Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Complicated.

Everyone's still talking G-spot. They're talking about it like some poorly-designed self-reported twin study makes the G-spot retroactively have never existed, and they're talking about it with fantastic headlines you could never ever get away with in America.

And one of the sentiments that seems to be coming up on both sides of this "debate" (sorry to scare-quote, but it's weird to think of a serious debate over something I've personally experienced ...today) is a very old, very stealth-sexist one. "Female sexuality is complicated!"

Sexuality is complicated, no question. The culture and subculture and politics and emotions and biology and poetry of sex could set your head spinning. And humans are complicated, like super ultra mega complicated. And life is complicated.

But men are not simple. Male sexuality, trust me here and read back in the archives, is not simple. Men come with the full suite of hangups and fetishes and dysfunctions and quirks and mysteries . Male sexuality is not reducible to "touch him on the penis" in any meaningful way. And ladies aren't that complicated. Individual, certainly, but once you figure out a particular woman's buttons it's not rocket science to push them in an escalating sequence until happy happens. All else being in order (yeah, good luck with that), you can basically just touch them on the vagina.

So maybe I'm biased here by the whole thing where an evil wizard cursed me to be a human soul in the body of a woman, but I see a lot of sexism in the "vaginas are complicated mysteries!" thing. It assumes the perspective of a heterosexual man looking at women from the outside. It assumes that women are incapable of perceiving and communicating clearly about their own sexuality. It assumes that women are something to be "figured out," as if some intrepid man could discover the Solution To Women and retire happy with 3 billion girlfriends. It tells women with sexual dysfunction that they don't have a real problem, they're just being complicated. It reinforces the idea that women don't really like sex that much. It lets guys who've mastered "touch her on the vagina" self-congratulate like they've solved the fucking Unified Field Theorem. And it gives guys who have crappy selfish sex a great excuse--hey, I'd like to please her, but she's so damn complicated!

I'm not some exotic puzzle box. I'm a horny but conflicted human being. So's everyone.

13 comments:

  1. I'm not trying to come off as Stephen Hawking's porn-star son or anything, but I've never found women all that complicated sexually (OK, not since my teens). Doesn't anybody talk about what they like & don't like, what works & doesn't? From the sound of things, it would save a lot of fumbling around (although, as I recall, even the fumbling around was fun).

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  2. I think you win the internet, Holly. Probably the best take down of the "confusing women, why can't they be more like HUMANS?" bleating in sexuality research and opinion.

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  3. The astonishing thing is how many self-identified feminists bleat that crap. I'm not that complicated in bed. It's usually just a matter of paying attention: laying there counting dots on the ceiling? Bad. Moaning and grabbing and writhing? Good.

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  4. <hellraiser mode='pinhead'> I SOLVED THE BOX. SHE CAME. </hellraiser>

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  6. Too complicated; didn't read.


    :D

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  7. All else being in order (yeah, good luck with that), you can basically just touch them on the vagina.

    That parenthetical may require more of an explanation. If we broaden the discussion to include sexual dysfunction (which may be difficult to define), is it possible that women really are more complicated than men?

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  8. perlhaqr - Awesome.

    Bruno - My parenthetical was just a reference to the whole thing where sexuality is so complicated that arranging the right gender/appearance/relationship/time/setting/etc to touch her on the vagina is a lot trickier than the actual vagina-touching itself.

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  9. THANK YOU, Holly. You've tidily summed up what's so dopily sexist about that whole "women are sooo complicated!" paradigm. It galls me when women buy into it too, & only in part because I'm tired of being called "easy" like it's a nasty word. Yeah, I know my own body, including my own G-spot, and I know what it takes to get me off. Sometimes I will even tell interested parties. EASY.

    flightless

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  10. touch her on the vagina is a lot trickier than the actual vagina-touching itself.

    Well, then. Carry on.

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  11. I once had a guy call me "complicated" when he couldn't give me an orgasm. Ummm, no. I've taught many guys to do that for me, several of whom were total virgins. (Stage-whispers:) I think the problem may have been HIM.

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  12. "It tells women with sexual dysfunction that they don't have a real problem, they're just being complicated."

    Thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for this. I'm so sick of hearing "of course you can't get off! You're a woman! It's expected for a woman to not be able to get off. It's not a real problem, it's a lady thing."

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