Attraction vs Objectification

[tachin1]

@codinghorror

denies the struggle. I think overtly acknowledging that we, as men, have to work harder to make this happen, makes it more likely to happen than brushing it off as “everyone is the same, how hard can it be, women do it all the time”

I think I understand your point and I’m not really trying to disprove it, the thing I am trying to get at is not at odds with your interpretation, it is rather another interpretation of the data.
If studies show that what they identify as sex drive is markedly different between men and women, then I question that the thing being measured really is sex drive, though it does match my understanding of socially conditioned gendered sexual expression.

But the only thing I want to point out now is that we don’t really understand gender, not scientifically and certainly not socially. People continually redefine how we understand gender.

[tachin1]

@codinghorror

I disagree; minimizing this by saying “your sex drive is no stronger than anyone else’s” denies the struggle.

Thinking a bit more about this I’ll ask why you think it’s a struggle?

[Wanderfound]

@codinghorror

@Wanderfound

What you aren’t posting is substantial evidence that these differences are biologically rather than culturally driven

Indeed, I have, in the post you are replying to:

The word “substantial” was in my post for a reason.

The article you’re referencing there is from Psychology Today (a magazine, not a journal), and the only way in which it addresses cultural influences is by arguing (without significant evidence) that women are more susceptible to them. OTOH, you appear to be arguing that biological differences determine a substantial sex-based difference in libido and that cultural factors play little or no role.

Yes, there are biological differences between the sexes, and those differences do appear to find psychological/behavioural expression in some areas. Pretty much every other mammal on the planet has sex-based behavioural differences, so it would be rather surprising if humans didn’t. And sometimes behaviours that appear to be psychologically/culturally complex do in fact turn out to be under surprisingly strong biological influence (e.g. prairie voles and oxytocin).

But humans are unusual mammals in that we are highly social and hyper-cultural, and all of our behaviour is filtered through the lens of culture. Sometimes behaviours that appear to be highly biological are under surprisingly strong cultural influence (e.g. gender-based differences in vocal pitch).

In pretty much every nature/nurture question, the answer is always “both”. But, with humans, culture is very strongly dominant across pretty much all behaviour.

[katherinelives]

Here’s a bibliography of some recent (~15 yrs) research on (mostly) women’s libido, sexuality, desire, arousal, etc. from a very short lit review that I did a few years ago for a concept paper I abandoned. If anyone is interested in a particular article, I still have access to some if the DOI doesn’t get you anywhere, just PM me. These are well-designed studies, peer-reviewed, all the bells and whistles - the bias here is my own, I selected a number of qualitative studies. Women’s sexual desire is far more complicated than most studies of sex difference acknowledge or address - the following bibliography addresses that issue.

Apperloo, M. J. A., Van Der Stege, J. G., Hoek, A., & Weijmar Schultz, W. C. M. (2003). In the mood for sex: The value of androgens. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 29(2), 87–102. https://doi.org/10.1080/716100613

Birnbaum, G. E., Reis, H. T., Mizrahi, M., Kanat-Maymon, Y., Sass, O., & Granovski-Milner, C. (2016). Intimately connected: The importance of partner responsiveness for experiencing sexual desire. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(4), 530–546. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000069

Brotto, L. A., Heiman, J. R., & Tolman, D. L. (2009). Narratives of desire in mid-age women with and without arousal difficulties. Journal of Sex Research, 46(5), 387–398. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490902792624

Chiang, A. Y., & Chiang, W. (2016). Behold, I am coming soon! A study on the conceptualization of sexual orgasm in 27 languages. Metaphor and Symbol, 31(3), 131–147. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2016.1187043

Costa, C., Nogueira, C., & López, F. (2009). “My sexual self, I stifled it”: Sexual subjectivities among young Portuguese women. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 11(4), 431–442. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691050802710253

Farr, R. H., Diamond, L. M., & Boker, S. M. (2014). Female same-sex sexuality from a dynamical systems perspective: Sexual desire, motivation, and behavior. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 43(8), 1477–1490. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0378-z

Ferreira, L. C., Fraenkel, P., Narciso, I., & Novo, R. (2015). Is committed desire intentional? A qualitative exploration of sexual desire and differentiation of self in couples. Family Process, 54(2), 308–326. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12108

Glover, J. A., Galliher, R. V., & Crowell, K. A. (2015). Young women’s passionate friendships: A qualitative analysis. Journal of Gender Studies, 24(1), 70–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2013.820131

Hensel, D. J., Newcamp, J., Miles, J., & Fortenberry, J. D. (2011). Picturing sexual spaces in everyday life: Exploring the construction of sexuality and sexual behavior among early adult women. Sexuality Research & Social Policy: A Journal of the NSRC, 8(4), 267–281. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-011-0066-x

Khajehei, M., Doherty, M., & Tilley, P. J. M. (2015). An update on sexual function and dysfunction in women. Archives of Women’s Mental Health, 18(3), 423–433. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-015-0535-y

Lee, D. M., Nazroo, J., O’Connor, D. B., Blake, M., & Pendleton, N. (2016). Sexual health and well-being among older men and women in England: Findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 45(1), 133–144. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0465-1

