You seem to be unsympathetic to female sexual dysfunction. In more than one survey two-thirds of women have reported some form of sexual dysfunction; if I were a woman I’d be mad as hell about that, and yet you (like many women) seem to have very little to say about it. Is it some kind of mental block? How can any woman not notice that male sexual dysfunction receives much more serious attention even though it is relatively rare compared to female sexual dysfunction?
Who defines “dysfunction”? Are the numbers you speak of women who state they’re unhappy with their sex lives, or is it women whose responses fall into some category arbitrarily circumscribed by those who designed the survey? If it’s the former you have a valid point, but if the latter I must remind you of what happens when we let academics define people’s experiences instead of listening to people’s own opinions about them. When “authorities” set the parameters of “dysfunction” without regard to the perception of those they declare dysfunctional, the inevitable result is stuff like homosexuality being defined as a mental illness, transsexuality being considered a kind of delusion and sex workers being classed as infantile victims who need to be “rescued” from our own decisions. The belief that “authorities” have the sole right to determine which experiences and modes of behavior are “healthy” has led to what Thomas Szasz called the “therapeutic state”:
…normal behaviors have been…pathologized by quacks, hired guns and those whose professional ethics take a back seat to promoting an agenda. Much of this involves uncommon or even rare disorders being misapplied to much larger groups, such as claims that sex workers commonly suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or that migrant workers who deny being passively “trafficked” do so because of Stockholm syndrome; fully 10% of American schoolboys are now being drugged daily because of quacks misdiagnosing their normal boyishness as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in order to please female teachers and single mothers who subscribe to “social construction of gender” and therefore refuse to accept that normal male behavior is innately different from normal female behavior…even beyond that, imaginary “disorders” are created to describe…normal human conduct which politicians find inconvenient or fanatics dislike; for example, the totally understandable resentment young people feel when they’re treated as “children” (or spoiled younger kids’ predictable tantrums when they don’t get their own way) is now pathologized as “Oppositional Defiant Disorder”, and the normal male attraction to adolescent girls is both pathologized by many psychologists and wrongfully conflated with pedophilia in the public mind…
When it comes to female desire, it isn’t the state or some large social bloc which wants control; it is the medical industry, especially the pharmaceutical industry, which dreams happy dreams of a gold mine if female desire can be successfully (though often wrongfully) medicalized as male desire has been, and women can be convinced that the solution to normal or emotionally-driven losses of desire can (and should) be “cured” by popping a pill which the industry will oh-so-helpfully provide. A great deal of what is labeled “sexual dysfunction” in women has nothing to do with either body chemistry or socialization; many women who are perfectly functional under certain conditions or at certain times are not so in other circumstances, and it’s counterproductive and absurd to seek solutions with drugs, testosterone patches or psychotherapy when the problem may actually be something as simple as exhaustion, stress or poor choice of sex partners. But even setting those concerns aside, it’s spectacularly useless to define female sexual function in terms of male (which is how a great deal of it is defined nowadays); because it’s normal for men to feel randy all the time, the assumption is that if women don’t it’s “dysfunction”. Poppycock. I rarely feel anything like what men think of as normal lust, and I think that’s great; if I felt anything like the kind of near-constant desire men feel, I’d ask my gynecologist if there was anything we could do about it without ruining my looks.
If you want me (and a lot of other women) to get all “sympathetic” to the concept of “female dysfunction”, you’re going to need to do two things: 1) Define it in a way that reflects actual female experience instead of some pie-in-the-sky bullshit that would only benefit men (i.e. women as horny as men so y’all could get it for free much more often than you do); and 2) Do a lot better job of explaining why conforming to some one-size-fits-all textbook notion of “healthy” or “proper” sexual function is better than just being ourselves. You say, “if I were a woman I’d be mad as hell about that”; no, you wouldn’t, because if you were a woman you would be a woman, not just a dude with a female body. And as you yourself point out in the very next clause, most women don’t think it’s a big deal: men think it is, most especially men who stand to profit from convincing women that there’s something wrong with them that a less stressful life, more sexual knowledge and better communication with their partners couldn’t cure.
Just saying:
The consequence of female sexual dysfunction (that is, the lack of orgasms) is less pleasurable sex for women (and the men who like to please them).
The consequence of male sexual dysfunction is extinction of the species.
Not that I’m opposed to making sex better, hotter or more satisfying for women. Not. In. The. Least. 😉 But one of these is not like the other.
Thank God for that.
That’s why women should be banned from becoming geneticists.
Otherwise us blokes will soon be rendered superfluous and that’s the day there’ll be cyanide in all our coffees.
In the prophetic words of Richard Belzer,
“As soon as they invent artificial sperm and a machine that opens jars, you and I are history, bud.” 😉
That would have to be a spider-killing machine for me. *shudders* An attractive man (or one I’m attracted to) opening jars is a turn-on for me. Rawr!
Wanna see me open this jar full of funnel web spiders?
So much fuck you for that comment. 😛
I open jars, kill spiders, change oil and tires, I can change the lightbulbs in your house without having to use a step ladder, and I get up in the middle of the night to check out unexpected noises!
Occasionally I do the dishes or a load of laundry.
Let’s meet! LOL!!
What are your rates? lol
Richard Belzer – a man who clearly does not understand where jars come from (hint: same place as every other manufactured good).
He’s also a stand-up comedian and comic actor. Did you know that?
Only crazy neofeminists. Normal women appreciate lots of things about men, like your ability to open jars Sasha mentions. 😉 I mean, consider that it’s a man who makes this blog possible, by supporting me financially; not too many women would be willing to do that for what little I provide in return. 🙂
Poor, poor, poor Maggie’s Man. 😛
Very well said. 🙂
Ah, Maggie, you are surely the mistress of irony.
Quoting Thomas Szasz the day after you made all of those absolutist comments about mental illness.
I made no absolute statements about mental illness; it was you who put those words in my mouth. Look again. Furthermore, if you can’t see the difference between a disorder which may not even really affect its “sufferer” in any important way, and one which inspires the sufferer to attempt to impose his will on others and choke off their access to information, I can’t help you.
I guess ‘absolutist’ needs a bit of contextualisation, but Szasz would certainly reject labels like ‘megalomaniac’ (as does the DSM, BTW).
I’m a bit of a fan of Szasz, despite his libertarian arrogance. We certainly see eye-to-eye on the notion that insanity defences have no place in the legal system, which puts us both in a pretty diminutive minority.
Naturally I’m more aligned with the likes of RD Laing and Loren Mosher though. And, especially, Bruce Levine.
I didn’t always agree with Szasz, but I respected him, at least until he got mixed up with the Church of S c i e n t o l o g y and their so called Citizen’s Commission on H u m a n R i g h t s.
(Whacky formatting added to foil bots.)
Yeah, there is that.
When the CCHR was first formed the Hubbardists were meant to be just one of several groups involved, but they launched their takeover pretty quick.
I mean I’m no one to point – I’ve even worked with libertarians and I’d hate to think sane people hold that against me – and Szasz has insisted on numerous occasions that he doesn’t endorse Scientology.
