This essay first appeared in Cliterati on January 26th; I have modified it slightly to fit the format of this blog.
Modern feminists expend considerable time and energy criticizing societal pressures for women’s bodies to conform to certain sexual norms. While I reject asinine assertions like “clothes, cosmetics, diets, gym membership, trips to the hair salon, the waxing salon and the nail salon [are indicators of women’s] self-loathing” and mercilessly ridicule those who spend their time calculating the body proportions of plastic dolls, I do think it’s worth discussing the way people of both sexes think they have the right to control women’s bodies and to limit what we are allowed to do with them. Furthermore, while I believe in both the free market and individuals’ right to modify their bodies as they please, I reserve the right to criticize sleazy businesses which use deception to capitalize on women’s powerful desire to be “good enough”. In fact, I don’t think mainstream feminism is nearly vocal enough in its condemnation of societal attempts to control women’s sexuality and big business’ efforts to profit therefrom; if anything, most vocal feminists are perfectly happy to reduce women’s sexual freedom if it means reducing that of men in the bargain. But when their publicly-stated goal of “equality” conflicts with their true goal of sexual repression, such women are liable to experience cognitive dissonance which renders them uncharacteristically speechless, as they have largely been on the issue at hand today.
In the last two decades, the pharmaceutical industry has succeeded in medicalizing a number of issues which were previously seen as behavioral or even normal: for example, the ordinary restlessness of schoolboys is often misdiagnosed as “attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder” so that they can then be drugged into docility, and the totally understandable resentment young people feel when they’re treated as “children” is now pathologized as “Oppositional Defiant Disorder” (for which I’m sure some drug will soon be forthcoming). Virtually all male sexual dysfunction (and some behavior that isn’t actually dysfunctional) is now treated with medication even when it really isn’t appropriate to do so, and for years now the corporate pill-pushers have been dying for a “female Viagra” by which they could profit both from women who are unhappy with their sex lives and, more importantly, those who can be convinced that they’re “not good enough”. Unfortunately for their dreams of a vast new source of profit, female sexual response is much more complicated than male; it cannot simply be quantified by measuring how often sex occurs or how long it lasts, and it can’t be cured by improving blood flow to the genitals or raising the testosterone level. Yet there are those who bemoan the fact that female sexual desire has not yet been fully medicalized as male desire has been, and who eagerly await the day when we can see television adverts telling women that there’s something “wrong” with them for wanting sex less often than their partners do:
…there are no medications available in the United States for female hypoactive sexual desire disorder. That’s the technical term for when women have a distressing lack or absence of sexual desire or fantasy. Up to one-third of adult women may experience it…But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has rejected applications to green-light [flibanserin]…If there is no positive action on the drug, it could spell doom for pharmacological efforts to manage female sexual desire…The drug works by increasing brain blood flow in particular ways…it increases levels of the neurotransmitters dopamine and noradrenaline, and lowers levels of serotonin. Side effects of flibanserin include dizziness, nausea, fatigue and sleepiness. Unlike some treatments for men, flibanserin needs to be taken once a day, every day…
Let’s break this down point by point, shall we?
1) Calling something experienced by 1/3 of a population a “disorder” is a flagrant misuse of the word. We don’t even consider homosexuality a “disorder” any more, and it’s only about 3% of the population; how then can the sexuality of 11x as many people be considered a “disorder” in any meaningful way? Female desire and fantasy cannot be measured by male norms; we stopped doing that decades ago in most areas, so why are we still doing it with regard to sex? As I’ve written on a number of occasions, “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.” Yes, the word “distressing” is included in the description, but I think it’s important to differentiate between distress deriving from sexual dissatisfaction and that resulting from either partner pressure or from big businesses telling women they’re “abnormal” because they don’t want to fuck like bunnies in every room of the house 365 days a year.
2) If you don’t find the phrase “efforts to manage female sexual desire” chilling, you haven’t been paying enough attention to either my writings or the news.
3) Flibanserin is a psychoactive drug which was originally tested as an antidepressant; its whole raison d’être is to alter the mood and behavior of a third of the female population, and journalist Elizabeth Landau appears to think that’s just peachy (and probably even “feminist”). A huge fraction of womankind is being defined as Not Good Enough and told that the very chemistry of their brains is in need of correction; if you don’t consider that troubling, there’s nothing else I can say to help you “get it”.