Mitchell, K. R., Wellings, K. A., & Graham, C. (2014). How do men and women define sexual desire and sexual arousal? Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 40(1), 17–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2012.697536

Murray, S. H., Sutherland, O., & Milhausen, R. R. (2012). Young women’s descriptions of sexual desire in long-term relationships. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 27(1), 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681994.2011.649251

Sims, K. E., & Meana, M. (2010). Why did passion wane? A qualitative study of married women’s attributions for declines in sexual desire. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 36(4), 360–380. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2010.498727

Træen, B., & Sørensen, D. (2008). A qualitative study of how survivors of sexual, psychological and physical abuse manage sexuality and desire. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 23(4), 377–391. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681990802385699

Van Houdenhove, E., Gijs, L., T’Sjoen, G., & Enzlin, P. (2015). Asexuality: A multidimensional approach. Journal of Sex Research, 52(6), 669–678. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2014.898015

Welling, L. L. M., Jones, B. C., & DeBruine, L. M. (2008). Sex drive is positively associated with women’s preferences for sexual dimorphism in men’s and women’s faces. Personality and Individual Differences, 44(1), 161–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.07.026

Willoughby, B. J., Carroll, J. S., Busby, D. M., & Brown, C. C. (2016). Differences in pornography use among couples: Associations with satisfaction, stability, and relationship processes. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 45(1), 145–158. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-015-0562-9

[popobawa4u]

@tachin1

Thinking a bit more about this I’ll ask why you think it’s a struggle?

Must…
not…
Godwin…

[milliefink]

@tachin1

Thinking a bit more about this I’ll ask why you think it’s a struggle?

I think his struggle is to control his high susceptibility to cultural influences that encourage him to objectify women.

[Missy_Pants]

Ok, so citations aside, lets just presume for a moment that biology is behind the “male gaze”, ok, then what? If it is such a burden for men then why are women being asked to carry it? Shouldn’t men do something to alleviate this chemical imbalance?

[orenwolf]

(TL;DR: Lets please stop dismissing the female opinions on this topic, especially since we’re discussing female vs male issues here!)

I think this topic has taken a decidedly ominous turn over the last few days, mostly around the idea that “no, you’re wrong, here’s the data”.

When it comes to the scientific method, results, interpreted correctly, really should be the bedrock of decision making and inform our public debate. But, as any good scientist knows, the results can only be as good as your ability to control the variables.

When you start talking about things like behaviour, that’s almost impossible - just think about the massive number of experiences, advice, teachings, and events that have worked together, along with biology we don’t fully understand, to make you. There isn’t a legit scientist (or psychologist/psychiatrist) in the world that would claim to be able to bottle that down into a study. All they can do is try to build the best study they can and hope that, in aggregate with other studies, the results are meaningful.

The problem is, when these studies are tossed around as a sort of “answer key” to absolute questions like “who has the greater libido” or “who thinks about sexuality more often”, the studies almost certainly weren’t meant to be viewed this way. So much more than biliology applies - just look at Japan where the governement has to initiate fertility festivals because culture had made the idea of sex with your partner difficult. I don’t think anyone would argue the Japanese are less libidinous than anyone else biologically.

This topic is so difficult to disucss with most people that it suffers from the same issue trying to suss out homosexuality had in the past - people lie for an abundance of reasons, but people also take their social conditioning and apply that subconciously to their answers. (This same issue happens with religion, too - there was a great article on how the arab world treats atheism given the social pressures in many countries).

Since we can’t actually measure this stuff (yet, I’m sure a point will come where brain imaging will be able to give us better answers, but that resolution of scan will probably follow right behind the singularity anyway), we need to rely on experiences, and or consider external factors (all those variables the studies cannot control) instead.

And here in this topic, that concept seems to be falling short. There are vastly more men than women here, and a large part of the latter part of this topic has been men telling women they don’t have the libidos or sexual desires men have. The answers from our female community members have been on a spectrum from “yes we do” to “yes, because reasons (mostly societal)”, and the general response has been something to the effect of “nope, wrong, trust us” or “nope, science answered this question definitively”.

In the former case, men aren’t women, they can’t know, and in the latter case, no, science has only been able, IMHO, to show that sexualty is expressed or practiced differently between women and men, very likely because social pressures have made it that way.

Does biology play a role? Almost certainly, given how important hormones are, and the fact that there are gendered differences. But can we definitevely say that they play the dominant factor in determining sexuality, or that the male hormone soup is inherently more libidinous than the female hormone soup? I think the social variables at present make that answer unobtainable.

In light of that, lets please, please not marganalize the responses from our female members. We do a disservice to this community and these discussions as a whole when the male majority here (inadventantly or otherwise) dismisses these valuable opinions.

Thanks!

[popobawa4u]

@orenwolf

we’re discussing female vs male issues here

Actually, the reason why I participated in this topic but not the “gendered objectification” one is precisely the title of this one was not framed in terms of female vs male issues, in favor of discussing general principles. Obviously, that has not worked out, and the “versus” has crept in anyway. Who gets treated well in a society seems more like a symptom, that if one treats instead of the underlying process, results only in oppression getting shifted onto some other group. So it is more effective to focus upon the general methodology than the personalities or values of the specific groups. Bigotry is only ever a crap rationalization, anyway.

