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Mark HumanMode
Mark HumanMode
5 months ago

This is the article we read without indicating so by commenting. Kathleen does a good job of leaving me as untitillated as she clearly was by the book.

Right-Wing Hippie
Right-Wing Hippie
5 months ago

competently handled flushes
I think we have Kohler’s new advertising slogan!

Brett H
Brett H
5 months ago

It’s possible that the most boring thing in the world is someone else’s mind.

Dylan Blackhurst
Dylan Blackhurst
5 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

Quite possible the truest thing I’ve read in the comments.

David McKee
David McKee
5 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

I disagree profoundly. Finding out how the world looks through someone else’s eyes is fascinating. It’s only their sexual fantasies which are (apparently) derivative and dull.

William Shaw
William Shaw
5 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

The book sounds so very boring, but I suppose some women will want to read it. I predict disappointment.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
5 months ago

I wonder if Stock’s view of this book confirms a prejudice of mine.

While, clearly and splendidly l, gay people have become free, straight sex has become more self-conscious and less free. We had some fairly wild adventures as a young couple and, while discretion was necessary, there seemed less judgement. Sex for fun was more usual.

Friday’s book was pretty wild and guilt free. The women who wrote seemed to have no qualms about enjoying their fantasies.

David Morley
David Morley
5 months ago

Well yes, because if you belong to the category that used to be called “normal” almost everything you think and do is now suspect and a trigger for self examination and guilt. As per the woman worrying about having internalised the patriarchy.

You could always redefine yourself as “queer” of course – a category that gets more inclusive by the day.

David McKee
David McKee
5 months ago

It’s all a bit sad, isn’t it? These fantasies sound about as erotic as a Tesco shopping-list.

What turns a person on is intensely personal. If doing it in a muddy field, wearing nothing more than your welly boots, floats your boat, then it floats your boat.

Still, I can’t help thinking some (most?) women need to put their backs into their fantasy sex-lives.

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
5 months ago

Excellent article. It’s funny how it is often so obvious what the fantasist wants but she refuses to acknowledge it, see the fantasy of having vanilla sex in a suburban home with a loving husband.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
5 months ago

Well, with respect, I don’t think I shall be picking up Gillian Anderson’s book anytime soon. The most titillating thing for me about the article was the word “etiolated”. Maybe I’ve got some kind of word fetish.

Dylan Blackhurst
Dylan Blackhurst
5 months ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Words really do have power then.

David Hewett
David Hewett
5 months ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Clearly you are not a botanist.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
5 months ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Imagine being tied up, the only light in the velvet bedraped bedroom from the candles whose wax the Bibliographer drips on your unclothed body.
“Dactylomegaly,” he whispers in your ear, and your body shudders.
“Obloquy,” the Bibliographer insists. You writhe against the bounds, loving yet hating every syllable he utters.
Now he is leaning fully over you. You feel the heat from his breath against your ear as he exhales the word “osculate.”
And you lose all control…

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
5 months ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

We should meet

Stephen Kristan
Stephen Kristan
5 months ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Katherine… maybe we should connect. I’ve been enchanted by ‘etiolated’ for decades.

Zaph Mann
Zaph Mann
5 months ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Me Too! Really

John Riordan
John Riordan
5 months ago

How immensely exhausting all this sounds.

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
5 months ago
Reply to  John Riordan

I know. I think I would rather have a nice cup of tea. But it doesn’t half make your wil lie sore

David Morley
David Morley
5 months ago

In any case: according to Want’s subtext, ideally as a woman you should be bisexual, or more grandiosely “pansexual”: what seems like the vast majority of participants describe themselves this way. And whether you describe yourself as lesbian, bi, or heterosexual, based on the numbers exhibited here, fantasising about women is preferable to fantasising about men â€” even if in practice you say you only ever sleep with the latter.

Because in our oddly moralistic day this is worthy rather than pervy.

Stephen Kristan
Stephen Kristan
5 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

It’s just another step along the path of expunging men from the gyneverse [my word].

David Morley
David Morley
5 months ago

What a missed opportunity. A lot of men still seem to be massively naive about the scope and wildness of female sexuality – but this book doesn’t seem to offer much enlightenment.

So if they can’t talk openly to their wives and girlfriends, where should they look?