But lay down with dogs …
This is a great article.
I wonder … if “female desire” is to women what “nipples” are to men? Dudes have nipples – some of us get off on having them played with. I DO NOT feel anything when a woman plays with my nipples. I think I have “Male Nipple Dysfunction” … an inability to enjoy what other men describe as a pleasurable experience.
Is there a drug for this?
“Sexual Desire” is … as Sasha points out above – about propagation of the species. Men … especially me, though my nipples are dead as tacks … I have a libido that rages hotter than any California brush fire (and more difficult to extinguish). I’m not very “selective” when it comes to women – basically if she turns me on enough so I can “get it up” … she’s a candidate. And, let me tell you – some of the women that were able to do that for me were real “bowzers”!
So women are the “selective” ones – and really only need enough “motivation” to be “receptive”. In humans – this can take the form of very hot sexual desire – certainly most women I’ve been with really got into it once we got going – but they weren’t always so fired up to play ball with me at the moment I suggested it.
I think a lot of women’s sexual motivation is triggered by tangible things like money, power … the kind of things that evolution programmed her to look for in a superior male – and she latches on to him and keeps him by giving him what he wants – which is easy for her to give actually.
By the way – I’ve never been with a woman who couldn’t have an orgasm. I’ve been with some who had an incredibly hard time having one. I’ve been with some who went through hormonal patches where they had a lot of difficulty achieving one.
By the way – was this question submitted by the guy who so often speaks of female “mental castration”? Ha! I know you won’t answer that!!
I think it’s funny how Maggie once said if she had the libido of a male she go to the doctor and see if there was a way to get rid of it.
I really don’t think she would though … because when you have this kind of desire … it’s kind of cool even though you can’t think about anything else really. I guess it’s a male / female perspective thing. I think about … if I had the libido of your standard issue female … what the fuck would I do with my life? Sit around and knit and frame pictures or something? It sounds boring to me! LOL
But again – were I female – I probably would think … “Whew! I don’t have to think about banging chicks anymore! Look here! I can learn to sew finally!!”
😀
I really don’t think she would though … because when you have this kind of desire … it’s kind of cool even though you can’t think about anything else really.
Yes, for many men it would be like removing the sense of awe for a beautiful sunset or a great work of art.
if I had the libido of your standard issue female … what the fuck would I do with my life? Sit around and knit and frame pictures or something? It sounds boring to me! LOL
A female associate of mine spent the entire morning waiting for her boyfriend to text her. His reaction was “Hasn’t she got anything else to do?”
There’s another positive to having the libido that men do. It makes us feel “Ten Feet Tall and Bulletproof”.
I’m generally “fearless” … flying into combat in Iraq or Afghanistan … the only “fear” I had was that I might screw up and one of my buddies would get killed … or that I wouldn’t “do” as well as some of the other guys or pull my load. I had no fear of getting killed myself.
So this libido thing gives you a butt-ton of confidence – even though a lot of it is bullshit confidence … in fact, I could have very well been killed in those situations and feeling “bulletproof” was a false sense of security. BUT – it’s this kind of confidence that can push you to do seemingly impossible things.
“if I had the libido of your standard issue female … what the fuck would I do with my life? Sit around and knit and frame pictures or something? It sounds boring to me! LOL”
You could write books, become a great philosopher, climb the world’s highest mountains, find a cure for candida, build houses for displaced people, counsel veterans suffering from PTSD. Any number of things.
I’ve accomplished a similar set of things — written works, inventions, teachings, caving (which can be similar to mountain climbing in challenge levels, trust me), etc. All in all, though, I’d rather have sex with a lovely, engaged partner. Were I offered some of the former as opposed to the latter, there’s no doubt whatsoever that the latter would overwhelmingly be preferred. While I take to heart Maggie’s comment that if you were a woman, you would *be* a woman, frankly, if the libido has to go, I’ll pass, though women are, and always have been, my very favorite focus in the world, and the idea is quote intriguing.
Ben: well said. I think some women seem to be afraid of loving men and sex “too much.” Some men, too, are terrified of the thought of a highly sexual woman. Some parents view female sexual function in daughters as a kind of monster. (See: “Dilemmas of Desire” by Deborah L. Tolman.)
Some people joke that a man thinks with his penis. (See: “A MInd of its Own” by David M. Friedman.) I admit that I’m girl-crazy, and that fact doesn’t frighten me a bit. My fantasy is more than one lusty woman ravishing me at the same time. (I have photos). Sweet obsession!
By the way – was this question submitted by the guy who so often speaks of female “mental castration”?
Yes it was. It’s the link in the first sentence.
That’s the thread where we learned that young girls get spontaneous clitoral erections.but lose the ability as they grow up.
There are enough women in the world who will do their “marital duty” of sex and subsequent pregnancy and childbirth without complaint, that it doesn’t matter whether they like it or not. So barring an epidemic of male infertility, female pleasure and desire for sex is not, biologically speaking, necessary.
I know all kinds of guys, even younger ones than me, who have sex with their wives maybe once a month … or less. And they jump through all kinds of hoops just to ensure she “pony’s up” the goods that one time per month. I know guys who are sexually frustrated and extremely stressed out about that. They can’t think straight and when you start talking working “overtime” at work, you can see them get visibly agitated because they KNOW their wife is going to be pissed off and might “withhold” the goodies from them.
I have sex with my wife anywhere from 3 to 5 times a week. I was talking to my “ATF” the other day and she’s like … “Krulac, do you know how RARE that is? Most of the guys I see complain about NEVER getting it from their wives.”
So it seems that this might be the norm for women – even my wife. I don’t think she has a huge sex drive. I think she does it mostly for me. Now, for sure, she comes into the bedroom all prissy and smiles and dancing … but I think that’s just because she knows she’s going to have a good time – and it’s not going to suck for her. I think also … my wife doesn’t think other men even look at her (which is unbelievable to me) … but, any woman I’m with I go “apeshit” over, and she can see how turned on she makes me. I think this has a pleasant effect on a woman’s ego? Maybe? Especially one that is getting older and thinks maybe she’s lost some of that youthful sex appeal?
Also … women can turn it “off” in a heartbeat and this is something else I think distinguishes their sex drives from men. I was with a girl once, three freaking hours of foreplay … and I know she was ON FIRE. But she was married and I wasn’t going to force anything. Then she gives me the magic words … “I want you inside me.” … Say no more girl! Your wish is my command! But when I attempted to do just that … she winced. I was like … “What’s the matter?” and she tells me … “I’m scared”. Well, she was a religious woman … and married … and at the last second she got a dousing of guilt and that completely and INSTANTANEOUSLY overrode any sexual desire she may have had for me. Oh well, I told her it was “okay” and let her off the hook. Damn.
“I know all kinds of guys, even younger ones than me, who have sex with their wives maybe once a month … or less. And they jump through all kinds of hoops just to ensure she “pony’s up” the goods that one time per month.”
