On Libido, part three

[Trigger warning for discussion of rape, rape culture, and the mentality of both rapists and victims. Just a heads-up.]

In my two previous posts on the subject, I talked a little about the ways that gendered societal ideas about libido fuck with people. Men are expected to be constantly-horny fuckbeasts, and women are expected to not want sex all that much, but trade it for things they do want, like trinkets, cuddling, and babies. Both of these are wrong, but they remain insanely prevalent.

Take, for example, the “porn for women” joke done both by 30 Rock and the utterly godawful Porn For Women series of books, calendars, and assorted junk. The joke here is that women don’t want men to have sex with them, they want men to do housework, listen to their tedious female jabbering, and explicitly promise not to fuck them. So since women hate sex, porn for women should depict no sex whatsoever! Tee-hee!

In the real goddamn world, porn for women looks nothing like the joke. The three examples linked (and in the interests of full disclosure, I edit one of those three) are all about images of hot men, but as the late, lamented On Our Backs demonstrated, lesbian porn for women is also hot and joyous. The disconnect between the joke and the reality is too wide to be funny.

We live in a world where yaoi manga sells too fast to be kept on the shelves, where slash fiction is one of the largest gift economies on earth, where romance novels comprise fifty percent of all paperback book sales, and we’re told women don’t like porn. (Some of you may think romance novels aren’t porn. I suggest you read one written in the past twenty years.) That’s how deeply invested our culture has become in the women-don’t-like-sex lie. We have to throw out basically all of the data to make that theory fit, so we blithely do just that.

This grotesque misrepresentation of women’s experience has, in that dual-edged way so familiar to NSWATM readers, created a terrible problem for men. Because straight or bi men want to have sex with women. That’s… kind of the definition, really. We are told, however, that women don’t want sex. Thus, we can only believe, we are driven to want something that is unwelcome, barely tolerated, and kind of gross. It’s like being biologically driven to fart in crowded elevators.

This, of course, feeds rape culture. Because after all, if there is no situation where any woman genuinely wants sex, then having sex with women who don’t want it… well, that’s just how it works, isn’t it? So if you have to trick her or get her insensibly drunk or lie to her or ignore all the times she says no… that’s basically how everyone does it, right? And there we start down the road of a lot of rape apologists, the “I’m entitled to sex, and women dole out sex as a rationed commodity, so if I rape a woman that’s basically like a starving man stealing bread” theory. I trust I don’t have to explain to anyone reading this how impossibly fucked up that line of thinking is. Short explanation: REALLY fucked up.

The other rape-apologist meme that arises out of this set of cultural assumptions is “Men always want sex, so they can’t help themselves.” Geez, your honor, she shouldn’t have tempted my urges like that. You shouldn’t dress that way because you know what men are like. If you dangle meat in front of the animal cage, don’t act surprised at what happens. You’ve heard these lines. They’re a perfect example of dual-direction ugliness, as they reduce men to animals and blame rape victims for the crimes committed against them. That’s horrible coming and going.

Male rape victims being mocked or disbelieved, or simply afraid to come forward? Arises from the same shit. Because after all, how could he say he didn’t want sex, when everyone knows all men constantly want sex? It’s on simply every sitcom! These poor guys may even tell themselves they must have wanted it, it couldn’t have been rape, because they’re normal healthy guys, right, so they couldn’t have not wanted sex. People will go a long way to rationalize something if it means finding a way to live with it.

The libido meme feeds the same culture from yet another angle too, with women who are afraid to give enthusiastic consent because they don’t want to be seen as one of those women, those rare freaks who really like to fuck, those awful sluts. Unable to ask for what they want or even admit how much they want it, they end up feeding the same kinds of thinking, the same stereotypes, the same ugly behaviors. Lacking the freedom to say yes, they lose the ability to say no, leading to a terrible and all-too-common outcome: a woman who wanted to fool around a bit with a guy, but didn’t want things to go as far as they did, and now she isn’t sure if it was wrong, because if she wanted something, she must have wanted everything, right? There’s no middle ground in the virgin/whore dichotomy.

