This comment was by John Anderson on the post “My First Playboy“, about women and carnal desire.
I think most women need to “trick” themselves into believing that they’re not satisfying some carnal desire. Shows like Naked Boys Singing got lots of female audience members. I’ve heard that there are some bachelorette parties that take in the show. A lot of women I know wanted to watch The Full Monty for the nude scene, but in public would play it off as wanting to watch a good movie. A think a book tricks them into thinking that it’s the story that they’re after and not the sex scenes. Some of this is to conform to society’s expectations.
There are women I know that would go to a burlesque club that featured female impersonators on girl’s night out. I joked one time about getting a part time job at the only strip club in town featuring men (it went coed for awhile and has since switch to featuring women only). They started asking what nights I was working and seemed excited about watching and tipping me. I don’t know if it was fear of a stranger stripper or because we were friends, it seemed more fun than seedy. It would sadden me if women may not be enjoying strippers because they’re afraid of them.
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photo by toestubber / flickr
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I don’t know if it’s self-deception so much as being cautious about expressing sexual desire to other people. It’s probably more about “tricking” other people than oneself. The big question is whether the “It’s just a good movie” camouflage is primarily for men or for other women.
What I think is comical is the idea that so many American women are just now “discovering” the erotic genre for the first time, as if they had no idea such books were out there. Now it’s more acceptable to say that you’ve read an erotic romance, though it’s still best to say it’s your first one. It’s the “I’m just reading it so see what the fuss is about,” or “the characterizations are supposed to be intriguing.” Right. Just like the way I read Playboy for the great articles and go to Hooters for the fries.
Sexuality in America today too often involves deception, self-deception, wishful thinking, and political spin. I’m not sure any gender has a monopoly on any of this.
“Right. Just like the way I read Playboy for the great articles and go to Hooters for the fries.”
I don’t know if that line would’ve worked in the 50s or 60s. Maybe it was the time I grew up 1970s/80s, but I always thought of that as a joke to not be taken seriously unlike with women saying similar things about The Full Monty or Naked Boys Singing. I guess a double standard I wasn’t considering is “what if you were reading it for the articles, also?”
One of the women who admitted wanting to watch The Full Monty partly for the nude scence to me was kind of tricked into the admission. I was telling her that the movie wouldn’t do well because guys wouldn’t tell their girlfriends to see it because of the nude scene (I’ve never seen The Crying Game, The Full Monty or Brokeback Mountain. I’m pro LGBT rights, but could never bring myself to do it). She told me a lot of women would want to watch it specifically for the nude scene so it would do really well and eventually admitted to being one. At least one admission wasn’t entirely voluntary.
I’m sure it’s not just women. You may have a point about them wanting to trick others. On an intellectual level, I want women to have the same freedom to enjoy nudity as men so why does it still seem wrong on a personal level? I still think to some extent that they trick themselves also. The women I knew never went to the one nudie bar that featured men (It’s owned by a former female stripper who tried to open an establishment for women. No patronage was why it shifted to coed and then to featuring all women). Look at the lack of women’s skin mags.
Ah the ye old “why don’t women consume porn and strippers like men” debate. When we have gender parity, the feminist ponders, will men lose the privilege of such indulgences or will women be free to indulge equally? The question pre-supposes men and women should experience sex consistently equally and that something, anything, must be the root cause behind the divide.
Nothing would make me happier than believing women desire men as men desire women -it would make the world a whole hell of a lot simpler but alas, I think not. Our experience of sex is the essence of gender and will likely never converge. This is one domain of the gender binary that is far more nature than nurture -an egalitarian society would accept and perhaps even, celebrate that difference.
The thing is…many women DO desire men just as much as women, they just desire them differently. I crave men, sex, and even variety. Yet, mainstream porn, a cheesy strip clubs (usually overly muscled gay men doing silly dances), or a picture of a disembodied penis do very little for me. I used to be jealous of men because stuff that catered to their sexuality seemed to be everywhere, but where could I find stuff to get me off? Luckily, there are more things catering to women nowadays, as more women are ok with expressing and starting to understand their sexuality–Porn targeted towards women, romance novels that aren’t cheesy and for older women (or use the word ‘member’), fanfiction, True Blood type stuff, graphic manga, and the ability to text and web chat. The brain is still the most powerful, but it’s nice to have other stimulus. Even when I’m in a relationship, I fantasize about other men all the time–sometimes with a quick fantasy, sometimes an elaborate one, sometimes with someone I know well, sometimes with someone I’ve only seen once or a couple of times. So clearly, the desire is there, it’s just…different.