No doubt those men are lousy lovers. If their women were having multiple mind blowing orgasms every time they had sex, they would not be so relunctant to have it.
Spoken exactly like a male. Y’all just don’t get it, at all. There are LOTS of things that supersede orgasms, “mind-blowing” or otherwise, and while most women would probably be more interested in good sex than bad, neither will most put every other consideration aside JUST for an orgasm; that is a male behavior. And proves exactly what you’re trying to refute in this thread.
“Spoken exactly like a male. ”
Interesting.
I’m not male.
That just makes it even weirder; one would think a woman would know better.
Maggie, us men having constant lust for woman only makes us more appreciative of women. I do think it’s a good thing that woman don’t have a sex drive like men though. The planet is already too overcrowded with people, imagine what would have happened if women had been as randy as men.
It would be catastrophe. We never would have left the stone age and there’d be constant warfare.
I firmly believe – that the female / male attraction dynamic – as it currently is – is what’s responsible for pushing human innovation – and it was mostly men pushing that ball down the field … to impress women.
Because women won’t sleep with you unless you impress them somehow. Women are the “flow control” … the “thermostat” of the system. Men would be shit without women. it’s women that motivate us to be at our best – and men will be as awesome as women demand us to be.
The problem this day and age is – women don’t demand much from us.
I’m a woman who is unhappy with her sex life because I’ve never achieved an orgasm with a partner – only on my own – and sometimes I feel desolate because (1) I’d like to have had that experience with the person I love and (2) I hate having to be dishonest and fake it.
I’m very sorry to hear that. It’s a genuine case of dysfunction, because it upsets you. It’s a situation you defined yourself; that’s a far different thing from some outside authority declaring a woman dysfunctional when she’s satisfied with things as they are.
“I hate having to be dishonest and fake it.”
You don’t “have” to fake it. You are choosing to.
Together you and your partner might want to look into this;
http://onetaste.us/
This is also a good read;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/cliteracy_n_3823983.html
I like the slogan;
“Democracy Without Cliteracy? Phallusy.”
What I’ve noticed in “the West” is a resistance to the ebb and flow of life. As well as a HUGE resistance to the facts of life such as aging and dying.
Over the course of one lifetime, one’s libido waxes and wanes, ebbs and flows, due to various reasons both physical and mental. Rather than “go with the flow” I find most mainstream Westerners want to fight the flow with pharmaceuticals.
As we age, crossing the 40 year mark, there is generally an ongoing decline in libido. Philosophical cultures recognizes a type of liberation in this, but mainstream American culture sees it again, as an unwelcome disease of sorts that needs to be pumped chock of pharmaceuticals.
I personally have a HUGE resistance to the facts of life such as measles, infected wounds, and immobility. And because people a lot smarter than I also had HUGE resistance to these facts of life, we have vaccines, antibiotics, and wheelchairs. And I’m very, very happy that these smart people had HUGE resistance to those facts of life. May all Gods bless them for it.
All of the debilities of age are physical problems, and physical problems are amenable to engineering solutions. Those who want to accept aging and dying should be free to do so, just as they should be free to drink the hemlock should they so desire. But may all Gods bless those who find the solutions.
So, when aging impairs your vision or gives you arthritis, you of course won’t be using eyeglasses nor pain-reducers, but rather, simply welcoming the liberation from sight and mobility?
…Also, some of that non-Western philosophy roots in fatalistic, “nothing-you-can-do-about-it -so-just-accept-it-as-part-of-life-instead-of-becoming-frustrated-and-bitter” attitudes consequent of past inabilities to alleviate the effects of aging. Meaning, the philosophy originated because nothing could be done in the past, rather than doing nothing/embracing it originating because of the philosophy.
“because it’s normal for men to feel randy all the time”
I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one. I’ve gone for long periods…many months…without having nor desiring sex with my wife. The longest stretches had to do with her snapping at me, saying words in anger, while we were having sex or foreplay. If I squeezed her breasts too hard and she said “What’s your problem?!” in an angry voice, I would completely shut down and either turn over or leave the room and wouldn’t ask for sex for a week, she did something like this again…a month, then several months. Finally she got the message, and this hasn’t been an issue for some years. FYI, when a girl gets unintentionally rough with me, I let her know in a very gentle way.
So I guess if I was a woman, then I had a case of sexual “dysfunction”, but since I’m a man, I was smart enough know what the problem was in a clear and succinct manner and so never considered myself to suffer “dysfunction”.
Even aside from the issue I just shared, I can at times, go for quite a while without desiring sex, usually when I’m wrapped up in a non sexual hobby. However, it is very easy for my wife to get me turned on when she says the right things and dresses the part.
the part about “since I’m a man” was made in jest.
You do understand that just because YOU have experienced that, doesn’t mean it’s normal, right? I mean, just because I suffer from severe motion sickness doesn’t allow me to conclude that motion sickness is “normal”.
“I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one. I’ve gone for long periods…many months…without having nor desiring sex with my wife.”
Male sexuality is just as stereotyped as female sexuality. It doesn’t help that many of us are living in a shallow, superficial, consumerist, media-driven culture that tells us if we are *not* feeling “randy all the time” that there must be something “wrong” with us.
Have you ever noticed in American movies how they show characters who have sex within like a half hour of finding out their kid, parent or even spouse died?
Its so bizarre.
Since you ask, no, as a matter of fact I have never noticed that. Can you give a few examples?
C’mon Sasha, there’s plenty of examples.
Most movies only go for a couple of hours or so all up.
If they ever make a movie about Philip Nitschke that’s all that will be in it.
“Plenty of examples” such as…?
I’m not good with movie names because I’ve hardly watched any for decades.
But what’s that Donald Sutherland one that starts with his kid drowning and ends with him being stabbed by an evil dwarf?
Within five minutes or so of the kid’s death him and his wife are in a hotel room in Venice having it off.
Or that one about Jackie Kennedy where she’s on honeymoon with Aristotle Onassis no more than 20 mins after JFK cops it.
Um, you do of course realize that movies do not occur in real time? Five minutes in a film does not correspond to five minutes of life.
The only Donald Sutherland movie I know of where his son drowns is Ordinary People, and unless I saw the airline edit, there’s no stabby evil dwarf. Try again.
Real time?
It’s not even real people.
They don’t even go to the toilet for godsake (unless it’s to snort some coke or get killed by an assassin).
Jeez, you’d think you could do some of the work getting yourself educated.
It’s this one.
There are entire universes of incomprehension in your comment.
Yes, movie characters go to the toilet. They also sleep eight hours a night, brush their teeth, and do the dishes.You just don’t SEE them doing it. Movies are stories, and only scenes that are germane to the story are scripted and shot. Even (shudder) “reality” TV programs are edited to remove the boring parts.
Forgot about Don’t Look Now. It’s not five minutes after the kid dies, it’s quite a lot later.
And even if it were, one example is hardly a trend of “American movies”.
Nah.
They’re essentialist. They’re just elements used to build bits of plot from.
