Originally posted by Sexy_Malibu
What on EARTH are you talking about!? Women's sexual urges are often just as strong as men's. It is the SOCIETAL DOUBLE STANDARD that says it's okay for men to give in to their sexual urges, (but not okay for women to do the same) that creates the situations you're saying. It is people like YOU that make women like me feel like sluts (I don't by the way) because "good girls don't do that" and "women aren't supposed to feel urges like men do".
We ALL feel sexual urges... sometimes people (male or female) who give in to them show a "lack of willpower". In fact, I'd say men (WARNING: EXTREME GENERALIZATION) as a whole have much less willpower, as demonstrated by the examples you gave (prostitutes, bathhouses, etc), although there ARE male prostitutes, etc... it's just not as BLATANT no doubt due to these double standards.
On the other hand though, what is the big deal with giving into these urges anyway? Unlike eating a ton of chocolate, which will make you sick and/or fat... having (SAFE, PROTECTED) sex is relatively harmless. Casual sex may not be emotionally harmless for people who have sex for non-sexual reasons (like you said above), but if you're okay in your head and you're not hurting anybody (i.e., cheating) then there's no reason why you should have to control your sexual urges, male or female.
I really didn't expect anyone to be trotting out this old chestnut about the ladies wanting it as much as the fellows.
What's your basis for asserting,
SM, that there's no overall difference between the male and female biological sex urge? I'm
assuming you've never been a man (no offense if you were). Well, I've never been a girl either, so maybe I'll offer my proofs. Every woman I've ever been with has had less interest, overall, in sex per se than I have. Here's your opportunity to say "You must not be doing it right." No, that's not it -- they liked it "just fine" or "great" or the like, and I honestly think I'm perceptive and sensitive enough that if I really weren't getting the job done, I'd know. It's just that they would
always follow up with a comment that either discounted the importance of sex ("It's not something I think about all the time") or linked it as important only as a concomitant with something else ("It's great, because we get to lie here together and be so close and intimate."). Now, intimacy and trust and snuggling are all fine and well, but for men the sex could be good without any of these things (I'm not saying men would
want this, but it could still be a good shag even if it were divorced from the snuggling and stuff).
Let me ask you a few questions: How often do you think about sex? You've seen the statistics (I don't know exactly how scientific they are, but they're generally plausible) -- men think about sex something like every few minutes, all day, every day. I have met precious few women who think about it even hourly. How often do you find yourself spontaneously aroused? Now compare notes with a 20 year old guy. How often do you buy pornography? How often do you masturbate? How often have you masturbated six times in one day (again, compare notes with a male teenager).
Now for your other point -- ahh, Society, and the dread Double Standard. I have a couple of responses: First, I'm not sure what you think "Society" is, apart from the collective thinking of a bunch of individual men and women. It's not some free floating force.
Second, "double standard" is only a meaningful pejorative when the two groups who are being subjected to different standards are truly similarly situated. But the point of my premise is that men and women
aren't similarly situated when it comes to the absolute magnitude of their libidos -- so expecting the person with the lower absolute libido to indulge it proportionately less than the person with a higher absolute libido is a shining example of a
single standard. I know you purport to disagree with the relative libido figures, but the only way you can sling the "double standard" accusation is by good-old-fashioned question-begging, i.e., assuming, as a premise of your argument, the very truth of the proposition under dispute.
As for Big Bad Society and its ability to magically suppress the otherwise-rampant female libido -- why is it failing so woefully at suppressing sex urges in all other fields of life? You say "Society" tells men it's "okay to give into their sexual urges" -- but that's hardly true across the board, nor has it been for most of our history. Pornography was illegal for centuries, and disapproved of by society, yet it flourished. Rape is a serious crime that "Society" penalizes with some of its harshest sanctions, yet men have continued to rape, not with Society's approval but in spite of its strong disapproval.
The best example is homosexuality. You think female promiscuity is disapproved of? That's nothing compared to the
extreme Societal disapproval of homosexual activity for almost all of the modern era, continuing through today. Remember, both male and female homosexuals used to concoct bogus romances and even "affairs" to hide their homosexuality (which tells me that even being suspected of being heterosexually promiscuous was better than being suspected of homosexuality). So "Society's" "double standard" approving heterosexuality but condemning homosexuality was undeniably
at least as strong as the "double standard" that was (you claim) the only thing restraining the gals from playing the field with casual sex.
Why, then, was "Society" so successful in enforcing its "double standard" against women that millions and millions of people (women included) believed, and acted as if, average women were not, generally, interested in lots of random and casual sex, at the same time that "Society" was failing utterly to stop homosexual activity? The homosexual men went underground, sure, but they did not stop indulging their urges just because "Society" told them to. In fact (and again, despite massive disapproval from every single segment of Society), they were willing to go as far as having sex through a hole in the wall with faceless strangers, or with rent boys, or in dance clubs. By your reasoning, women's "equally strong" sexual desires should have expressed themselves in equal covert thwarting of "Society's" strictures. Neither that, nor anything remotely approaching that, has ever happened or will ever happen. Even lesbians (who are, roughly let's say, subject to the same widespread disapproval as male homosexuals) do not do this. So what's the common factor? Men -- whether hetero or homo, whether endorsed by Society or condemned by it -- are driven toward having sex as often as they can; women are not.
I'm not even going to go into the obvious evolutionary reasons why being hard-wired for frequent sex would greatly favor a male's successful propogation of his genes but would greatly disfavor a woman's.
This really shouldn't require discussion at this point. Honestly, talk to your male and female friends, lose the "chicks are just as horny as men" feminist bravado, and we can analyze this stuff a little better.
Are to going to punish her because she had a couple boyfriends or flings while you were sitting at home jerking off during your AFC days?
