- Sexual Potential
When the Greek Gods Zeus and Hera lived on earth as man and wife, during a spell from their heavenly duties, they argued about whether men or women took more pleasure from sex. Unable to come to any agreement they took their dispute to the philosopher Tiresias who had experienced life as both man and woman. Tiresias said that sex was more pleasurable as a woman. This was not the answer that Hera wanted, since she had been complaining about the burden of her existence and in a rage she put Tiresias' eyes out.
Even in Roman times there were some authorities who believed that women took more pleasure from sex. The writer Ovid said something like this: "If the parts of love do sum to ten, nine go to women, and one to men". But then he was trying to sell his new book. Up until very recent times there has been the opposite belief in Western societies; that males "naturally" get more pleasure from sex than women.
For instance in families of Southern Europeans who emigrated in the 3 decades after the second world war women are often expected to take a secondary role in sexual matters and that includes the enjoyment of sex. In these days of greater sexual equality, when we have a better understanding of the importance of of both partners' needs in intimate relationships, such attitudes are disappearing.
A few years ago when women came for sexual counselling to improve their experience of sex it was most often because of their concern to hold the relationship together. This is still an important element, but these days women are far more likely to be thinking of enhancing their sexual development in order to reaching their fullest potential as women. And there has been an enormous increase in men seeking sexual counselling and therapy, often at their wives' insistence.
Sexual guilt and shame, though less common now, still affect women's sexual responsiveness. However women sometimes experience a relative disinterest in sexual interactions because of very diffuse learning processes which have taught them that their bodies are worthless. This lack of self regard is quite as powerful as shame in suppressing sexual response, and since there is no obvious guilt to explain the lack of sexual interest, people do not see the connection with their lack of sexual response. Feelings of inadequacy often lead to anxieties in social, and especially sexual situations. Yet they are much harder to identify, and more difficult to eliminate than guilt because they are intimately connected with every aspect of the personality.
It still seems to be the case that by about the age of three some girls are more vigorously discouraged from masturbation than boys, being taught a guilt about sex that will intrude upon their later marriage relationship. Of course, not all lack of orgasm in women is attributable to low self esteem. Sometimes it is due quite simply to a lack of experience of the body's sensory possibilities. Many fewer women than men explore their bodies sexually in later childhood and adolescence, probably because this behaviour is discouraged more in girls than in boys. The lack of self-knowledge, lack of self-regard and guilt associated with this experience impair later experience.
One of the current theories about women's orgasm, proposed by Stephen Jay Gould, is that women have orgasms simply because men do. In other words it is almost a biological “accident” since only male orgasm (or at least ejaculation) is absolutely necessary for reproduction. So we don't have either a biological or a moral justification for female orgasm. Gould doesn't say this in so many words but it is the impression I received from his writings. Nevertheless the logical extension of Gould's argument is that if benevolent fate allows women have orgasms simply because they have the same kind of biological blueprint that men have, they can also have the same kind of sexual drive that men have.
In a book called "The Nature and Evolution of Female Sexuality" Dr Mary Sherfey went a lot further than Gould. She argued that human females are biologically sexually insatiable. She was impressed by the physiological similarity of human females and other primates, which do appear to be extraordinarily sexually active, and by clinical claims that virtually all women are potentially multi-orgasmic. She said that since females have the same orgasmic anatomy as males, it defies the laws of biology to suggest that they should not be expected to use it. She pointed out that when women do have multiple orgasms they do not become satiated the way that males do, instead, the more orgasms they have, the more they can have.
At the very least it is hard to imagine any social advantage in having females less responsive than males, nor do I see any reproductive advantage. Occasionally scientific supports for my viewpoint turn up. For example, there is evidence that the changes in uterine pressure that occur with female orgasm actually facilitate the movement of sperm towards the fallopian tubes, which suggests an evolutionary advantage for female orgasm.
Now here is a generalisation. Despite this historical and scientific support, even these days women in our society tend not to be quite as enthusiastic about sex as men. But this claim is likely to be wrong for at least one third of older women, and may be completely inaccurate for younger women who have been less exposed to the cultural inhibition of women's sexuality that was once the rule in our society. But if we stay with this idea of the continuing inhibition of women's sexual interests we must then ask, what causes it and what can be done about it?
One of the obvious problems is a lack of knowledge about female sexual anatomy on the part of both males and females. There is still the joke going around about the difference between a bar and the clitoris. The punchline is that the average male knows how to find a bar. While it may be less true these days that the average young man does not know how to find a clitoris or what to do with it, it obviously does not take much for a female in a relationship to show her young man the way. So why don't they? Partly because of difficulty with emotional intimacy perhaps, but another part of the problem is that many women don't know much about this little organ, which in the words of the Italian anatomist who first described it for Western Science (well, at least he was working in an Italian University) is "so pretty and useful a thing".
For many people sex is a lot more than just fun. It's an experience that allows special closeness with a loved one. Giving pleasure to a loved one while receiving it can be the greatest satisfaction of all. This kind of sex is about truly intimate communication, involving both love and romance. Women who have been able to overcome cultural barriers to their own sexual development are more likely to find this kind of fulfilment. And, this new self confidence spills over into many other areas of their lives.
Most women who have never had orgasms can become orgasmic relatively quickly. The average learning time, following a (remotely) guided learning program, is eight to twelve weeks, though of course some people take more time and some less. I have found that women who embark on a course of guided change in their attitudes to their own bodies, often discover a level of sexual feeling that they did not know existed, and at the same time begin to assert themselves in other relationships.
More readings will be added to my blog from time to time. Have a quick look now to see the first posting on my blog PSYC1PLUS