Next you’ll be telling me that Bugs Bunny drops little cartoony brown pellets all over the place.
Heck, you’re even claiming reality TV characters are real people.
What are you smoking?
If they cut out all the boring bits there would be no reality TV.
Just like if they really showed cricket highlights there would be nothing to show.
I’m currently too hopped up on a festive combination of Kirin Draught and allergy pills to determine if you are serious or not.
So I will assume you are pulling my leg and let the subject drop. 🙂
Those pollen-laden westerlies set you off too, huh?
I hate spring.
“Um, you do of course realize that movies do not occur in real time? Five minutes in a film does not correspond to five minutes of life.”
Um, except of course in the films I was remembering, and perhaps the ones cabrogal referred to as well, it did correspond.
Um, in other word the film did not show a loved one’s death, and then a significant period of time and events passing. Rather what was shown was that having sex within a half hour or so after having learned of the death of a loved one, the character was getting it on.
Sorry Sasha, but no, I can’t recall the names of any films. I haven’t watched an American film in years and can’t recall the titles of dozens of made for TV movies, such as on Lifetime, or cinema movies that were then later shown on the TVs in the houses of friends or family I may have seen while visiting.
I’ve never gone to the cinema and paid to see a mainstream American film and I have never personally bought or owned a TV myself.
However I have been exposed to and watched such films on other people’s TVs and the sex right after someone dies thing was something that stuck out in my mind as extremely odd and I remember discussing it a number of times with friends and family members and asking them, “what the fuck?”
This, from the person with the onions to call themselves “Culturephile”?
So it’s a big trend in American movies, except I can’t remember their titles, or who was in them, or the circumstances of the alleged post-traumatic sex, but it really happens! A lot! Enough that I noticed it! You gotta believe me!
If this were a science or medical blog, I’d be asking “Citation please”.
I call warm fragrant piles of bullshit.
” I’ve never gone to the cinema and paid to see a mainstream American film and I have never personally bought or owned a TV myself.”
“This, from the person with the onions to call themselves “Culturephile”?”
– Well that is precisely why I’m a culture-phile.
I choose to read Abhinavagupta rather than zone out to American Pie 3.
As far as the sex right after death thing, while certainly not in most of the movies I can remember, it was in enough that I took note and actually asked some people if they had ever heard of or done that in real life.
No, that’s why you’re a snob.
I listen to both Der Rosenkavalier and Elvis Costello. I read both Les Misérables and The Big Book of Werewolf Erotica. I watch both Au revoir les enfants and Futurama. I understand culture because I expose myself to it, in many different varieties.
It’s easy to diss American Pie 3. I haven’t seen it myself, but it makes a cheap and easy target for people who dismiss all “American movies” as lowbrow trash.
By arrogantly insulating yourself within the narrow confines of what you deem to be “culture”, you have neatly ensured that you will never understand it.
Yep. That’s culture.
I think when Sasha hears the ‘pop’ in ‘pop-culture’ she thinks it’s someone opening the champagne.
Seems consistent to me.
Why would a lover of culture have anything to do with TV or American movies?
How can you say you love culture without knowing about it? Television is at the forefront of storytelling culture nowadays. Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, The Wire, Deadwood, The Sopranos, House Of Cards, Breaking Bad… Anyone who disdains or is unfamiliar with dramatic television in the 21st century cannot claim to be cultured.
And you’re far too smart to spout that old canard about how dumb “American movies” are. Not buying it.
Sasha 2 Me;
“No, that’s why you’re a snob.”
– How so?
“By arrogantly insulating yourself within the narrow confines of what you deem to be “culture”, you have neatly ensured that you will never understand it.”
– Like everyone else, I have personal preferences with regards to how I want to spend my time and the media I want to consume.
Is it necessary to own a television, as well as a satellite, so that programming from every single country on our planet can be accessed in order to “understand culture”?
Sasha 2 Cabrogal;
“How can you say you love culture without knowing about it?”
– I know that was addressed to someone else but my 2 paisa is this: I never claimed to love *every* culture on this planet. I have only been directly exposed to about 50, and I certainly do not *love* all of them. There are even a few I have an aversion for.
A cultural relativist – I am not.
Jaws III
Not remembering any others, unless slasher movies count; people are always having nasty, nasty sex almost on top of the last corpse in those, just before Freddy or Jason gives the little sluts what they so richly deserve.
Which is why I don’t care for slasher movies. Well, one of the reasons.
Umm, well I must admit I was slightly taking the piss in order to illustrate how extremely unlikely the behaviour of characters in lots of movies is – on account of them not being real characters at all but just story-telling foils.
I think a lot of cultural confusion is caused by people failing to make that distinction. (e.g. US gun culture being due to so many yanks not realising that Clint Eastwood is an actor and his characters are fictional.)
“Umm, well I must admit I was slightly taking the piss in order to illustrate how extremely unlikely the behaviour of characters in lots of movies is – on account of them not being real characters at all but just story-telling foils.”
– Right. When I first saw the sex-after-a-beloved’s-death-as-part-of-the-plot scene in an American film, I didn’t give it much thought. Its a movie after all. The second time I was like, “OK is this a common features in American films? If so, why?”. By about the 4th time I was like, “WTF? Does art imitate life or does life imitate art?” And started asking people questions about it.
“because it’s normal for men to feel randy all the time”
What man feels horny 24/7?
How old is this particularly unique individual?
The phrase “all the time” is used in its idiomatic meaning of “extremely frequently”, not in the literal meaning of “incessant”. But then, I’m sure you knew that.
Extremely frequently, while a bit less misandrist sounding, is up to interpretation.
And many men would argue against that as well.
Only if they want to look like fools.
No Maggie, perhaps for adolescent males. But as men age, their “randiness” declines and in my case, a woman has to be sultry, slutty, and and basically act horny as hell for me in order to really turn me on. Heck, all that Viagra and stuff…the women demanded that.
“Women demanded that”? Not hardly; in fact quite a few women curse the man who invented it. Do a bit of research and you’ll see what I mean. Old men who take Viagra think they’re young again, and young men who take it become insufferable. Ask the women here if I’m not right.
Maggie is right. Any man who takes it can become insufferable. Especially the “old-goats” who take forever to orgasm. (Especially if old-goat has been drinking.) Especially if a woman is stuck with him for a weekend. It turns into a non-stop ego race for him to prove…that he is THE man. What is wrong with men?! (I love men, don’t get me wrong.)
Men like younger women, I get it. But for this woman, give me the young man who can “get off” quickly.
God help the young woman who buys into the “women want it as much as man” dogma. No, she doesn’t. She might act (myth of the wanton) or even feel like it until she gets married, and then NO, she doesn’t. She can’t figure out what happened; both parties think this is “dysfunction”. Something must be wrong with the marriage. Blah blah divorce, lather, rinse, repeat.