Vesselina Zaitzeva
Vesselina Zaitzeva
5 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

“So if they can’t talk openly to their wives and girlfriends, where should they look?”
——-
If a man can’t talk openly to his wife or girlfriend, then there is a huge problem in that relationship. Ditto if a woman can’t talk openly to her husband/boyfriend.
And this is true not only about s3x, but pretty much about any topic.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
5 months ago

Quite so. When asked for advice on pleasing women sexually the advice should be “ask her what she likes”

David Morley
David Morley
5 months ago

And then just wait for the Bedouin to arrive?

Vesselina Zaitzeva
Vesselina Zaitzeva
5 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

Sorry, I did not understand your point. If you could elaborate on it, it would be really good. (I am serious).
My point was that if in a relationship people cannot talk openly and sincerely about things that are important for them (whatever the topic migh be), then there is a problem in that relationship.
—-
A bit off: it seems that your comment was also kept for a long time in the purgatory and reappeared with a big delay (like my other post below). In such cases, I always suggest writing to UnHerd Support. Their moderation system is dismal and the more people complain about it, the better chance we all have for the system to be replaced with another one that, hopefully, will not remove absolutely innocuous comments.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
5 months ago

Not very realistic. Among men, women are infamous for never saying what they really mean (eg. him-“what should we do for dinner?”; her-“I don’t know. What do you want?”).
And I wouldn’t be surprised if women tended to think the same thing about men.

Vesselina Zaitzeva
Vesselina Zaitzeva
5 months ago

I think that you indirectly confirm my point.
If someone does not say what they really mean, then there is a problem with communication, i.e. with the relationship.
In my view, it is perfectly realistic to be able to maintain open, sincere and mutually respectful communication.
Yes, even between a man and a woman 😉
—–
Edited to add: this comment was removed immediately after I posted it and re-appeared 17 (yes, seventeen!) hours later.
And this given that I wrote immediately to UnHerd Support.
Am seriously considering cancelling my subscription.

David Morley
David Morley
5 months ago

Or there’s always:
He: What do you like?
She: You shouldn’t have to ask me

Vesselina Zaitzeva
Vesselina Zaitzeva
5 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

But I would believe that it would be hardly helpful if you start asking other women what the woman you asked in the first place likes. What do you think?
Btw, if a woman replies like she did in your example, this is definitely a sign that she has some serious psychological problems.
If someone refuses communication and cooperation (again, in whatever field, it’s not only about s#x) and tries to guilt-trip the other party (in your example, punishing the man for asking, because her reaction is meant to be a punishment), this should be a serious warning for the other party that they are in for a very unhealthy future and are already in a very unhealthy present.
—-
Sorry, have just seen that you were replying to Mr Scaduto, not to me, but hope you don’t mind me replying to your post 🙂

David Morley
David Morley
5 months ago

Agree with all you say. But the complaint from men, that women expect them to be mind readers, is not a rare one. And the complaint from women that men shouldn’t have to be told is equally common.

You may have been lucky – but communication problems between men and women seem to be pretty common.

Vesselina Zaitzeva
Vesselina Zaitzeva
5 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

Yes, I agree, this is a situation that can be encountered all too often, unfortunately.
I would disagree with you, though, about the “luck” factor. It’s a matter of choice: I just believe in open and honest (yet tactful, hopefully) communication, I consciously chose this line of behaviour a long time ago and this is what I do.
Makes life significantly easier, for sure. At least, mine…
[wanted to add a smile emoji at the end, but am afraid that the moderation system will take down my comment for another couple of weeks because of that. That’s also related to the topic of (mis)communication…]

Vesselina Zaitzeva
Vesselina Zaitzeva
5 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

I wrote a reply, but the moderation system removed it immediately. Hopefully, they will kindly restore it in a week or two from now…
[sigh]

Sandy Henderson
Sandy Henderson
5 months ago

It’s an inevitable result of the current attention economy that people clamour to ‘expose’ their public private selves to an audience, swathed in pudeur and pseudo-self-awareness, a bit like uploading your own home movies to an Islington Pornhub with all the head shots edited out. And then we get to read a Kathleen Stock expose to mask our own prurience and other non-u urges, rather than permit ourselves to read the real thing. On both sides of the fence, it’s shame masquerading as shamelessness. Reassuringly British.

