Porn Perspectives

A fascinating article in Sunday's Times discussed a number of research efforts attempting to define female desire. The whole article is worth a read, but I've pulled out a few provocative insights for your consideration.

A Canadian researcher conducted an experiment where she measured physical (genital) response to sexual materials, and also asked participants to consciously report their arousal level. The stimuli included hetero sex, homosexual male and homosexual female sex, a man masturbating, a woman masturbating, a naked man walking, and a naked woman exercising. She also showed a video of bonobo monkeys copulating.

The male participants reacted true to form - the straight men were aroused when watching hetero sex, lesbian sex, and the naked women. Gay men preferred the gay sex and naked men. Neither group of men was interested in the monkey sex.

The story was quite different for women - they were aroused across the board (including monkey sex), but only genitally. Mentally, they reported arousal in accordance with sexual orientation. Also worth noting is the women were more aroused at the sight of the exercising woman than with the naked walking man.

One explanation could be that women are simply out of touch with their true desires. But according to this explanation, women want to have sex with bonobos. This was unlikely, so the researcher's tentative conclusion was that in terms of evolution, it made sense for women's vaginas to lubricate in response to any sort of sexual stimulation. It makes sex possible and less painful.

Another explanation is that female sexuality is reactive, while male sexuality is aggressive and direct. Evolution wouldn't want two motivational forces - complementary forces would be more stable and productive. This could have something to do with the strong role that being desired plays in female sexuality. This would also help us understand the issues some young, "liberated" women face today of not being able to say no to boys (it's hard to say no when you're not sure what it is you really want) - I'll write more on this in my next post.

I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of women having a passive/receptive sexuality, but I am compelled by the notion that women are able to react to a wide variety of sexual stimuli. This creates a much more fluid sexuality, which, on the downside is hard to pin down, but also has the benefit of being hard to pin down. Categories aren't sexy - mystery is. How delightful women's infinite complexity is - we never have to explain ourselves when we're weirdly attracted to a pair of shoes or a tall building or the metering light pattern on the Bay Bridge (uhm..).

Another interesting insight, related to the above. If the feeling of being desired is central to women's sexuality, then what happens when women enter monogamous relationships?

Another researcher who works with women suffering from dyspareunia (vaginal pain during sex), as well as women experiencing loss of desire. Loss of desire is much more common among married women than married men; additionally, women tend to have a lower libido. This means women need a lot more stimulation to spark desire. And if we accept the premise that being desired is important to women, then monogamy necessarily kills desire. Husbands have no choice than to have sex with their wives. So no matter how he may try to dress it up, she knows that she is his only option; his sexual pursuit of her is not completely inspired by her ravishing beauty.

I'm not saying that this explanation is widely applicable, or even true - but it is an interesting development in the study of female desire. Aspects of this research are well worth consideration.

Really, I urge you to read the full article. There's tons more material there, including a shockingly provocative discussion of female rape fantasies which would have landed the writer and researchers in major hot water among the feminist community 10 years ago (and maybe still today?).