As far as orgasm goes, my vibrator has always come through. I like sex with men for the warm and fuzzy feelings. Orgasm with a man is a bonus, not a requirement. It is usually the man who (wrongly) feels “less than” if one isn’t had, hence, reasons women fake. Faking is acting, and from what I have heard grown men claim about their “prowess”; women are very, very skilled at faking. It’s a pity the man has no clue, but there is no purpose had informing him, as the cycle will get longer. Women fake because of my previous statement. It gets. Him. Off. (of you.) Spare me all of the “men don’t care” stuff…and i’m not talking about love and eros and mind-blowing encounters. I’m talking about day in, day out, how do women feel about sex.
Thank you Maggie, for a wonderful and enlightening blog.
You’re welcome, and thank YOU for the backup! 🙂
Dear duaneh1, I think any drug that helps people sexually is wonderful as long as the results involve consenting adults who agree on what they’re going to do sexually, etc. I was once frigid (for several years) so am glad there’s drugs to help people to have the best sex possible along with other ways to help them. Also, your experiences in the sexual area count as much as others do. No label can (or should) change your experiences and/or give them a lesser value. Unique experiences don’t change the reality of non-unique 1’s. Thanks for speaking up as your experiences are interesting to read about.
I’ll admit to being constantly randy. It’s only misandrist if you say it from the view of the idiot neofeminists who would infer from it that I’m a rape supporter.
This may have all started with the Victorian Brits who invented the fake “illness” of “hysteria”. First, they make anything but quick missionary position sex between married heterosexuals “illegal” and a “sin” (including masturbation), then they tell women that they are suffering from a condition called “hysteria” that can only be relieved by PAYING doctor-quacks to fiddle their beans.
When all along all they could have done was masturbate or have their husbands perform oral sex on them. Both of which would of course not have been “good for the economy” because they are FREE!
‘Tain’t necessarily so.
A lot of ‘hysteria’ is what is now still recognised as conversion disorder, which is more objectifiably measurable than most other mental illness.
Other things the Victorians diagnosed as ‘hysteria’ were probably due to hyperthermia and restricted blood flow due to the clothing they wore.
It wasn’t the Victorians who demanded man-superior sex etc; that was the early Christians in Imperial Rome. For them sex was gender-specific, not the ‘active’ and ‘passive’ of the Romans. And if it wasn’t gender-specific, done in a ‘natural’ way, done without pleasure and only for procreation, it was wrong and thus sinful.
Its funny. In my heritage country Christians are a very tiny minority yet they have the “randiest” reputation.
Maggie, thanks for quoting my comment and considering my point of view. I don’t dispute most of what you are saying. Of course there are happy eunuchs, happy paraplegics, etc. Does that mean it’s all right for parents to mentally castrate daughters, because when the little ones grow up they won’t necessarily complain about it or even recognize that their stunted clitoris is dead?
I don’t deny that some women are sexually dysfunctional most of the time, and in those cases there are other explanations for why they sometimes lack sexual desire or have difficulty reaching orgasm. What I’m calling attention to is that many women never have clitoral erections, even with the person they love.
I have defined healthy erectile function, and offered an explanation as to why it deteriorates in many women: Lack of stimulation of an organ during development leads to atrophy of the relative brain area that controls erectile function. That is a normal physiological process known to cause dysfunction of other organs (e.g. the eye), and there is no reason to believe it doesn’t apply to the clitoris as well.
Why don’t you confront that pesky part of my hypothesis, instead of resorting to facile accusations about my supposed motives (hoping to get partners without payment)? By the time society changes that much you and I will be long gone.
Correction: I don’t deny that some women are sexually functional most of the time.
“I don’t dispute most of what you are saying. Of course there are happy eunuchs, happy paraplegics, etc. Does that mean it’s all right for parents to mentally castrate daughters, because when the little ones grow up they won’t necessarily complain about it or even recognize that their stunted clitoris is dead? ”
I don’t know about “mental castration” but millions of baby boys are having parts of their penises cut off all across the world, and right here in the so-called “civilized world”.
Culturephile, it’s true and outrageous that millions of boys are cruelly and unnecessarily circumcised without their consent (as I was), But that doesn’t prevent healthy sexual function. In contrast, when girls are mentally castrated (search those keywords) the effect is often complete and permanent sexual dysfunction.
Dear sexhysteria, I’m an example of a woman who became frigid from verbal sexual abuse from my parents (especially my mother). I’m not alone in this and it proves how devastating verbal abuse from a parent is. ###*** those who say I should have been tougher, had a thicker skin, etc. However, once I was old enough to understand about recovery work, it was up to me to fix it. I did this work and finished it and my life turned around completely in the sexual area. I’m very thankful my dysfunction wasn’t permanent. My case proves also how counseling can change lives hugely for the better. I’m very glad you talk about this subject as it’s very important for people to know what verbal sexual abuse CAN do. Thanks to real help that’s out there it doesn’t automatically have to lead to permanent dysfunction.
I’m glad to hear you overcame your problem. Does that mean you experience clitoral erections and reach orgasm regularly during sexual relations with another person (as opposed to needing a medical prosthesis or “vibrator” to reach erection and orgasm)?
When you were growing up (before puberty), do you remember fondling yourself, or experiencing sex play with other children? I believe that just about any neutral or pleasurable stimulation of the clitoris during development is likely to prevent permanent sexual dysfunction.
I may have communicated with you before but I don’t remember your story and I’m not even sure if you’re the same person.
Dear sexhysteria, yes, I have clitoral erections and reach orgasm regularly with others. I’ve also been multi-orgasmic since getting over being frigid. I didn’t touch myself sexually until I was in my late 20’s. I had 2 incidences of sexual play with other children while I was a child and neither of them involved any touching (only watching). I’m pretty sure you’re the person I sent an e-mail to a while back regarding how I started helping out people sexually and stating that literally free sex does exist. I hope my e-mail helped answer some questions for you. Thank you for your kind words about my overcoming being frigid. I was very blessed to have a wonderful psychologist help greatly with this. She literally saved my life in this way and others. I’ve recently expanded the speaking out I do for women who give sex away for no literal charge so if you’re still interested in that please see the link on my profile.
Correction: I don’t deny that some women are sexually functional most of the time.
[…] The blog’s owner, too, although a highly intelligent woman and mentally balanced, met my hypothesis about mental castration by claiming that women don’t mind lacking sexual desire and orgasms. The happy female eunuch doesn’t need to reach “male standards” of sexual pleasure. She eventually published an entire post responding to my suggestion that she (like many women) is strangely silent about female sexual dysfunction http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/borrowing-trouble/. […]
Low libido is only a problem if the sufferer is distressed about it. If a woman has a low libido but is happy then so be it….there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But if a woman is distressed over the fact that she has no interest in sex or, as in my case, can’t have orgasms then there absolutely needs to be alternatives for her. Research into this is desperately needed.
And as for my personal experience, I take the active ingredient in Lybridos (buspar) off label to treat my antidepressant induced anorgasmia. It has reversed the anorgasmia and rekindled my sex life and I’m am grateful for it. And I have heard of women taking Buspar for it’s labeled purpose (anxiety) and having pro-orgasmic effects from it. So if this can help women have more satisfying sex lives then I’m all for it.