Other than that, I agree with what you are saying with regards to both marginalization and science.

[katherinelives]

I sincerely hope that my response has not made this thread feel icky to anyone. I just had some relevant research and thought that I would share!

@orenwolf

Since we can’t actually measure this stuff (yet, I’m sure a point will come where brain imaging will be able to give us better answers, but that resolution of scan will probably follow right behind the singularity anyway), we need to rely on experiences, and or consider external factors (all those variables the studies cannot control) instead.

Well, this is what qualitative research attempts - to give context and describe. An fMRI shows activity - it does not describe what that activity actually is (the phenomenology) or what the non-brain confounds may be. This is why those scans floating around a while ago that claimed “This is what a bipolar brain looks like” drove me up the wall! If an fMRI could be used as a diagnostic tool, we’d be using it that way. If a genetic test worked, we’d use it. We can’t for so many reasons - because DSM diagnoses are behavior-based (not biologically based), because neurochemistry isn’t limited to the brain, and because the stress-diathesis model describes multiple etiologies for mental illness (gene expression, environment, biological changes). We need diagnostic tools and tests that can capture and determine causality based on multiple, complex factors, including an individual’s subjective experience.

Someday… (stares wistfully into sunset)

[Missy_Pants]

@katherinelives

because neurochemistry isn’t limited to the brain

OT - but have you seen the documentary about the people that had heart transplants who then had personality changes? Because we have BRAIN cells in our hearts! Its so cool!

And I don’t think you added anything “icky” to this discussion, quite the opposite in fact, I’m glad you’re here!

[gadgetgirl02]

@Missy_Pants

OT - but have you seen the documentary about the people that had heart transplants who then had personality changes? Because we have BRAIN cells in our hearts! Its so cool!

Oh wow. I do know someone who didn’t have a heart transplant, but who did have a series of heart attacks over the course of decades. There was one major one in particular where everyone in his family insisted he’d had a personality change afterwards.

Back to the topic, but thank you for mentioning. I’ll have to look for that.

[anon50609448]

@codinghorror

I will say that I have male and female children and they are very, very
different human beings from the earliest days of their lives.

I have female children and they are very, very different human beings from the earliest days of their lives.

Different people are different. Like I said above, even if there is a measurable biological difference (which, as @orenwolf points out, there probably can’t be at our current level of technology) that doesn’t mean that a random man will have a higher sex drive than a random woman. It doesn’t mean if you are man you can be confident your sex drive is higher than any woman you pass on the street. Given the magnitude of other gender-based differences, it probably means if you are a man you should expect to pass dozens of women on the street with higher sex drive than you. There’s no massive difference in the kind of experience that men and woman have with sex drive, at most there is some difference in degree.

There are plenty of women in this thread who assure us they have plenty of sex drive and yet they are still troubled by the way that they are objectified by men, so even if women have, on average, a lower sex drive, it doesn’t really address the issue.

[Slartibartfast]

@codinghorror

That’s the beauty of science; anyone can find data and cite it.

That’s not science, that’s cherry-picking.

[chgoliz]

@anon50609448

I have female children and they are very, very different human beings from the earliest days of their lives.

Different people are different.

A million times this.

Can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had someone start a sentence with “I have a boy and a girl and they are so different…” and I have to head off what I know is going to be sexist drivel by cutting in with “well, I only have girls, and they are just as different as yours are to each other”.

[Missy_Pants]

My Mom had two boys and a girl, all three almost exactly alike.
If we get enough anecdotes we’ll have data right? Thats how this works right?

[anon50609448]

And speaking of my siblings, rather than my children, essentially I think my sister and I are almost exactly the same underneath everything, but the way it comes out is very plainly filtered through being socialized as a boy vs. as a girl (even though I’m very resistant to my gender socialization, it turns out defining yourself in opposition to something is still defining yourself by it).

[milliefink]

@anon50609448

it turns out defining yourself in opposition to something is still defining yourself by it).

Indeed. And it seems to me that that’s hetero white masculinity in a nutshell, by the way.

[Magdalene]

@tachin1

If studies show that what they identify as sex drive is markedly different between men and women, then I question that the thing being measured really is sex drive, though it does match my understanding of socially conditioned gendered sexual expression.

Exactly!

If I look at a picture of a steak, imagine myself eating it, and then decide I want a snack, is that an accurate measurement of appetite? Similarly, if a man looks at a picture of a woman and imagines her undressed or in a sexual act, either out of habit, or in expectation of the pleasant feeling of arousal, is that really just libido? I don’t think so.

Like pavlovian responses as you say, or nueral pathways made strong from use over time, they are not inherent or biological.

[Slartibartfast]

@codinghorror

Men have more work to do, and they are often failing to do it.

Exactly. They have to reprogram themselves to stop equating nurture (socialization – which begins at birth, btw) with nature (inherent biological traits).