As I wrote in “Caveat Emptor”, there’s a vast difference between a woman choosing to alter her body and her being tricked, talked or shamed into doing so. And when the characteristic she’s being pushed to change is not merely an aspect of her physical appearance but the very machinery of brain and personality, it seems to me that feminists should be paying a lot more attention to this than to the pressing issue of whether bikini waxing is “feminist”.
Y’know Maggie, I honestly think that’s arse about face in the majority of cases.
I think most women who stick their noses into other people’s bedrooms – not all of whom identify as feminists by any means – are primarily concerned with controlling the sexuality of other women. If they end up controlling men’s as well it’s a bonus.
I’m inclined to think the same thing applies to men, BTW.
For all the harping on rape culture, it’s women’s sexuality that has always been the scary and scandalous one – to both genders.
You’re a bit behind the curve here.
The DSM-V has significantly de-emphasised ODD by adding criteria such as frequency and pervasiveness to the diagnostic criteria. But it has invented the new mental illness of “disruptive mood dysregulation disorder” (DMDD) that will capture all of the previous ODD kids and more.
Why?
According to Allan Frances ODD has been such a thoroughly abused diagnosis for so long it is now on the nose with many mental health professionals and ‘consumers’. DMDD is essentially an attempt to rebrand and rehabilitate it.
But an even more cynical interpretation is possible, so naturally that’s what I lean towards.
Established wisdom (if such a word can ever be applied to psychiatry) is that ODD does not respond well to drugs and should be treated with CBT. No money for the drug companies there. Closing down the ODD shop and reopening it under another name gives the bioshrinks another shot at using it to flog a shitload of pills.
But I guess my attitude to “an ill for every pill” mental healthcare is similar to yours on trafficking hysteria. It’s jumped the shark and is rapidly approaching it’s use-by date. The number of defections of previously line toeing shrinks since the release of DSM-V has been extraordinary and the pill pushers and diagnostic inflators are sounding ever more strident and isolated. It’ll probably be a while before most of the media catches up though.
I laugh every time I read that! I LOVE being a man – I love that feeling because it inspires me to exceed my capabilities. I just got back from the gym – deadlift day. I ran the weight up to 500 pounds – I normally lift around 450. So much of what men do is psychological – mind over body. So I step up to the bar – and firmly fix the image of a local 23 year old blonde escort in my mind … I’ll call her “Lisa”. And Lisa has a big ass and long blonde hair and I always ask her to leave her top on when she undresses because “bottomless women” is kind of one of my goofy-assed kinks. And all I have to do is lift this bar one time – put it down, and Lisa is mine …
And it goes up easy. I do the same thing – sometimes different women – when I’m working in the Arctic and I’m freezing my ass off. Usually I think about a couple of Norwegian women I know up there.
As long as I can keep the image fixed in my head – I can do anything. If the pain is so dreadful that it rips the image out of my head – that’s the only point at which I will fail – but the sex drive I have overrides one hell of a lot of pain and discomfort.
I would not trade my drive for everything in the world and I loathe the day I lose that feeling.
MY TAKE ON ADHD …
I think I would have been diagnosed as ADHD if I were growing up today. I think there is a lot of pressure to put sons into a “cookie cutter” mold – one where they’ll emerge as Doctors or Lawyers – and not plumbers and mechanics. So the drugs are an attempt to “change” the natural programming of the boy. I think boys will figure out what path they need to take – Doctor or mechanic – or longshoreman … whatever and I think it’s important to let them do that because not everyone is really meant to be a doctor or lawyer.
They wanted to put my son on the drugs when he was 8. I resisted until he was 14 and only submitted then because he was falling into a “choom gang” and smoking weed. That kind of freaked me out. I went into “King Leonidas” mode and my wife checked me a bit and talked me into letting her take him to a psyche. The psyche and my wife talked me into the drugs.
Well – he immediately turned around – but like I say – he fell into the “cookie cutter” mold. Great grades … college degree in engineering in 4 years – he makes a lot of money now.
But he’s still on the drugs – sometimes he goes off – and he so lethargic he crashes like a dead buzzard. Like me – he does extremely dangerous things in his off-time for kicks. I think he’s happy with the money he makes in his engineering job – but there is something within him that’s not fulfilled. I wish I could have spent more time with him when he was growing up – because I could have helped him work through all that. But I was always off fighting some kind of a war.
I suppose you need to decide if plastering air brushed “real, ideal women” all over magazines movies and television and then running a list of (complete bull) “ways for you to look like this” counts as pressure and deception or not.