High-libido women may not get caustic agents up their ladybusiness any more, as was a popular 19th-century treatment for “nymphomania”, but they still get slut-shamed for being on the wrong side of that same old dichotomy. Being told that only sluts and whores want what they want may lead them to decide “Okay, I’m a slutty whore” and behave according to what they think that means. This can lead to a lot of bad and painful choices, when thinking “I’m a woman who likes plenty of sex” might have led to some better ones.

Then, too, there are the low-libido fellas, the guys for whom fucking just isn’t that high a priority. They’re told that they don’t exist, that they’re not men, that their experience is either mythical or deeply wrong. A lot of these guys will try to have sex just to prove that they’re “normal”, and being driven by a desperate need to fit in, rather than by their own natural urges, may lead them to make bad choices. Maybe they’ll hurt themselves with those choices. Maybe they’ll hurt someone else. Maybe they won’t hurt anyone, just feel lonely and freakish and wrong their whole lives. None of these outcomes are okay.

The way we think about libidos in our culture now is deeply broken. It involves denying the experience of damn near every person alive, everyone who doesn’t fit into a binary men-horny women-not framework, and since human experience falls into a spectrum far more subtle and complex than that, that’s everyone. Feminism has made a good start on helping women embrace their sexuality in a healthy way, as some of our blog friends are living exemplars of, but that’s only a start. We have a lot of work yet to do.

About noahbrand

Noah Brand is a mysterious figure with a very nice hat.
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41 Responses to On Libido, part three

  1. doctormindbeam says:

    Excellent post!

  2. mythago says:

    *wrist-breaking levels of applause*

  3. poet says:

    Great analysis! I would want to add that the faux-empowerment that arises from “oh, so we’re living in this decidedly non-Victorian age, and I’m a liberated person, and that means I am allowed to want sex all the time, and that in turn means I’m supposed to want sex all the time” is also highly problematic (though it targets women more than men, who are “supposed to” be horny by default no matter their level of liberation… gah!).

  4. kilo says:

    Thank you for this very interesting and enlightening post.

    That said, when you say “Thus, we can only believe, we are driven to want something that is unwelcome, barely tolerated, and kind of gross. It’s like being biologically driven to fart in crowded elevators.” and then just discuss the effect of that belief framework on legitimizing rape, I feel you are leaving out another popular option: Accepting yourself and your desires as shameful and toxic things, able to only hurt the people that you like, and therefore something that you need to hate and suppress to be a decent person. It’s certainly not as horrible as the rape legitimization, but it still seems pretty fucked up; and I would say it explains the behavior and life of quite a few people.

    I’d assume there’s a similar line of thought for women (possibly something like “I want sex, and I’m not supposed to, therefore I am a deficient member of my gender and need to suppress my true desires”), but I can only speculate on that and its prevalence.

  5. kaija24 says:

    Amen, poet! Having sex or not having sex because some external entity told you so is wrong whether it’s the church or a social trend or your buddies or your great aunt Minnie doing the telling. The decision about who, what, when, where, and how to have sex is absolutely a personal and highly nuanced decision that should be made solely by each individual based on what that person wants or needs (or doesn’t want or need) at the time. Of course that’s part of the issue…if you really don’t know what you want or need or are conflicted about or even scared of your wants and needs, then it seems easier sometimes to be told what to do (or not). In the long run, we all have to figure it out for ourselves.

  6. kaija24 says:

    Good add, kilo. And I can affirm that that similar line of thought does exist for women. Both of these make me feel very sad…we collectively deserve to better.

  7. ozymandias42 says:

    Oh, man, I’ve seen that thought process before. It’s really depressing… your sexuality should be a part of you and a source of joy, not a source of self-hatred and repression.

