Greg Downey, writing on the blog Neuroanthropology, has a lengthy commentary on a New York Times Magazine article exploring the research on (and the researchers who study) human female sexuality. Naturally, such a complex human behavior is going to take pages to explore, and the NY Times Magazine article does just that.
But the blog commentary by Downey is nearly as long and, in many ways, far more interesting because it calls into question why we’re asking such silly, simplistic questions in the first place: “What do women want in a mate?”
The answers, of course, are intrinsically complicated and layered, just as all human relationships are. And the answers, too, will be completely bound by the type of questions researchers ask:
The irony is that, with such a tangle, the conclusion is foreordained: women will seem enigmatic, inconsistent, and irremediably opaque. As I’ll suggest in this, I think that the conclusion is built into the way the question is being asked. If a similar question were asked about nearly any group, in nearly any domain of complex human behaviour, and then a simple single answer were demanded, the questioner would face nearly identical frustration.
And if we keep recycling the same old, tired and worn-out theories about human sexuality, it’s likely more research into the question isn’t really going to provide any new data, but rather just continue giving us disjointed bits of virtually useless conclusions:
This is the reason that, although it’s great to hear that sexologists studying female arousal are carving out some important research results, I kept seeing some very tired old interpretive frameworks being prematurely introduced. For example, a couple of times Bergner threw in the gratuitous ‘evolutionary’ explanation that men are ‘programmed’ by evolution one way, women another (although this tendency was not NEARLY so bad as some of the other research on human sexuality we’ve discussed, and for that we’re grateful; see Chicks dig jerks?: Evolutionary psych on sex #1). At another point, we got the ‘female narcissism’ explanation for the fact that some women seem to be stimulated by the sense that they are desired more than a desirable object itself.
Fair enough, we can bring it whatever interpretation fits the data, but it seems to me that if women’s desire is really a ‘giant forest’ that is poorly understood, and if the data is multiple and contradictory, it’s likely that any blanket statement (‘Women just want to be desired.’ ‘Women only feel desire after they feel intimacy.’ ‘Women just want money.’ ‘Women use sex to get love.’) will always be inadequate. Some of the older models of an essential female sexual identity contain a partial truth, or they wouldn’t even seem plausible, but they aren’t the simple answer to the simplistic question, ‘What do women want?’
I completely agree with Downey. While I understand the attractiveness of pursuing an article topic of this nature (“What do women want?”), there’s no way you can provide an answer based upon our current research or theoretical framework.
It’s Sunday, so if you have some time on your hands, a read of the original New York Times Magazine article and then of the Neuroanthropology blog commentary is worth your time if you’re interested in this sort of topic. I found both enjoyable and interesting reads, but for entirely different reasons.
Read the Neuroanthropology blog commentary: What do these enigmatic women want?
Read the New York Times article: What Do Women Want?
6 comments
Women’s sexual desire is also heavily influenced by early experiences in her family of origin– particularly experiences with touch, and with emotional, physical, and sexual trauma.
I have been studying and writing about what makes a woman desire sex FOR HERSELF (not just for the thrill of being wanted.) Here are two examples of huge, missing pieces of the puzzle not discussed in the Times article. (1)The role of family in sexual development. Women learn about sexuality in their family of origin. I do not believe women’s sexual drive is only narcissistic– ie.simply wanting to feel wanted by another. A girl who had a safe, loving, appropriately touch-y family often grows to love sex because she loves feeling sexual and sensual pleasure in her body. For her, it hooks wonderful body-based memories. For women who grew up in a family where love, touch, empathy and trust were all connected, attachment to another person is often associated with longing to be touched. Being touched and feeling pleasure in one’s body is associated with safety.
(2)The biology of trauma. Past family-of-origin trauma interferes with sexual desire—often most strongly in secure, committed relationships. Violence is commonplace in American families. Interesting that all the studies and statistics indicate that 30% of women feel no desire. As it happens, around that number of women have grown up in families where they experienced or witnessed emotional, sexual, or physical abuse; ergo, the connection between safety, trust, love, the body, and body boundaries is broken.
For women who experienced sexual or physical abuse, or even for women who WITNESSED physical abuse, being touched is a landmine. It can set off the fight/flight reaction. For most women, the traumatic memories are dissociated from one’s “normal†self. Trauma is stored in the body. Sometimes, it feels safer to have sex with strangers. But it can be very threatening to be sexual once you are committed, “trapped.” Sex is one of the most intense, intimate physical experiences two people can share.
Women who remember being sexually abused do know their own trauma history. But women who experienced or witnessed physical or emotional abuse don’t think of themselves as having been sexually traumatized.
Past the “lust†stage in the relationship, women from emotionally, physically, or sexually abusive families are often unconsciously ambivalent about dependence and attachment. They can’t decide if it is safe to be profoundly intimate with another human being. This shuts down “sex drive†very effectively.
Aline Zoldbrod Ph.D.
SexSmart.com
I can’t tell you how surprised and pleased YOUR commentary makes me as well. I have totally lost patience with the inevitable conclusion in these sorts of articles that when women act like perfectly normal, diverse, and complex human beings, we’re insane and inexplicable. A lot of these commentators seem to feel that if women should be clockwork wind-up toys with no brain at all, and then they’d conclude that we were normal human beings.
When women act sane and normal, we’re called crazy, especially about sex. It’s ridiculous.
women always assume everything. thats why men have to think about what they say all the time. if they screw up. its done.
Women are like chicken to men, eat them and spit them out. What women want is sensitivity and caring. If you “the guy”, screws up by saying one thing, you will get dumped. Remember they have feelings too. Keep that in mind, and you will enjoy your relationship.