I honestly think the whole “female viagra” is an extention of the underlying problem, which is a media that idolizes an unrealistic depiction of women. Even the idea of a normal woman is so completely artificial that is would be comical if people didn’t believe it as truth.
People who are slaves to media bullshit buy that – but not thinking people.
Women who complain about the media and how they portray women are completely overlooking the point that the media turns EVERYTHING into a caricature. They depict all Christians as idiot-zealots. They depict anyone who’s for gun rights as “Ted Nugent Militiamen”. They depict families as dysfunctional. A plumber in a movie is always fat – and so is the COB of a submarine (of which I used to be one and I’ve never been fat). Prostitutes are always drug addicts or victims of sexual abuse – usually by a father.
I’ve known quite a few women who bitch about the way they’re portrayed – but they have no problem with media stereotyping others. For instance – most women seem to buy into the whole stereotype that prostitutes are drug abusing junkies. Not too many of them question it.
I don’t see why women should be spared from the media’s bullshit. All the guys in GQ magazine look like skinny Italian dudes with greased hair – . We all have to filter out bullshit and I don’t think women should be sacred cows. I’ve seen women on the cover of Cosmo whilst standing in line at Rouse’s – I’ve never considered those women to be my “ideal”. A man’s loins KNOW what his ideal is – we get reminded every time we see a chick that “stirrs” us and that’s what we go with – not what we see on a magazine shelf.
If there’s a problem with women and how they’re depicted – well it’s their problem. The truth is … men need women … I would have little motivation stranded on a planet where there are no women. Women, on the other hand – NEED MALE APPROVAL and validation that they are attractive (Oh yes! You do!) … it makes you feel like a woman. And when some women look at the media stereotypes – that messes with their view of themselves. But that is the woman’s issue – not an issue that involves a man.
You are claiming that because there are a zillion problems with the way the media portrays reality, I should not complain about the one that bugs me most? That’s dumb.
And I never said “But really, aside from women, the media gets like everything else right!” Actually, I’ve never met anyone who claims they have no problem with the way the media depicts things EXCEPT for their pet peev (read, thing they identify with) thing.
You could just say “Yeah, and it’s not just the portrayal of women that sucks, it’s also (list of things that bug you)
Also, no, I don’t need specifically male validation. Validation from another girl, or even a computer, is literally interchangeable from that of a guy.
men are programmed by the media to respond to current trends in their culture (as are women), but I ‘think’ we typically use words like ‘hot’ and ‘sexy’ to describe = health; and that’s hard wired survival/breeding thing
Nope – I’m saying that you should complain about all the stereotypes and not just the one that applies to YOU. It’s not the stereotyping of women that is at the root of this problem – it’s the misshapen view that the media takes towards everything on this planet.
You have a need to feel attractive to men – desirable to men – whether you admit it or not. That’s your evolutionary programming. The more attractive you are the better quality the mate you can attract – better genes = better offspring.
Just ONE of the many examples I can use to prove this …
There’s a few older women – my age or older in the gym every morning. These are women who are “attractive” … but men don’t look at them anymore because virile men usually go for girls somewhat younger. So I’ll go up to these women and make pleasant conversation with them. The one thing I’m EXPERT on – is subtley showing my sexual interest in a woman without crossing a behavioral line. I do little subtle things like stare into her eyes – maybe get into her personal space a bit … things like that which don’t make a girl feel that I’m creepy or want to call the cops but let her still know there’s a loaded “gun” standing right in front of her – and it’s totally her choice as to whether the “trigger” gets pulled or not. (Wish I could have mastered this when I was younger).
I look like a guy who can reasonably get any girl he wanted (with a little effort) and I’m always the most muscular guy there in the morning. I had an escort ask me once … while I was getting dressed after a session … to stop dressing so she could look at me and I watched her face as she checked me out. I already knew that this escort was attracted to “gorilla guys” from her Facebook page – which she was stupid enough to link her home address to (which was also her incall).
You should see these women – it takes their breath away. They have given up on men paying them sexual attention – well, at least they’ve given up on all but the men who can’t attract anything better than they consider themselves to be. It makes their day when I do this – I can see it in their eyes and that’s exactly why I do it – for the reaction they give me and the good feelings of SELF-WORTH they experience from me doing it. I’m not really interested in them sexually. Sometimes I’ll do it to a chunky older woman who I’ve seen coming into the gym a lot and making real progress in losing weight – I like to think it’s positive feedback to them that they are on the right track. It seems to inspire them to keep at it.