  8. doctormindbeam says:

    Of course (and this is verging on plunging into a whole new area of discussion), that kind of freedom wouldn’t suit most religions well, given that all of the major ones seem to pressure people into reproducing early and bringing up more children into their belief system. The influence of organized religion on our social structure cannot be overstated.

  9. kaija24 says:

    I concur…a fascinating topic for another discussion for sure!

  10. mythago says:

    I really hate the term “organized religion” to mean “Christianity and….stuff.” I mean, what, oppressive religious beliefs are OK if they don’t have a central authority? Or if they just can’t get their shit together enough to start services every day?

  11. doctormindbeam says:

    How about, non-organized religions exert so little influence on what we’re talking about that it’s pointless to mention them?

  12. Cheradenine says:

    It’s not that disorganised religion can’t have oppressive beliefs, but that disorganised religion doesn’t have an entrenched power structure in place to try and defend. Organised religion (not just Christianity; that’s simply the example most of us here are more familiar with) has often been a focal point for wealth or political power, and can thus get its oppressive beliefs enshrined in law in a way that disorganised religion can’t. Even if you’re not the Official State Religion, it still takes organisation to pull off a stunt like that. So while that’s no consolation if you’re some kid growing up in a household to parents who have oppressive disorganised-religion beliefs, in terms of its effects on wider society, well. It’s more critical to look at, for example, an organisation that claims around 1/5th of the entire planet’s population amongst its membership.

  13. Richard Aubrey says:

    Disagree
    Straw man. Possibly, the description of how “we” view libido was accurate in the Victorian age. Don’t know. Wasn’t there.
    Now? Nope.
    And all that flows from flaying the straw man? Nuts.
    How can “we” think something when books proving “we” think the opposite are an economy larger than that of some members of the UN? Speaking of romance novels. Which, as it happens, can be re-used by the purchaser or others, can be borrowed from the library until worn out, unlike, say, a bottle of whiskey, which probably costs about the same, if you get the cheap stuff.
    As a matter of tactics and persuasion, it would have been better to leave the romance novels and porn out. It could lead the reader to think about contradictory evidence. This is one of those things you’re not supposed to do to yourself. Readers may think about contradictory evidence anyway, but who says you have to give them the hint?
    In college in the Sixties, a couple of guys listening to a young woman who was a friend. She was referring to a roommate who lamented, “Eight thousand feet of cock on this campus and I can’t get six inches.” Sympathetic nods all around. No surprise. No outrage. Perfectly normal.

  14. Sam says:

    This.

    “We are told, however, that women don’t want sex. Thus, we can only believe, we are driven to want something that is unwelcome, barely tolerated, and kind of gross. It’s like being biologically driven to fart in crowded elevators.”

    Except that it’s more painful to be told that you’re likely going to hurt someone with your sexuality (ie. objectify, possibly rape). Farting is a bit of a euphemism for the violence inherent in such cultural narratives about male sexuality.

    I’m wondering about the following, though. Even assuming male and female libidos to be equal in strength, there *will* be inherent, “risk” associated, differences in the “optimal sexual strategies” for women and men, pregnancy and rape being the most important of all. Even assuming pleasure derived to be equal, the implicit cost/benefit calculation will differ for women and men.

    It’s not possible to abstract from cultural aspects as all this is embodied, of course, but I believe that whatever small difference in what is overwhelming pleasure compatibility between women and men, will lead to a situation where both women and men will feel scarcity related to some aspects of their gender’s “collective” desire.

  15. mythago says:

    I’m not questioning the influence of religion, particularly in the West. I just think the phrase “organized religion” is stupid; it’s a buzzphrase that tells us pretty much nothing that “religion” doesn’t cover.

  16. mythago says:

    The idea that there is a gender-wide “optimal sexual strategy” is pretty silly.

  17. Jim says:

    “I’m not questioning the influence of religion, particularly in the West. I just think the phrase “organized religion” is stupid; it’s a buzzphrase that tells us pretty much nothing that “religion” doesn’t cover.”

