Yeah, my last comment about going into speculation again is probably the most salient. Comparing men and women is basically pointless unless you are a scientist or health researcher. We are 99.999% (or whatever %age) the same, genetically. We’re the same creature biologically, just slightly different expressions. And then the whole point of many of the other posts is that those lines are blurred, both outwardly and inwardly. So then these comparisons become even less useful in conversation. And not to say that we are the same, but that we are so similar that what is the point of delineating the differences? To what end?
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And why do people choose to dwell upon the specific differences they do, while ignoring others?
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My point wasn’t really about the relative intensity or finding out which is better, although I acknowledge that it may have sounded that way. From what I can tell, people often refer to things like the brain activity, multiple erogenous zones and less restriction in frequency. As you say though, it’s a lot more than the mechanics - which was also what I was trying to get at.
What I was trying to allude to is that there seem to be a number of differences in motivation, beyond the expectation of a pleasurable experience. Many men compare the equipment and come to a conclusion about what they would do that seems to be very different from the way women act in practice. Even when you take out the factor of a partner who is not looking out for your needs or the associated risks, there’s a big statistical difference in frequency, with approximately double the number of women as men reporting masturbation within the previous month. Gay men are also about twice as likely to have sex multiple times in a week as lesbians, so it seems to have some foundation in a different approach toward sexuality and different ideas of motivation and satisfaction.
Essentially, my question was whether anyone could expand on the statement that “Women are more complicated than you think.” As this is a discussion about sexuality, it would be interesting to hear women’s perspectives on the psychological and social aspects.
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Here’s a quick one from Ch 9: The Lady’s Boner Is the Clitoris a Tiny Penis?
If clitoral erectile insufficiency is for real, then you might imagine that the same remedies that work for erectile dysfunction in men might work for women (and, heck, rabbits). And you would not be alone. In the wake of Viagra’s monster success in treating ED, Pfizer turned its gaze to women. Partnering with urologists and sex researchers around the country, the pharmaceutical behemoth commenced a massive research venture to see whether genital blood flow was as critical to women’s sexual well-being as it is to men’s. Or, on a cruder level, to see if Viagra could be marketed to the other half of the planet. Eight years and 3,000 subjects later, the answer appeared to be no. Viagra did in fact increase blood volume in the nethers, but most women seemed not to notice it. The researchers confirmed what most of them suspected all along: that women’s arousal, much more so than men’s, rests in the psychological as well as the physiological.
There’s a much longer follow up in “Ch 13: Mind over Vagina Women Are Complicated.”
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I wouldn’t call it thought power alone, but I have seen a man achieve orgasm without touching himself. It seems to take some very subtle control of the rhythms of the genital nervous feedback loop.
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I’ve done it before. It was very difficult, but I was in a situation where I couldn’t masturbate and was also 14. Took about 5 hours.
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So now we are on gender differences in sexuality? Also did you mean to say “double the number of men” above in reference to masturbation?
Shall I trout out my Danish study on porn consumption by gender, again? Huge, huge differences there.
I guess this is kind of a controversial opinion here on BBS, but there is a shitload of scientific data that points toward gender being one of the deepest fundamental physical and mental differentiators in human beings, their brains, their physiology, etc. Compare to race, religion, culture, etc which are basically meaningless. So the idea that men and women would have super different approaches to sexuality, well, a) isn’t that obvious and b) gender is as usual the source of the biggest differences among otherwise similar humans.
I even had someone here (a woman) argue, at surprising length, that women have physiologically lower twitch reflexes than men.
I think @Missy_Pants is not objecting to the possibility to the fluidity of gender… she’s reacting to calling women “females” as many of us feel that it’s sort of dehumanizing.
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I understand, but we wuz talking about biology. In that context, males/females is more precise terminology and no dehumanizin was taking place.
Well yes, I gathered that she does, I was hoping to better understand why. If it’s because of DS9, I haven’t seen enough of that to understand. I think that there isn’t anything special about humans in the first place, which is probably another topic. I have had humans IRL say that being called human is dehumanising, because if I point it out, I am depicting them as “other”! I tend to be more literal than most, so I acknowledge that there very well might be reasons why “female” might be more dehumanizing than “male”, or “woman”. But if there are, I do not understand them, which bothers me. The French form, femme, does not seem to have this split connotation.
Because, for me at least, I won’t speak for @Missy_Pants as she might not agree, it reduces women to their biology, as if that’s all that makes up the social construct of being a woman. But of course, that’s not what makes someone a woman, or a person, for that matter. After all, transgendered women, who may never have a vagina depending on their preferences , are just as much women.
But that’s just me.
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OK. That does seem a bit counter-intuitive to me. The root is the same as “feminine”, which many relate very closely to such social constructs. Although I prefer to know the details, I can appreciate that a person feels strongly about something without quite understanding why.
I don’t want or expect you or anyone else to agree with me, just explaining why I feel that way. YMMV, of course.
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Fine, I don’t mind dropping the topic at all. The study I referred to showed double the number of men reporting that they had masturbated in the past month. My point was that while a number of earlier comments from men had suggested that bring a woman would be fantastic and that they would take advantage of what they see as a better and less restricted sexual experience, this is not what we see in real life - and it’s not explained by women’s needs not being met or their fearing negative consequences.
I wasn’t trying to emphasise relative intensity (who knows anyway?) or frequency (which could be cultural), just asking for some more comments from people who have read books that sound interesting and from women, who do seem to have a more complex experience and set of motivations.
One thing I thought was really interesting was that a transgender woman on Twitter replied to one of my tweets about the porn consumption gender differences in that Danish study and said that she lost almost all interest in porn after starting her hormone (presumably estrogen) treatments.
There is also a great corresponding NPR show where a transgender man noted how overwhelming his urges toward sex and sexuality became after starting testosterone treatments.
I often avoid talking about this stuff because if women heard how honestly freakishly strong and constant these male/testosterone urges are to sex, they would be freaked out. It really is like a prison, as Louis CK observed. And it never seems to stop…
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Lucky me, with my prozac-busted brain. It doesn’t really happen like that for me anymore. When I was a teenager though, yeah it was freakish, and really almost upsetting. Especially with the ADHD and the difficult time I have with dismissing impulses and intrusive thoughts.
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I’ve heard that called sapiosexual
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Testosterone does things for sure. And unlike many sex-linked differences, there is pretty well no overlap in testosterone levels between those with testicles and those without (upper range for “women” is about a quarter of the lower range for “men”). But even though that’s true there is still substantial overlap in all testosterone-linked traits. There are definite differences between the sexes, but people tend to overestimate how much those differences mean, especially when trying to apply them to individuals.
I remember hearing a story about the (at the time) second best female pool player in the world. She made a living just making bets at poolhalls. But she wasn’t sharking people, she’d openly say she was number two in the world and guys would line up to bet they could beat her. Pool isn’t even something we have any reason to think men are better at than women - the skill difference is probably entirely cultural (maybe being tall can help a little with some shots?). I know that’s more of a story about sexist idiots with big egos than about sex-linked traits, but I tend to give a lot of pushback on the idea that men and women are all that different just because most people don’t understand how stats work well enough to understand what those differences really mean.
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Oh, it stops.
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