By the way … men need to feel attractive and desirable to women too. But with men – we know that driving a Mercedes Benz can erase 10% off the top of our bodyfat percentage in the eyes of women.
And no – another man telling us that we are attractive – or a computer doing that – whatever you mean by that – is no substitute for the attraction of a woman.
Another reason I’m happy to be male – I can admit I’m enslaved to women – that they have power over me.
Most women don’t want to think about the fact that they have a visceral need for the attention of men though.
At the risk of semi-repeating my first comment on this post, I’d argue that women’s grooming is primarily aimed at other women. I mean seriously, have you ever met a guy who gives a damn about big hair and nail polish and wouldn’t just prefer his date to get out of the bathroom and into the car?
According girlfriend of mine who went to a convent boarding school most of the girls there used to compete as to who could make the sexiest modifications to their uniforms even though there were no blokes around to see them.
And what do you see when you walk into a newsagent?
Men’s magazines full of pictures of naked and semi-naked women.
And women’s magazines full of pictures of naked and semi-naked women.
I hope the gym is slipping you the occasional envelope full of appreciation for all the PR work you’re doing for them.
a female is designed to *select* the best traits for reproduction and mating… makes perfect sense that a woman would be wired to balance male sex drive.
People are not meant to be all alike. This is especially true with respect to sex. A person who is not much interested in sex is simply the other end of the spectrum from a person who is either having sex or thinking about it.
The NYTimes not too long ago had an interesting article on your subject of the day: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magazine/unexcited-there-may-be-a-pill-for-that.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
I remember finding both the article and the comments about it interesting and fun and sometimes annoying. My own feeling on this subject is that both men and women are apt to lose something of their function and desire as they age, and while this is perfectly normal it can still be damaging, and may be associated with depression and consequent physical and emotional dysfunction. Certainly the women described in the Times article were seeking such help. Unlike many of the readers of that article I don’t begrudge those who seek help with such problems–women or men–nor the pharmaceutical companies who are looking to serve a need and make a profit.
This is not to say that excesses in advertising shouldn’t be curbed (low T anyone?). I’m afraid this is another case where treating corporations as individuals with regard to free speech doesn’t really serve us well.
ODD and its sequels suggest that we’re headed toward the Soviet practice of “diagnosing” dissidents as crazy so they can be put away for life. I wouldn’t put this past 90% of both parties these days.
But there is a “pill” I’d like to have available — the male birth control pill.
Heading towards it?
It’s been the primary raison d’etre for psychiatry since it’s inception. It’s the only function of forensic psychiatry.
Of course we no longer have to ‘put them away’ in attics or huge old Victorian era institutions. We can take out forced community treatment orders against them and put them away inside their own heads.
You might be interested in this blogpost of mine JD – especially for it’s links to articles by Bruce Levine.
“Unfortunately for their dreams of a vast new source of profit, female sexual response is much more complicated than male”
As a middle-aged man who has tried it, I can testify that Viagra (and similar medications) don’t really work. Not really. They only seem to work if you measure male sexual response purely and solely by whether or not he has an erection. Whether he can actually stick it in. The don’t work where it’s important: desire, being a sexual human being. Its a false promise for men who mourn the loss of their youth.
So as for your comment – we regard the female sexual response as complicated and mysterious only because we don’t reduce it to mere physical functioning, the ability to “perform” – *the way we do the male response*.
Several points to note – that men are regarded as replaceable machines, especially when it comes to sex, that we all are taught to view men that way, and that the pharmaceutical industry works by treating people like malfunctioning machines.
And that sometimes, even Maggie McNeil can slip into the common foible of regarding men as being – compared to women – somehow less than fully human.
Wish I could edit. One does not “slip” into a foible.
“Today, a new broom sweeps clean the foul nest of dictatorship that has locked a slimy metal grip on the bloodstream of this country!” ~Harry Harrison.
Nonsense. I don’t define people’s humanity by their sexuality; do you? That’s like the prohibitionist bullshit that a woman selling sex is “selling herself”, or the Christian fundamentalist idea that sex “uses up” a person’s soul like depleted adhesive tape. You might as well say that someone is “less than fully human” because he wants meat and potatoes at every meal rather than preferring a more varied diet.