    Quoted for agreement. It’s the organized, the social aspect of religion that makes it dangerous. That’s where it entrenches social norms and makes idols of them, against actual spirituality and burns mystics at the stake or whatever.

  18. Jim says:

    “As a matter of tactics and persuasion, it would have been better to leave the romance novels and porn out. ”

    I disagree. They are both examples of objectification. That’s not always bad, but let’s analyze like with like.

    And yes, most romance novels are all about objectification. Usually it’s all about the feelings and inner life of one, not both, of the people involved.

  19. Richard Aubrey says:

    Jim.
    Not the point about romance novels. If “we” think women’s libido is weak, or whatever it is that we’re supposed to be thinking, then we wouldn’t have this huge business in romance novels which, as somebody who apparently had to read one said, tells us about women’s libidos both in the stories and in the fact that they’re so popular with…women.
    My point is that if you’re going to make an assertion, and if there’s enough contradictory evidence to float a supertanker, you’ve got enough problems without pointing to it in your piece. If you simply don’t mention it, maybe some of the readers won’t think about it. Otherwise, why even bother?

  20. Sam says:

    Why? It’s sort of the logical corollary to the concept of “sexual reproduction involving two different sexes of the same species”.

  21. aliarasthedaydreamer says:

    Of note, it’s not just slash fanfiction that’s hugely popular — het fanfiction is also pretty big, and I’ve read plenty of het fic that’s basically a romance novel starring characters from such and such series. Said characters may or may not be faithfully characterized and said story’s plot may or may not simply serve to move the reader between long, graphic sex scenes. In short: it’s awesome porn.

  22. mythago says:

    How is that a logical corollary? Particularly given that what is an “optimal strategy” will vary greatly depending on the individuals and circumstances involved; what is “optimal” in a large, well-fed population without many environmental pressures and what is “optimal” in a small group living under harsh conditions are unlikely to be precisely the same.

  23. Hugh Ristik says:

    Sam said optimal mating stragies, plural. Your environmental qualifiers are correct and useful, but they aren’t contradicted by what he originally said. Yes, environment influences mating strategy, but so do the factors he mentioned which show sex differences (e.g. risk of pregnancy and rape).

    Same is correct that even if men’s and women’s libido’s are the same, it doesn’t mean that their sexual behavior will be the same: men’s sociosexuality will still be less restricted, and women’s more restricted for a whole host of internal and external reasons.

  24. Ethan says:

    Yes, this is why I despise the word “slut”, it is just a way of putting down women who follow their natural urges, one of my female friends got bullied and teased to the point of a suicide attempt because of her classmates calling her a “horny slut” because she masturbated. What’s worse is that the guys who do masturbate and have from a very young age are celebrated, but boys like me who don’t masturbate, or don’t do it very often get shunned and teased just as much as the girls who do.

    There is no logic to that mindset, it’s just a product of social conditioning caused by thousands of years of religion demonizing sex. My view on sex is that it is one of the very few completely natural things humans sill do, with even eating becoming unnatural, so it should be celebrated and not viewed as dirty or wrong.

  25. Cheradenine says:

    I agree with everything you say, except for this:

    What’s worse is that the guys who do masturbate and have from a very young age are celebrated

    Seriously? Where does that happen?

  26. doctormindbeam says:

    I believe it’s widely acknowledged that the sex drive is one of the few true instincts that humans have (along with seeking food, water, temperature regulation, etc.).

  27. mythago says:

    @Hugh: I absolutely agree that “even if men’s and women’s libido’s are the same, it doesn’t mean that their sexual behavior will be the same”. Nobody is making sexual choices in a vacuum, and (as an obvious example) women and men are going to behave very differently in a culture that viciously punishes sexual behavior in women and exerts severe pressure on men to be sexual whether they want to or not.

    You’re right that Sam said ‘strategies’. Where I’m differing is that his comment seems to be edging into that territory where men all want to spread their seed as widely as possible, women are naturally monogamous because conservation of resources, etc. Perhaps I’m over-reading.