Graham Cunningham
Graham Cunningham
5 months ago

Great review. As Kathleen Stock has remarked previously â€œMen are pretty much banned from making any generalisations about women good or bad” so it has been inevitable in our time that the taking down of the “new range of [sexual] social taboos” has had to come from women like her. It seems to me that they have emerged from what I would call a kind of militant androgyny. And in particular from ‘Third Wave’ feminism’s grand dame of androgyny Judith Butler. It never ceases to amaze me how someone whose ‘philosophy’ seems mostly a projection of her own personal hang-ups ever came to be so hugely influential on those 21st c. sexual mores. Here is some Wikipedia gobbledegook on her: “For Butler, “men” and “women” are categories complicated by factors such as class, ethnicity, and sexuality…..[she challenges] assumptions about the distinction often made between sex and gender, according to which sex is biological while gender is culturally constructed. Butler argues that this false distinction introduces a split into the supposedly unified subject of feminism. Sexed bodies cannot signify without gender, and the apparent existence of sex prior to discourse and cultural imposition is only an effect of the functioning of gender. Sex and gender are both constructed.” https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/shall-we-dance
All in all, not very sexy is it?

Dylan Blackhurst
Dylan Blackhurst
5 months ago

For Judith Butler see also word salad.

Duane M
Duane M
5 months ago

The power of social construction seems really quite amazing, almost miraculous. As a working biologist, it would never have occurred to me that society, just by thinking so much about gender, could cause embryos to develop ovaries or testicles, vaginas or penises. Wow! Judith Butler seems to have discovered a new mechanism for evolution, and maybe for the whole universe. It’s all just one big shared socially constructed idea! Who’d a thunk it?

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
5 months ago

‘Sex and gender are both constructed’

Hopefully not as badly as Ms Butler’s writing. Or the human race wouldn’t have survived.

Dylan Blackhurst
Dylan Blackhurst
5 months ago

“Every time I find a woman attractive, I fear that it will come across as predatory, and any time I find a man attractive I question my own feelings, wondering if they are true or if it’s the patriarchal conditioning of society.”

Proof. If any was needed. Some people can read way too many books and have too many ideas spinning around in their heads.

Life is short. Get on and live it god damn it!

Russell Hogg
Russell Hogg
5 months ago

I probably shouldn’t say it but I’m not altogether sorry Kathleen was hounded out of academia. She is such a pleasure to read. Their loss, our gain.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
5 months ago
Reply to  Russell Hogg

Sounds like a fantasy to me (except it happened).

Fam Barr
Fam Barr
5 months ago

This is the funniest article I have read in a very long time. Thank you Kathleen! Good pub fodder for a Friday night.

Bobs Yeruncle
Bobs Yeruncle
5 months ago

I laugh when I ever watch a mainstream film now when it has a heterosexual ‘sex’ scene. In nearly every case now the women cannot be on the bottom because its just not girlboss so it leads to the most formulaic scenes where the woman throws the man on to his back so she can be on top (I mean this in the broad literal and figurative sense). So for example in ‘Jack Reacher’ the slim, petite female ‘throws’ the hulking musclebound macho titular character beneath her. Its laughable how censorious and self censoring many have become to meet the perceived uniform ‘woke’ narrative.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
5 months ago
Reply to  Bobs Yeruncle

I always assumed that was so the viewers could get a better view of her t*ts, something for which I’m always grateful

Jack Robertson
Jack Robertson
5 months ago
Reply to  Bobs Yeruncle

Hang on, isn’t Jack Reacher played by Tom Cruise?
Most women could pick him up one-handed and pop him in their purse. Like a discreet, well-designed sex toy.

Vesper Stamper
Vesper Stamper
5 months ago

Gillian Anderson must have joined the Junior Anti-Sex League at some point. Too bad, Scully.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
5 months ago

Having turned every other facet of human existence into something pathological, one should not be surprised that sex is going down that road. I’m also struck by the number of chronological adults who cannot write a simple thought without the need for the ubiquitous f-word, which today has all the gravity of saying “green” to due to misapplied overuse.

Duane M
Duane M
5 months ago

Dear Kathleen,
Thank you for reading that book so that I don’t have to.

Alan C
Alan C
5 months ago

I always thought that “pansexual” referred to someone who would f*** anything.

Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
5 months ago

Many women fantasise constantly about sex with the Prophet Muhammed, but this is unfortunately taboo for sexually repressed Western women, who have no outlet for their fantasies.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
5 months ago

The figure of a semi-naked Christ on a cross is so obviously an example of sexual imagery that it became passé.