I am an older man with a strong desire to enjoy sex. Unfortunately, I suffer from an erectile dysfunction and low T. Without therapy, I cannot get an erection. Sometimes I have trouble in spite of therapy. Although you can have fun without an erection most women my age want nothing to do with that. And it is more fun with an erection. So I take my pills and my shots and spend time with some very charming working women. When everything works we have a great time. When it doesn’t, these sweet ladies still show me a good time. Laugh if you want, but I need and will continue to avail myself of testosterone, Cialis, and courtesans.
I heard somewhere that genital herpes, until the 70s or 80s, used to be considered not a big deal at all. Annoying and painful once in a while for some people, but it won’t kill you and most people never even know they have it. Then they developed the anti-viral used to suppress outbreaks, and in order to make money on them they had to make herpes a big deal. And so the marketing campaigns did everything they could to make sure people with herpes felt like they were dirty and untouchable. Like lepers. And the stigma has never gone away.
It makes my blood boil when I think about it.
For me personally – as a woman who is smack in the middle of the big FIVE-0 – who still goes to the gym, the salon for hair, nails, skin care and massage, cosmetic counters and as many department stores as I can get to in a day – I will be asking my doctor for this pill when it comes available. And quite frankly – I expect her to write me a script post haste. She did not hesitate to write a prescription for my husband for Cialis and Testosterone and – by GOD!!! – I deserve to have the same right to get the medication if I want it. I’m in awesome health and I think it’s ridiculous that there hasn’t been anything available heretofore.
I would like to feel the desire for sex like I did in my 20’s, 30’s and even 40’s. And I don’t. I simply don’t care if it’s a disorder or a disease, or if its societal pressure.
I mean – why let a good brazilian wax go to waste?
Endocrinally, feminine libido (informed by oestrogen levels acting on receptors in the hypothalamus, and inhibited by progesterone) has a naturally rising and falling response over the female fertility cycle.
During the second week of the fertility cycle (the dominant ovarian follicle has been developing over week1, and begins to reach maturity over the course of week 2, emitting more and more oestrogen). This peaks at ~day 12, with a corresponding peak in experienced libido (impulse to seek sexual activity).
This peak level triggers a pituitary release of 2 hormones on day 13 that provoke ovulation on day 14, and the transformation of the ovarian folicle into a luteal body that releases rising levels of progesterone from day 14.
Progesterone inhibits the hypothalamic libido response, lessening the effects of oestrogen that have also begun to fall at this time. Progesterone moderates the nature of the endometrial tissues, uterus and cervical environment for the embedding of a fertilised ovum, if present. Without such, the progesterone level begins to wane as the luteal body degenerates until both E and P reach a lowpoint, and the fertility cycle begins again with onset of menstruation as day 0.
Firstly, there’s four separate endocrine glands involved here : ovarian follicles/luteal bodies, pituitary and hypothalamus. And four separate hormones (FSH and LH from the pituitary, E from a maturing follicle and P from the luteal body it becomes post-ovulation).
Female libido *isnt naturally constant*. It’s absent in week 1, rises during week 2 to a peak, and actively antagonised in weeks 3 and 4 thanks to the hormonal levels being varied to create the fertility cycle.
This isnt to say you wont respond sexually to a partner for other reasons, but as far as *actively seeking sexuality out* that’s primarily driven by uncounteracted oestrogen in week 2. There is oestrogen in weeks 3 and 4, but it’s libidinous effect is primarily overshadowed by a higher progesterone level, which antagonises the hypothalamic response.
Just from the biological complexity, it’s hardly a suprise that this delicate balancing act doesn’t take much to be put out of kilter. Complexity increases the scope for problems.
However, response to an established partner is driven not so much by libido (natures “go find a mate, now!” reflex) as by the reactive arousal mechanism which runs off oxytocin levels, which rise in response to sexual erogenous stimulation, emotional response to an established partner, and thus relies *less* on the libido mechanism.
In men, the hypothalamic libido mechanism has basically one primary agonist and one secondary agonist, testosterone and one of its derivatives, which creates a libido intensity that “steps up” unless orgasm ocurrs.
Since T level is a relative constant in a given male over their lifetime, and the derivative creates the “step up” which is down-regulated by the orgasmic cascade process, this ensures that, short of medical T level issues, the male libido (urge to seek sexual activity) is an “always on, always trying to escalate” mechanism.
This is creating a situation that basically ensures a plentiful supply of sexually willing males whenever a female is most sexually receptive. Just like the rest of the animal kingdom, in effect. The biology underlying our instinctive sexual behaviour pretty much makes this happen.
The observation is that the nature of libido between the genders is very different.