  28. Sam says:

    Mythago,

    no one knows what exactly the optimal strategies are. And, yes, they will likely differ in different biological environments (certainly in cultural environments, but I assume we’re abstracting from culture at the moment).

    Well, if you’re at an all-else is equal (no cultural presures on anyone, equal libido) hypothetical scenario, what’s left as independent variable is different biologies and the question how they will affect people’s desires and choices and how that creates relative scarcities (and adaptation – I think this adaptation process is one of the main birthplaces of social organisation and culture, a process then feeding itself, often leading to dysfunctional results). I do think that the relative scarcity of ovaries and the high “cost” of childbearing relative to the abundant availability of sperm and the relatively low “cost” of impregnation are the most important human social variables: of course that doesn’t dictate how societies deal with the difference – the world is full of social variation -, but for all we know, it does make men the expendable sex, and dealing with that expendability a cornerstone of social organisation…

    For a decent debate about this between Thomas Millar and me (ending in agreement) – see
    feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/02/28/monday-reads-3/#comment-352540

    For the best ever (radical feminist) discussion about how one could interpret patriarchy as affirmative action gone over the top (lengthy, very, very lengthy, but well worth reading) – see
    reclusiveleftist.com/2006/05/07/the-origin-of-male-dominance

  29. Ethan says:

    Ok, maybe celebrated is a bit of an exaggeration, but you get people saying things to them like “awesome”, and “good on you”, and they generally get treated with more respect.

  30. doctormindbeam says:

    I’ve gotta disagree with you there. I think behind closed doors, everyone knows that (almost all) men masturbate, but it’s still treated as “dirty,” and “shameful,” and “bad” by a lot of people.

  31. Ethan says:

    Well, yes, that would apply to most cases, but as I am in high school, an undeniably sexualy focused environment, the mentality is quite different towards male masturbation.

  32. noahbrand says:

    I think Ethan’s got a point. High school is a different environment, and I’ll be the last to deny the validity of his experience. One does get (I dimly remember) a lot of pro-masturbation jokes, a lot of “I can get myself off faster than you” nonsense, and a general cheerful acceptance that the male student body is wanking itself blind, except for the portion that are lying about how much sex they’re having. Those guys are still wanking, of course, they’re just lying about it.

    By contrast, I’ve known more than one woman who graduated high school unaware that it was possible for women to masturbate. I can’t imagine how much more time for homework they must have had.

  33. Danny says:

    noahbrand:
    I think Ethan’s got a point. High school is a different environment, and I’ll be the last to deny the validity of his experience. One does get (I dimly remember) a lot of pro-masturbation jokes, a lot of “I can get myself off faster than you” nonsense, and a general cheerful acceptance that the male student body is wanking itself blind, except for the portion that are lying about how much sex they’re having. Those guys are still wanking, of course, they’re just lying about it.

    Very odd how that attitude changes once out of high school (although in my high school experience male masturbation was already cast as something that every guy does but only because they are so horny and need something to satiate themselves between sexual partners, as in its okay to masturbate but you better only be doing it to tide you over or else you’re a loser for not having sex with girls).

  34. doctormindbeam says:

    I stopped reading your second link at this sentence:

    First let’s deal with the issue of men’s peripheral role in the natural scheme of things. The male biological role in reproduction is minimal, and in all known societies the male role in child-rearing is insignificant compared to the female role.

    (Actually, I skimmed some of the rest, but closed my browser in distaste.)

    This is so anthropologically and biologically wrong that it’s ridiculous. (Hint: Why is pair-bonding important? Partly because women can’t raise children alone but need a lot of help in doing it from their partners.) Since her entire argument seems to hinge on this false assumption, it would be a waste of time to continue reading it.

    I guess that’s what I get for reading more radfem bull though.

  35. Sam says:

    I don’t even consider myself a feminist, but I definitely think that’s one of the most valuable things I’ve read on the web, despite it’s radfem background. It’s been a while, but I keep referring to the thread, not merely the post. There’s a lot, a lot, of valuable information and discussion in the thread (particularly between commenter Mandos and the host).

