Noah posted yesterday on hegemonic heterosexuality and the Cult of Shitty Relationships. In this post I’d like to pick out one thread of it to discuss. Specifically, the archetypical, hegemonic idea of what men want in bed.
I was prompted to think about this by Cosmo, which I am tragically addicted to, and which is in the midst of a multiyear project to ask a bunch of men what they think about various traits and thus access the Great Male Hivemind and discover the true secrets of male sexuality. For instance, did you know that men don’t want their partners to swear? Or quote Lord of the Rings?
Fuck, I’m doomed to celibacy.
As far as I can determine from my extensive research in reading Cosmo and watching romantic comedies, in Hegemonic Heterosexuality Land, sex is a war between men and women. Women, of course, don’t want sex except with a loving, committed partner and/or a loving, committed vampire; in those circumstances, women basically crave cunnilingus and cuddles. Men, however, like Kinky Sex.
It is important to understand here that “kinky sex” doesn’t mean actually kinky sex. No one is wielding a flogger or practicing rope bondage or roleplaying Sherlock Holmes or using a Violet Wand. Instead, “kinky sex” means “sex, except, like, sexier.”
So men like anal sex. Men like threesomes, as long as they’re with two women, because threesomes with multiple men are gay. Men like titfucking and facials and comeshots and other things that look good on porn screens. Men like sex in public or in unconventional locations and sex in uncomfortable and acrobatic positions. Men like lingerie. Men like tying women up. Men like blowjobs. Men like rough sex, as long as it’s male-dominant rough sex, doesn’t leave any marks afterward, and doesn’t involve toys. Men like raunchy dirty talk. Men like naughty nurses and naughty schoolgirls and lots of other stuff that begins with “naughty.”
Now, there are several possible circumstances in which a woman might end up fulfilling these desires. She might be a “lady in the streets and a freak in the bed,” and thus the Holy Grail of male desires. She might be a bad-girl slut who disrespects herself and is probably “crazy,” because women cannot have sex because they want sex, but only for Mysterious Ladybrain Reasons; in that case, lots of men want to sleep with her, but she is almost certainly not The One. She might be pressured into it by a dude, in which case we need all kinds of serious pundit-type people talking about Women Getting Pressured Into Anal Sex. (You will notice that none of these situations are “women actually want to.” This is because,women don’t like sex except for the aforementioned cunnilingus and cuddles.)
Men who don’t like the stuff Men Like simply do not exist. Sure, there are probably a few Sensitive New Age Guys who won’t pressure women into doing it, but they all get off on anal sex secretly. The ones who don’t get points, the way that men who like cunnilingus get points.
In addition, there are certain kinds of sex no one is allowed to like. Pegging, for instance. Foot fetishes. Sadism. Any sort of sex that involves a sex toy (except maybe a vibrator, and even then it’s probably “threatening” to the dude). If you like this stuff, you are probably (depending on the exact fetish) queer, a pervert, pathetic, creepy, or a rapist.
The funny thing about Stuff Men Like is that proving it wrong only requires about five seconds of thought. If I consciously think “hey, men all like anal sex,” my brain will instantly crowd with counterexamples, namely, every man I’ve ever slept with. But if it’s just there in the background, as an unstated premise, the cultural detritus picked up from years of living in sex-negative society… well, I start arguing against “sex-positive feminism gives into the patriarchy because it encourages women to do what men want in bed” with “no, it encourages people to do what they want in bed, that is the whole point” as opposed to “what the fuck does that even mean?”
I mean, Christ. We’re going to try to get Tim Gunn, Maymay, James Deen, James Dobson, and that one porn star who keeps making women vomit with his cock to agree on what a fun sex life looks like? Good luck.
About ozyfrantz
Power dynamics: classic kink material.
Also, it’s not all that easy to find sadists. Much to my dismay
Sigh. This all makes me feel so lonely
Sorry, monkey
Loneliness sucks.
I prefer it to be painful otherwise I don’t feel much of anything.
/neither here nor there
Personally, I’ve never understood the notion that you can accurately gauge the pleasure someone is having in a sexual encounter by the face they’re pulling at any particular moment. If you watch feminist educational videos (some of the stuff posted on Betty Dodson’s site, for instance) of solo women masturbating and orgasming, their faces are hardly always smiles and rapture. Alternatively, try watching your own face during masturbation (or sex), and tell the parts where you were in joy just by your expression.