Dear dizzygirl, thank you so much for writing about this. A common side effect of antidepressants is sexual problems. Am very glad yours have ended! Yes, more research is needed with this. I say look at medications on a case by case basis instead of writing them all off.
Thanks, I did visit your site but didn’t see your email address. I’ll search in my email account for our previous correspondence.
Dear sexhysteria, thank for visiting! I hope you become a follower. I sent my e-mail address to the e-mail listed on your blog. Take care.
ThankS for visiting-it’s early…LOL.
Just because somebody is happy in her condition does not mean that her condition is optimal or even normal. For instance a woman with no legs may be a very happy woman, but if a lot of girls are being born without legs, something is wrong and there needs to be research to find out why it’s happening and something should be done so that girls are born with working legs.
Then again, just because somebody is sad over not having the running prowess of Usain Bolt doesn’t mean that everybody who runs slower than Usain Bolt (that is to say: everybody in the entire world EXCEPT Usain Bolt) is dysfunctional.
So what is and isn’t dysfunctional can’t be determined by whether or not people are happy anyway, nor by comparing it to some exceptional capability which most people just don’t have.
Agreed, Sailor.
Points out how complicated the “dysfunction/disorder” issue is. Balancing between “experiential bias/presumptive norms/personal projection” and “blissful ignorance/distorted expectations” isn’t simple nor easy.
Saying two-thirds of women suffer from sexual dysfunction is like saying two-thirds of women are deformed because their labia minora are slightly longer than their labia majora. It’s not a deformation; it’s well within the normal range and in most cases has no effect on quality of life. For those women who want to change it, surgical procedures are available, but no one needs to run around telling women with outies that they’re abnormal and need to be corrected.
You’re comparing apples to oranges. Difficulty or inability to reach orgasm has no significant impact on quality of life? Then why bother paying sex workers?
Perhaps I’m speaking too much from my own experience there. I’ve had what is apparently female sexual dysfunction my whole adult life, and I don’t see how my quality of life would suddenly be better if that were to magically go away.
And I’m probably speaking from too little experience here, but I was under the impression that nobody pays sex workers to give them an orgasm. Most men have masturbation down to a science; they can have an orgasm whenever they want. They pay sex workers in order to experience sexual intimacy with another person. That’s what’s really worth the money. And it’s an experience my sexual dysfunction has never stopped me from having.
I would never try to tell someone else that the things that make them unhappy aren’t important (though I can see how my phrasing would imply otherwise). But I also don’t appreciate being labeled abnormal or inherently lacking because orgasms don’t come naturally to me.
I’m always sorry to hear that someone has difficulty reaching orgasm. Calling such individuals “dysfunctional” is merely a form of shorthand, but also an attempt to criticize the tradition that mentally castrates girls beginning in early childhood. A person who was born blind might live a happy life, but I don’t think anyone would argue that being blind is no great loss.
By the way, orgasms during genital intercourse are usually longer and more intense than during masturbation or oral sex. At least that’s my personal experience. I’m not sure what you mean by “intimacy,” but I don’t think you can buy intimacy from a sex worker. Faked intimacy maybe.
Can you talk a little bit about what you mean by mental castration? I’ve always had a relatively high sex drive in spite of my dysfunction and have never had any problems with arousal or desire. I’ve come to assume that this is simply the way I was wired, so to speak. So it seems like a very…focused form of castration, if that’s what it is.
I’ve heard the same thing about genital orgasms vs masturbatory ones. But I’ve also grown up hearing that only something like 30% of women are even physiologically capable of those. And if 60% of the population was born blind, would we as a culture place so much emphasis on sight?
Whoops. Bad math.
If 60% of the population was born blind, we’d hear a lot about how ophthalmologists are sad little dreamers who want to play God. And being able to see would still be a huge advantage.
I realize that this has nothing to do with orgasm, but there it is.
Yeah, it’s not a perfect metaphor. Sight has huge evolutionary advantages, after all, while the evolutionary advantages of the female orgasm are still debated.
I’ve written extensively and repeatedly on mental castration in my blog (click on Sexhysteria). Small children have a natural instinct to stimulate their genitals. That isn’t a naughtly demon leading them astray, it’s a way to stimulate the creation of synapes in the parts of the brain that control genital function.
When misguided parents and other teachers “inhibit” children from stimulating themselves (shaming or outright threats of physical violence, physical castration, etc.) the synapes aren’t created, neurons are “pruned” and the organ becomes dysfunctional. The dysfunction is in the brain rather than the clitoris, hence “mental castration.” There may also be local effects in the organ itself, such as muscle atrophy, ischemia in local tissue, etc., but the origin is a brain that wasn’t allowed to develop.
You and other women may call your mental state “sexual arousal,” but if your organ doesn’t become erect there is something wrong somewhere. Puritan culture taught us that it’s normal for women to be less eager for sex and even enjoy sex less than men. In my humble opinion that’s pure bullshit.
Two-thirds of women exhibiting symptoms of disease or dysfunction does not mean it isn’t a disease or dysfunction. It means Puritan cuture has been very successful
That’s an interesting theory, and it fits in very well with what little I know about brain plasticity and development. But maybe I should have been more specific in asking how it contributes to female sexual dysfunction. In my experience, little boys are discouraged from touching themselves from a young age as well. So why do two-thirds of women end up dysfunctional, while a majority of men do not?
I’m not sure who measures sexual arousal by how engorged their clitoris becomes. Sex researchers have been using vaginal photoplethysmography for years to try and determine what arouses women, and the results consistently fail to line up with women’s self reports of their own arousal. So do women just not know what they’re talking about? You’re definitely implying as much about my own experiences.
And just for the sake of clarity: when you talk about dysfunction, are you talking about difficulty/inability to reach orgasm, low libido, difficulty with physical arousal, disinterest in sex, or all of the above? We seem to be flipping between definitions here and it’s not very productive.
You bring up some good points. Boys have two advantages here: 1) parents are less severe in their attempts to “inhibit” boys because sexual dysfunction is far more destructive to eventual sex roles in males than in females; in practical terms female sexual pleasure is dispensable. 2) being external, the male organ is easier to stimulate surreptitiously and get away with it. A girl has to spread her legs to access the lower legs of the clitoris most effectively.
Girls are also more rule-conscious or obedient in early childhood, and hence more vulnerable to mental castration. Ask any elementary school teacher: girls are much easier to control through verbal direction than are the boys.
I’m not sure about the discrepancy between women’s self-reports of arousal and performance on tests, but my concept of sexual arousal is tied to genital erection. Before I become erect, my sexual interest is minimal, but after I become erect my sexual interest explodes. I suspect that if a woman can’t become erect, her interest doesn’t explode. At best, she can only fake it.
That’s not the end of the story. Clitoral erectile dysfunction can be prevented. The first step is to get women to talk about the unspeakabe method: accurate, balanced, and comprehensive sex education from the earliest age, which would lead to little girls fondling themselves and being proud of their clitoral erections instead of hiding them.
