Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!yale-com!mwolf From: mwolf@yale-com.UUCP (Anne G. Wolf) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re:An honest request for information Message-ID: <2226@yale-com.UUCP> Date: Sat, 22-Oct-83 19:32:45 EDT Article-I.D.: yale-com.2226 Posted: Sat Oct 22 19:32:45 1983 Date-Received: Sun, 23-Oct-83 10:13:50 EDT Lines: 90 There are a lot of women who use sex as something which they can trade for something else. I can think of two possible reasons why this is so. First reason: "Nice girls don't like sex" In most parts of Western culture, promiscuity is a mark of high status for men and a mark of low status for women. This is not something I like, but this is the way the world works (at least, to a large extent). One context in which this idea is especially visible is rape. If a promiscuous woman is raped, some people believe that she deserves it or that she asks for it, and many lawyers defend rapists using this idea. A good example of a promiscuous man with high status is James Bond. There is more systematic evidense. When asked how many partners they had slept with, heterosexual women generally gave lower answers than heterosexual men in a survey I read about once. If everyone had been accurate (assuming that a representative group of people were questioned), the number of partners should have been the same for women as for men, on the average. Since they were not the same, either women were underestimating or men were overestimating or both. Because sex is a mark of low status, many women have convinced themselves that they do not enjoy it. A very attractive friend of mine, who often found that men wanted to sleep with her, said she never reached orgasm in bed, and just lay there waiting for the man to come and hoping it would not take too long. I find this rather sad, but it is fairly common. Do not assume that every woman will enjoy sex as much as you do. She may feel so guilty about it that she either doesn't enjoy it or cannot admit to herself that she enjoys it. A woman who feels this way probably feels that if she does something which lowers her status and which she doesn't enjoy for your sake, she should get something in return for that. Second reason: babies No form of birth-control works 100% of the time. This may be true even if one thinks one is using it correctly. For example, if a woman is taking the pill and she also takes some kinds of antibiotic (tetracyclin, for one), the pill will not work as well as it would normally. MANY DOCTORS DO NOT KNOW THIS. Certainly most women don't. Rubbers may break. Cervical caps may slip out of place. IUDs may be expelled without the anyone realizing it. If two people sleep together, they always risk making a baby. (I assume that most single people don't want a baby.) It is easier for a father to deny that he has any connection with his child than it is for a mother. I'm not, for a moment, implying that all men would do this but proving paternity is not trivial, and when parents do not live together, the children are usually the responsibility of the mother. Therefore, if a woman sleeps with you, she will probably want some kind of assurance that you will be around if a baby results. Since there wasn't any birth-control during most of the time humans were evolving, this kind of manipulation probably improved the survival of the offspring. Again, I'm not saying that I like this arrangement, it's just the way the world works. Advice:What if you want to sleep with someone If you would like to sleep with a woman and you want the desire to be mutual, BE PATIENT. If most of the women who attract you are uptight about sex (and most women are), keep your caresses to what you would see in a G-rated movie, and wait for her to suggest going further. Give her time to relax. Don't "cajole" her. If you are not able to do that, at least try to find out what she wants instead of concentrating on what you want, consider what to do about a baby if there was one, and discuss this with her. Also, don't assume that birth-control is her problem. There are also women who have managed to overcome all their inhibitions about sex or who never had any in the first place. They are prepared to have one-night flings with no obligations afterwards, and they change partners very quickly. This is a VERY small minority. (I have only met one or two.) I don't know where to find them or how to recognize them. It is safe to assume that most women are not like that. Many women will sleep with a man when they really don't want to. They fairly frequently resent having done so afterward. Don't insist. You may get bitched at after the fact. I remember, a few years ago, a man lost interest in me because I didn't want to sleep with him. I was very disgusted that sex was the only thing about me that interested him. Don't misunderstand; I enjoy sex, but, at that point, I wasn't ready for sex with him, and I didn't want a relationship that consisted only of sex. I hope this is the sort of information you wanted. Mary-Anne Wolf (decvax!yale-comix!mwolf) P.S. To potential flamers, please read this CAREFULLY before you flame. I say a lot about the way I observe the world generally works. I do not argue that these things are universal or that I like them. I also do not mean to imply anything about Jason P. Venner, the person who wrote the article to which this is a reply.