If [anal sex] really hurts you simply aren’t doing it correctly: either you’re not relaxed enough, or not using enough lubrication, or you’re trying to fit something far too large for your first time.
Really? Because my experience is that anal play is something that has to be very, very arousing in order not to hurt. It’s not just a simple matter of being relaxed and thinking of England.
Also, I have the boyfriend I have, so I’m pretty much stuck with his penis being the size it is.
I hate it when people imply that anal sex is easy. I’d love to be able to let my boyfriend try it, and lord knows I still find it hot in principle, but damn, it hurts in practice, and anyone who implies that doing it “correctly” is a simple matter can fuck off.
@Lynet:
Everyone is going to have a different experience. Different bodies are different.
I had a girlfriend with vaginismus so “ordinary” PIV penetration was painful(*). That doesn’t mean that every man who wants PIV wants it because it’s painful for their partner.
*Of course, hegemonic heterosexuality strikes again, because she had a lot of guilt about not being about to have sex “properly”, to the extent of offering anal out of the blue, despite the fact that she didn’t particularly enjoy it (though, as far as I could tell, didn’t have as much trouble as you), because, of course
1) It was her fault for having a medical condition.
2) If a man can’t get PIV, obviously the only thing that could satisfy him would be to go more “extreme” by offering anal.
Even at the time, I thought it was off (not that my approach to sex was totally mature and positive at the time, either, including my handling of that particular incident).
Oh, yeah, I know not every man who wants anal wants it because it can be painful! Some guys just like a girl’s ass and figure any kind of sex that involves it sounds pretty hot. Heck, I bet there are even guys who only want anal because their girlfriend gets off on it and it’s fun to make her happy.
I do think there’s a cultural narrative that anal is more ‘extreme’ and that getting a woman to agree to it is worth some kind of extra-high bonus for making her “give it up”. I do think — though I know this is more of a stretch — that this is partly because the cultural narrative of scoring by getting a woman to agree to have sex is slowly getting sullied by the very real fact that lots of women like sex, and consider themselves to be getting as much as they’re giving. You would think that everyone would consider the ‘scoring’ narrative to be worth giving up in exchange for happier sex all around, but habits of thought can be hard to break, I guess.
Perhaps one of the reasons that “serious pundit-types” start generalizing about What Men Want is because they really meant to talk about “what our cultural narratives say men want, and why”.
(The other obvious reason for such generalizations, of course, is that many women want men, and you can sell them stuff by telling them you know how to get one. But they’re all playing off established ideas that mostly exist because they belong to the things everyone ‘knows’, whether they’re true or not.)
Anal sex looks awesome on-screen, but I wouldn’t actually try it. It seems like it would be really gross. I don’t even think I’d agree to do it if she wanted it.
I don’t mind using vibrators on my girl or using other types of sex toys or whatever. They don’t “intimidate” me or anything like that.
I also like it rough… But not “male dominated”.
I like to be the dominant one sometimes… Other times I like her to be.
That’s just my male perspective.
I’m sort of in that position, and it’s not vaginismus, it’s total natural absence of a vagina. I don’t get off (as in orgasm) on anything, either. Still don’t mind having anal sex (receiving) if it pleases him.
@theLapaceDemon
Agreed in both directions.
@Lynet
“Simple” isn’t always synonymous with “easy” or “quick”. It took me quite a few tries and quite a lot of effort (over the course of many weeks) to get my first plug all the way in. Nothing in the process would I not characterize as simple, however.
Also, I’m not trying to imply that the only people who don’t engage in anal-play are those who haven’t tried it. Some people just won’t like it, and that’s fine. Pain shouldn’t be part-and-parcel to the experience either way though, and if it ever is you need to stop and try something smaller or more lubricated, find a way to relax yourself more, or some combination of the three.
A penis doesn’t have to be the first thing that makes its way up there. I would actually very much recommend against it, especially with all the thrusting that one would probably expect to be able to engage in once they’ve successfully inserted their penis. Even people who are used to things in their bum will prepare beforehand. Remember kids, wearing a plug during the hours leading up to the main event is not only sexy, but also smart as! *cue after-school special music*