  36. doctormindbeam says:

    To be perfectly honest, I probably won’t go back there (when I read radfem writings I end up getting furious most of the time). What was the important takeaway for you, if you’ll indulge my laziness?

  37. I can definitely relate to the section on male rape survivors. I was drugged and raped by a woman who bought me a few drinks first. I hid it for the better part of two decades – from myself and everyone else. Why did I hide it?

    Well, for many of the same reasons that female survivors do: fear of shaming, victim-blaming and being re-victimized. I also hid it because All Men Want All Sex All The Time From All Women. There is also the ever popular “erections = consent” argument that is usually phrased far more bluntly and immaturely by both men and women (to include more than a few feminists). Of course, other forms of victim-blaming played a role as well, but since we are talking about libido here, I’ll leave them out.

    I can say that following my own experience, I became hyper-sexualized and never turned down sexual offers from women. That was my form of sexual grieving. Some survivors abstain entirely, while others proceed to hurt themselves sexually in a misguided attempt to reclaim power over their bodies. I engaged in a lot of unsafe and unprotected sex with women of varying ages, experience and other demographics, but usually 10 or so years my senior and often married. I seldom initiated or sought out sexual experiences then, they just seemed to find me. Looking back, it was as if I had an invisible marker on my head that only married women looking to cheat could sense. While I regret being “the other man”, I also remind myself that I was not alone in these acts.

    Now, I have very little interest in sexual relations and I know that is part of my healing process and something that will likely change in the future. For now, my libido is taking a nap. It is what I NEED in order to clear away some of the clutter and debris of two decades of denial.

  38. noahbrand says:

    Geez. Sounds like you’re working getting to a healthy place, and I have to say I respect your honest self-assessment and willingness to let yourself heal however you need to heal. It’s brave of you to share your experience here, and I for one appreciate it. Are there any particular resources or groups you’ve drawn on as part of your healing process? Other folks in your position might be reading this, and a pointer or two could help someone out there.

  39. neno says:

    Thank you. This is an excellent post.

    As a woman who has read thousands of romance books, yes, many of them are pretty good porn. (Early Brenda Joyce novels as an example.) The part about “written in the last twenty years” — hmm, possibly “last forty years” would be better.

  40. I participate in the discussions (sporadically) at MaleSurvivor.org and I moderate a subforum for male survivors at Pandora’s Aquarium (http://pandys.org). RAINN coordinates a national (U.S.) hotline that connects participating crisis centers if someone needs a human voice. There is also the organization 1in6.org. Male survivors will have to search a bit harder for local, in-person resources. Some centers offer services and some don’t. Very few at all (at least in the U.S.) offer in-person support groups.

    For me, discussing it publicly has really helped. I’ve blogged about it on my own syndicated blog, joined a collaborative survivor’s blog and spoken out in front of high school, college and other audiences. As a result, I joined the Speakers Bureau for RAINN and I’m a speaker/trainer for the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance.

    Whatever a survivor does to heal should be weighed against WHY the are doing it and how it will impact their long-term mental health.

  41. MaMu1977 says:

    You missed a point: some sections of our society teach women to “hold back, but eventually submit.” This idea leads to the stifling of female libido as well as the inflammation of male libido, and it isn’t fair to anyone. IOW, women who are taught to “resist”(so that they’ll still be “good”) inadvertently teach men that “No” means “Try harder”, except for the various subsets of men who give up and place themselves in the “H just wasn’t that into me/He wasn’t ‘manly’ enough”, fail pile. For men who have internalised the “No means try harder”, meme, they risk being thrown into the “creepy/molester/rapist” pile when they encounter women who aren’t or haven’t been indoctrinated in the prior meme. As I’m saying this, there’s a woman sitting behind me on the bus talking about how guys “don’t want to try no more”, because theydont just throw her down and ignore her “No’s”.

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