Bored Writer
Bored Writer
5 months ago

As a gentleman of advancing years who was until relatively recently very interested in (heterosexual) sex and fortunate enough to be attractive to a surprising number of women, I would nowadays prefer the legendary cup of tea. When one is not susceptible to carnal drives one judges the objects of one’s previous desires on criteria that are not dominated by physical appearance. As a result I now have far fewer interactions with women. By and large they aren’t very interesting. However I do now have a dog who does not appear anywhere in my biannual sexual fantasy.

Dylan Blackhurst
Dylan Blackhurst
5 months ago
Reply to  Bored Writer

Thank you. I’m currently slumped semi drunk on a hotel bed laughing at this post.

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
5 months ago

She rubbed an onion up and down it. So come on. Was it Spanish, Red, Brown or perhaps even Pickled. Did she do it to enhance the taste or mask it? We afficionadoes need the detail.
PS Good article Ms Stock.

Lewis
Lewis
5 months ago

The discussion this sort of article is meant to provoke or perhaps the insights that are supposed to be acquired from studying it, are so remote from my life experience that I believe I must be living on a different planet from the author.

General Store
General Store
5 months ago

The entire topic speaks to narcissism, hyper individualism and kind of corruption of indolence. And it’s like organizing your life or a cult around sausage rolls, or pot noodles. Kind of juvenile. Sex is great – in its place, in marriage, in the context of conception and child rearing. First stop widespread obsession with sexuality and sexual identity and fantasy. Next stop demographic collapse. Long live the Amish.

Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
5 months ago

The Weasley twins? It’s not just me then.

Matthew Powell
Matthew Powell
5 months ago

Strictly only ideologically approved fantasies are allowed these days. It sounds like the morality police are living rent free in these women’s heads.

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
5 months ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Fabulous comment. Thank you.

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
5 months ago

It’s worth analysing why erotic fiction outsells any other genre now thanks to a huge female readership.
One factor is the accessibility of ebooks on mobile phones which can sell for as little as a dollar and don’t have to be found room for in a handbag (they’ll also electronic and discrete).
The female erotic fiction market is also a signifier of sexual dissatisfaction. App dating has actually created more inconvenience, turning the culture against the ‘bar chat-up’ as an instrument of harrassment and male chauvinism.

Lord Plasma
Lord Plasma
5 months ago

Very, very funny article KS. An absolute dismantling of the collective insanity engulfing us. Thank you.

Brian Doyle
Brian Doyle
5 months ago

There are many Academic Papers upon Human Sexuality
Most of which are based on the real world and not fantasy
And should you care to seek out and study with a open mind then you very quickly realise that Anderson scribbles are nothing more that a make money exercise

Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson
5 months ago

“I’d probably be super-upset if my actual dentist tried to f**k me,” writes one, with an interesting use of the word “probably” – I spit my tea out at this. I think Kathleen should treat us to a few quotes from this book once a month.

David Pogge
David Pogge
4 months ago

My experience listening to thousands of people talking about their lives – and sex lives – makes it clear to me that the kind of people who contribute to this kind of drivel are very atypical of humanity, over-educated to the point of stupidity, and self-absorbed to the point of being trivial. It is no surprise that “a celebrity”, especially “an actress” would offer something like this an consider it a representative and worthwhile contribution

Gary Chambers
Gary Chambers
4 months ago

Sign of the times when sexual fantasy has become a bland commodity. It sounds more like an exercise in rampant consumerism than unbridled lust. The book hardly sounds like it’s very provocative. Positively flaccid by the sound of it. Expect to see plenty of copies in your favourite charity shop very soon.

Mary Page
Mary Page
29 days ago

I’m sure it wasn’t the intention of either the theme of Anderson’s book or Kathleen’s excellent piece but I haven’t laughed so much for years.
The fantasy of this old lesbian would be to have a gourmet dinner with Kathleen solely to discuss her gender critical views of which I am one hundred percent supportive.
Alas, for many and various reasons this will never happen. But I find the mere thought of it so much more exciting than any sexual fantasies I may have had in my younger days.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
28 days ago

I eagerly ordered the book from the library ahead of time, but was disappointed to read Anderson’s disclaimer that she hadn’t included fantasies that might trigger traumatic memories for women, hence the Vanilla quality of the fantasies. I found it so boring that I gave up, not even halfway through. One would think that those who might be triggered wouldn’t want to read it in the first place, so editing on their behalf simply ruined it for the rest of us.