Okay, so now we’re talking about the lower legs of the clitoris? I’m sure you know this, given your obvious wealth of knowledge about the female sexual experience, but those are internal. And as you’ve already implied, for those to be stimulated “most effectively,” you do indeed have to stick one or more fingers up inside the vagina. Interesting fact: penetration is uncomfortable for women unless there is significant lubrication around the entrance of the vagina, which most women are capable of producing by themselves without a problem – when they are aroused. And post-puberty. So honestly, it doesn’t surprise me that those neurons are “being pruned,” because having been a little girl myself I cannot imagine the appeal of gritting my teeth and jamming my fingers up my dry cooch repeatedly.
I also cannot imagine why you see fit to dismiss my experiences of sexual arousal as mistaken and yet apply your own (male) experience as universal. Your arousal is tied to physical erection, which is fine; I’m not here to tell you that what you feel is wrong. But why assume that it’s the same for all of us?
I am not, obviously, a male-bodied person, but I have heard that men will occasionally get penile erections (or, as they’re often referred to, “random boners”) despite an absence of arousing stimuli. Sometimes, despite wanting to have sex very much and trying valiantly, they will not get an erection at all. Would you argue that these are actually signs of arousal or lack thereof? Does the man with a random boner in the middle of the workday feel a corresponding “explosion of sexual interest”? Is the man with performance anxiety just faking his sexual interest in his partner?
At least we seem to have finally pinned down a definition of “dysfunction,” namely clitoral erectile dysfunction. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that 2/3 of women do not suffer from this. I am also going to say that just because the clitoris is homologous to the penis does not mean that the two work exactly the same. Clitoral erections are much smaller and less noticeable (I certainly have never had to “hide” mine); you don’t generally feel them happening; they’re rarely spontaneous; and the erectile tissue is slower to engorge during arousal and disgorge after orgasm. Clitorises are not dysfunctional penises, and women are not dysfunctional men.
We do certainly agree on one point, however, which is the necessity of comprehensive sexual education. If such a thing was widespread in America, I wouldn’t even need to be having this discussion with you in the first place.
You’re probably right, the lower legs of the clitoris are most effectively stimulated inside the vagina. But I’ve observed a little girl merely use her forked fingers to put pressure on both sides of the vaginal opening without going inside. That required spreading her legs indiscretely, and led to an immediate erection.
Once the clitoris is erect, the tip protrudes up to 5cm (2in), with the hood suspended from it like a curtain hanging from a rod. That is clearly visible even from some distance. I once witnessed a mother noticing her daughter’s erection, and the poor woman’s expression turned to horror as if she had discovered a grotesque abnormality.
On another occasion a girl was sunning herself by a pool with her legs spread apart and her clitoris protruding clearly erect. An adult who seemed to be unrelated but a compatriot came over and told her to close her legs. To the child’s credit she replied “Pourquoi?” (Why?) The adult didn’t know what to say. Naturist etiquette requires that adults hide their erections, but not little boys. Why little girls?
I’m sorry if I sound pretentious; my personal experience is actually minimal. I never had a sister, and my sex play with girls didn’t begin until I was 12, rather late in the game of mental castration (although my sex play with boys and a woman began much earlier).
Chidren should have access to information about the importance of good hygiene, the vulnerability of the immature vagina to laceration and infection, and the availability of effective lubrication – which is useful for little boys as well.
When I was a child I experienced 10 orgasms in the space of an hour. If it were not for a friction blister I might have experienced 20 orgasms in two hours. I didn’t imagine (and nobody taught me) that friction blisters can be easily prevented by using lubrication.
It may not surprise anybody that neurons are being pruned, but should we be silent about it? I’m not dismissing your sexual experiences, I’m questioning your interpretation of your experience. As documented in Deborah L. Tolman’s book “Dilemmas of Desire,” young women say some very confused things about their sexual feelings and experience. Considering the tradition of mental castration, that shouldn’t surprise anybody.
Yes, men get spontaneous erections, and so do boys and girls. In those cases there is some disconnect between mind and body. I don’t know how to explain that. My primary concern is the development of the capacity for clitoral erection, which in my limited personal experience seems to be the target of deliberate cultural sabotage.
What’s wrong with boys and girls maintaining the capacity to experience 10 orgasms in an hour (and maybe 20 orgasms in two hours with lubrication)? Why should anybody defend the tradition of mentally castrating girls, and why shouldn’t you and I try to attack that tradition any way we can?
The site won’t let me reply directly anymore, so, sexhysteria, I am down here.
Your experiences are certainly very interesting, and vastly different from mine. Very few of us grow up in a naturist environment, and any clitoral erections most of us experience as children will be hidden by clothes. I was never scolded for mine – hell, I don’t even remember having them. The only rules I was given that might fit your castration theory were things like “don’t take your clothes off/put your hands down your pants in public,” which was not, I don’t think, unreasonable. Since I didn’t have much interest in doing that at the time, it wasn’t a sacrifice for me to abstain. (In addition, 5cm/2in sounds like the extreme end of the bell curve. Isn’t that a little like saying most men are dysfunctional because their erections don’t regularly reach 9in? Those of us with average or smaller equipment don’t always see that much of a difference, clothes or no clothes.)
And if I may say so, you seem unusually sexually precocious. Most people will never experience 10 orgasms in one hour, be they child, adult, teenager, whatever. I didn’t have even one until I was around 13, which was maybe a year after I first became interested in intentionally self-stimulating. I had figured out as a child that it felt good to straddle the back of the couch, but it never led anywhere near orgasm. I was not ashamed, just not interested. Even now, forcing 10 out in an hour seems like an unpleasant challenge; I get very sensitive after I do reach orgasm, and until my erection has subsided it’s painful to stimulate. This is a fact of biology, not mental castration. It’s another bell curve that you and I seem to be at opposite ends of, and I’m not sure that’s anybody’s fault.
There are a ton of things I would like to change about the way children learn about sex. You and I agree on this. I don’t know about clitoral erection specifically, but expressions of female sexuality are certainly targeted culturally, and I’ve heard various theories for why that might be the case. The most convincing to me is simply that sex holds more risk for women, in terms of STD transmission, pregnancy and childbirth complications, internal tearing or bruising, etc., and as such we’ve evolved mechanisms to discourage girls and women from throwing themselves at it every chance they get. Like any psychological theory, of course, it assumes a lot of generalities. Some women will just never be as interested as sex in others are. Some women never touch themselves because they are ashamed and feel dirty about it; some are just never interested in doing so.
Some of these women can be helped by better education and a cultural shift away from the fear that haunted our ancestors. But I don’t agree with telling the rest of those women that they’re abnormal and have been crippled and are dysfunctional and will never be whole. Human sexuality is a complex thing, and female sexuality is complex in its own unique ways, and the sexuality of each individual female is similarly unique. I don’t see that as a tragedy.
