Posted: Mar 19, 2011 9:55 am
sprite wrote:Mr.Samsa wrote:I imagine that the reason that they were so successful at inhibiting their response in the study you cited is 1) because it was an experimental setting (where it's quite awkward anyway), and 2) they'd be using photographic images or films to produce the sexual response (and there would be a natural habituation response in males anyway). When it comes to a real life situation, with a woman "getting all up on it", it would take inhuman willpower to inhibit any sexual response, especially when they are turned on.
The main point about these studies is that there was no voluntary inhibition (as tested with brain scans to see brain activation) when males were shown bonobo sex, heterosexual sex when they were gay, gay sex when they were hetero, ie the men had sexual responses to the very same stimuli they said they were excited by. It was not a case of the men stopping themselves having erections when looking at bonobos having sex. Neither their bodies nor their minds were turned on and the brain scans showed that this was not due to intentional inhibition of a response.
For women though, there was a genital arousal response to anything that involved sex even though they were not turned on mentally.
When there was no reason for the men to inhibit their sexual response and brains scans confirmed no inhibition going on they still only responded to what they said turned them on. Women responded to everything in the genitals while to only certain things in the head.
Indeed, I understand that - my last sentence about male arousal being inhibited can be applied to "conscious" or "unconscious" will. My explanations still hold; the awkwardness of the situation and the habituation (the level of exposure males have to pornographic images) could result in a sex difference that is independent of any biological difference.
sprite wrote:It presents the possiblity for females that they can learn to have all kinds of sex. If they have the genital arousal in any sexual situation then all that is needed is for them to be taught to want the sex mentally and they can then be 'willingly' having sex of any description. Perhaps this is why women more easily than men can learn to enjoy sex with other women or pretty much any kind of sexual behaviour the porn industry might want from them.
It suggests that for men who do not have the genital arousal in connection to any kind of sex that a straight male will not be able to learn to enjoy sex with another male. He does not have the automatic sexual arousal to any sex.
Should be pointed out here, though, that these differences between men and women are not absolute and ony significant differences. As with everything there is variation and overlap.
Hmm.. potentially. But as I mentioned, we'd have to demonstrate that it's an actual biological difference first.
sprite wrote:Mr.Samsa wrote:I'm not aware of rape fantasies in history, but I could be wrong. Do you know of any evidence for them?
Well, women have not left much art or literature etc themselves.
There was that novel Clarissa from 1767 where the main character Lovelace drugs and rapes her. I saw something about this the other week and can't remember where just now, but it was basically that female readers of the book 'fell in love' with and wanted Lovelace themselves.
That would be interesting.
sprite wrote:Mr.Samsa wrote:
There are a number of them, including the primacy of the ipod (being released first), the "catchy" marketing (salient in society), the novelty factor (the clickwheel), and a larger range of functions which the Zune took to long to replicate. All added up, we can easily account for the preference without an appeal to evolution.
But women's sexual fantasies are/were secret to themselves. They are not something public or fashionable or even known to exist in anyone else at least initially.
It is the inner conflict over these for women. Some feminists gave up thinking about this because it was too difficult to deal with. There continues this great problem for many women regarding 'sex' whether about these type of fantasies or porn, sex work etc etc.
I'm not sure what point the "secrecy" of them is? Cultural fads are caused by common environmental factors, whether everyone engaging in them are aware of the popularity of the thing is irrelevant.
sprite wrote:These are things which can be used against women to argue that women lie about rape or are all very happy to be sex workers etc etc.
Appeals to evolution are even used to show that females are actually very promiscuous or want to be raped as we have seen on this thread.
These are arguments about the 'nature' of women and female sexuality which even use mis-representations of females of other species.
It is essential for women to know the male bias in the representaions of female nature in humans and across species. To have an understanding of the evolution of sex and the sexes, and selection acting on females as well as males etc etc.
I'm not sure what you mean by "male bias in the representation of female nature"?