of egalitarianism has ended up disproportionately harming women.
Teen Vogue nearly gets there when McNamara briefly considers the possibility that lyrics glorifying aggressive, brutal and abusive sex might just possibly be calibrated more for a male audience. But rather than following that thought through, she retreats hurriedly to the safe haven of Emma Watsonesque ‘choice’ feminism, in which (as The Onion put it) women are now empowered by literally everything a woman does. “Whether or not “WAP” is a product of the male gaze,” McNamara simpers, “what’s important is that it made Cardi and Megan feel empowered.”
A cynic might wonder if it’s also important that teenage girls could watch that video and think this is how they are expected to behave in order to retain a boyfriend’s affection. Fully 40% of UK teenage girls today experience sexual coercion in relationships, a fact that correlates strongly with rising youth consumption of sexually explicit content. Even painful and risky anal sex is now normalised, along with the expectation that girls will not enjoy it.
A sexual revolution that set out to free women from unfair expectations of modesty hasn’t levelled the playing field between the sexes at all. Instead, it’s rolled out an aggressive, visual, low-intimacy, emotionally disconnected male-standard sexuality for everyone, including women — to our considerable detriment. In doing so, it’s stripped women of any vocabulary with which to pursue their own erotic interests, in the form of long-term sexual and also emotional commitment.
The pitiful trade-off women are offered for sacrificing female-centred sexuality is the opportunity to exploit their youthful beauty in pursuit of money or power. But what (predominantly young) ‘sex positive’ feminists seem to ignore is how short-lived this form of power is.
In a relationship based on mutual affection and respect, other bonds sustain a couple beyond youth, and love and desire can both persist. But where a couple has rejected intimacy in favour of a transactional relationship based on mutual exploitation for sex and power, once a trading partner loses leverage the deal is off. There are no prizes for guessing who it is who generally loses leverage first in this ‘economy’. For a middle-aged woman left with the kids, as her beauty fades and her formerly adoring partner moves on to showering someone younger and perkier with gifts, what then does empowerment look like?
The twerkers, girl-powerers and Teen Vogue sex-pozzies have nothing. Framing this bait-and-switch as feminist is a profound betrayal of women’s interests.
This article first appeared on 19 August, 2020
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Subscribeinteresting that the woman is left to bring up the kids and hubby goes on to shower gifts on another girl. 50% marriages end up in divorce 70% of divorces are filled by women. 80% of children’s custardy goes straight to the female. the guy then has to continue to pay for ex-wife and child support, dont think hell have a lot left over for showering sparkly baubles on another girl.
He wouldn’t have a lot left over, nor would any sane man wish to make the same mistake, but the data on the gender gap for remarriage shows otherwise; with men more likely to get married after a divorce – see pew research data
Exactly, men seem to be desperate to do it all over again and the women, often, go “er, no thank you”.
Maybe the women are filing for divorce because the man is up to no good. But marriages, that is not really what the above is about.
Given that very few young people have sex anymore and the fact that males are on most metrics struggling massively more in life than females, I feel this is not broad enough essay. I do feel in agreement with many of the points about the male and females intrinsic differences, less often highlighted and the detriment to both genders in decreasing committed relationships. Jordan Peterson is good on this.
Either women are sexually-empowered human beings with agency, or they are helpless waifs who are perpetually objectified. Pick one.
Meanwhile, ponder how the scene has shifted from the pearl-clutching outrage over “Baby, it’s cold outside” to the embracing of “WAP.”
Either your comment is world shaking brilliance or bottomless stupidity, pick one.
Ah, women are dissatisfied again with whatever change that came about, even tough (alas) it is now acknowledged that they have agency. Still their dissatisfaction with the way sex and relationships currently work remains – and still they react by blaming someone else (the “patriarchy” or some other magical construct). I see no change at all…
At least the article refreshingly acknowledges the asymmetry between male and female sexuality. But it stops short of connecting the dots – that men suffer as much as women for such asymmetry, feel disheartened by it and wonder if reciprocal fulfillment is at all possible, given such vast disparity. Some honest discussion of how to live well with this asymmetry (rather than exploiting it) would help alleviating the present disconnect (MGTOW, MeeToo, etc.), whereas the tired old crutch of blaming the “patriarchy” perpetuates a resentment that makes both men and women downright miserable.
If men were the winners from sex-positive porniness the trends of male suicide rates, drug over doses and virginity rates would look very different.
We all probably can agree that sex-positive porniness harms male and female alike. We know; we’re informed; we understand. The problem to be tackled is how to enlighten the young.
It’s all too late. The internet is here and they’re all tuned in. Teenagers always know better – I know, I was one.
Roll back progress and interact face to face in local communities?
“because nightclubs are an economy of sex, money and nubile flesh, in which the currency is women”
Hardly surprising if you go to a nightclub themed around, let’s call them ‘niche’, sexual preferences. My own mis-spent youth was played out in the techno and house clubs of the wonderfully decadent 90s. Going out clubbing and the night, from start to finish, was an end in itself.
Liberals get mugged by reality!
Raising teen girls in the 21st century-such a challenge. This writer presents a very mature POV that I appreciate in my old age. I relate to a lot of what she described. In the age of tech., I would also recommend reading this: https://www.amazon.com/RAPE….
By Cyrus Parsa.
Just the first three chapters will introduce the naive to the very daunting landmines awaiting the innocent (parent and child alike).