You and I have no right to lay out our own experiences and say “This is the way it is for me; therefore it should be that way for everybody, and anybody who deviates from it has been tragically led astray.” That does a huge disservice to the people whose experiences we’re so cavalierly dismissing, and it locks us into a very narrow worldview and stunts any real ability we have to connect with and understand the lives of others. The bell curve is a beautiful thing. If all of human experience could be plotted on a single point, we would have died out long ago.
“don’t take your clothes off/put your hands down your pants in public,” is what I call mental castration. Some parents allow their daughters to put their hand up their dress even at McDonald’s. I allow clothed pupils to straddle my knee and I can feel the tip of the clitoris protruding erect, pressing against my knee like a firm fingertip. That’s the way it shoud be.
Prohibiting such natural behavior has no reasonable motive than to mentally castrate girls. You don’t remember having much interest at that time? Have you ever heard of infantile amnesia? I remember experiencing orgasm-like sensations when I slowly lowered myself on my bike seat while coasting down the sidewalk (age 6?). I did it over and over again, so I certainly had a lot of interest.
Maybe I was an unusual sex maniac, or a normal male obsessed with sex, and maybe girls really are ascetic saints like the Puritans want us to believe. Do you think so? I think it’s more likely that most girls are already mentally castrated by age six, which is why they don’t remember clitoral erections at earlier ages.
If you don’t remember any clitoral erections, then how can you say 5cm is the extreme, let alone unusual? Stunted growth of an organ is an unsurprising effect of lack of stimulation during development. In any case what makes a penis or clitoris dysfunctioal is not the size but the inability to become erect and thereby facilitate reaching orgasm.
Are you suggesting that most children don’t or can’t experience 10 orgasms in an hour after they have been mentally castrated? Of course – that’s the whole point of mentally castration. I’m suggesting that before mental castration they can and do.
My first orgasms coincided with learning how to masturbate (from a same-age friend who had an older brother). But my brain area that controls genital arousal was primed much earlier by fondling and fellatio by an adult (sexual abuse). My experience wasn’t ideal, but it was the unfortunate accident that led to my hypothesis of the origin of clitoral erectile dysfunction.
You previously said that you have suffered from sexual dysfuction your whole life, but you now say you experience clitoral erections and orgasms. You are losing me. As I said in a previous comment in another discussion, my experience is that a healthy clitoris welcomes a lot of tongue stimulation and even me sucking on the shaft of the erect clit. An erect clitoris can take a licking and keep on ticking.
Whatever evolution has favored, it hasn’t kept up with technological innovation: contraception, hygiene, antibiotics, It’s time to free the clitoris from the past, and that means educating children about what they can do to develop robust sexual function.
It’s sad to confront the proposition that clitoral erctile dysfunction is probably permanent and irresversible, but it’s even sadder to deny it and thereby continue mentally castrating girls on the excuse that they’ll magically overcome it when they grow up through pep talks.
I’m going to disagree with you RE “no reasonable motive except to castrate girls.” Our culture has a strong sense of public vs private, and pretty much everything we do falls into one category or another. Eating is public, shitting is private. Talking is public, getting undressed is private. The designations seem arbitrary sometimes, and the reasons for them are many and varied. None of them come from conscious motives or agendas.
I’m sorry to hear about your early sexual experiences. You’re right in saying that’s the kind of formative stimulus that can significantly alter the way the mind and body works. But I’m sure you’re not advocating for every child to go through what you did, so why do you argue that it’s natural and healthy and normal for children to stimulate themselves beginning at an early age? You didn’t say your neurons were primed by your own experimentation; they were primed by the abuse.
I guess what I’m having trouble with is figuring out why, given the unusual and unideal nature of your own sexual development, are you declaring yourself the model of normal sexuality from which almost everyone else has deviated?
As far as my original comment about my own dysfunction goes, we were evidently using different definitions of dysfunction at the time. I am not anorgasmic and I do not have difficulties with physical arousal, but I do have difficulty reaching orgasm and am unable to climax during intercourse. Academia considers it a dysfunction; I do not. It might be nice to orgasm more easily, just like it might be nice to have better eyesight. But it hardly cripples me.
So you can only orgasm during masturbation or with the aid of a medical device, but you don’t consider that a dysfunction? Who gives a shit about our culture’s sense of public and private? What difference does it make if the agenda is conscious or lost in religious history?
I clearly said my personal experience wasn’t ideal. I never said I enjoyed accurate, balanced, and comprehensive sex education. Where and when did I ever declare myself a model of normal sexuality? You seem to have backed yourself into a corner so you are resorting to misrepresenting what I said. That behavior is a symptom of what I call a mental block.
So now it is a dysfunction, according to your definition? I have no problems with physical arousal, as I’ve said before. So how does my “problem” fit into your theory? And why is it a problem at all if it doesn’t make me unhappy?
One more time: It is not up to you to decide how people should feel about their own bodies. An individual woman’s sexual dysfunction, no matter what the definition is, is not life-threatening, not contagious, and therefore not any of your business.
I never meant to misrepresent your position, so I will try to lay this out so you understand how I got the impression I did. You claim 2/3 of women are sexually dysfunctional because they cannot get full clitoral erections. You yourself have been capable of penile erections and orgasm since childhood. Your sexual development was influenced by sexual abuse as a child, but your theory is that all people would be able to match your prowess (this is the part that led me to assume you are designating yourself the model of what sexuality should be) if they stimulated their own genitals during early childhood, “priming the neurons” the way yours were primed by the abuse. The fact that most children do not seek to self-stimulate in this way is due to cultural oppression and brainwashing. Yes?
You have yet to convince me that this is something most children naturally seek to do. Sure, children play around with their bodies, but not with the kind of intentional, focused attention that would be required for your theory to make sense. In addition, it completely ignores all other erogenous zones. There are people with highly sensitive and responsive nipples who never played with them as children. There are people who never stuck anything up their asses until well into adulthood, but they find anal stimulation intensely pleasurable. Some can even reach orgasm from these things. How does this fit into your theory?
I do not believe that we are born blank slates. Of course development is an ongoing process, and there are many many things in our childhoods that affect the way we think and feel and respond to stimulation. But you are trying to argue that this upon this one thing hangs our entire future sexual physiological response, and that just makes no sense to me.
“upon this one thing hangs our entire future sexual physiological response, and that just makes no sense to me.”
Did you read my detailed, documented explanation: https://sexhysteria.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/clitoral-erectile-dysfunction/
Don’t allow a child to exercise her legs before puberty, and see what kind of walker she becomes. Does that make sense?
If you don’t like the word dysfunction, then choose another word that is less stressful for you. What bothers me is the denial of female sexual limitations (impairment, less than optimal functioning, diverse ablity, etc.) and the implicit justification for continuing the grotesque tradition of mentally castrating girls beginnng in early childhood.
Teach girls about the possible benefit of exercising the clitoris before puberty, just as we teach girls about the possible benefit of exercising the arms and legs. Then give them the opportunity to do so if they want to. It doesn’t matter if a majority or a minority choose to do so. If many eunuchs, paraplegics, etc. aren’t unhappy, that’s no excuse to protect the tradition of mental castration.