I am sure that would be the frame of understanding if women were typically bigger and stronger than men. But because nature has made it the other way around, men are viewed as the ‘penetrators’ rather than the ‘enveloped.’

Of course women are turned on by the female form – they identify it with themselves, and their sexuality is inherently responsive. In classical romantic terms: men are the Lovers, and women are the Beloved. It’s a mutual dyad, but the initial agency is masculine.

I genuinely believe that human sexuality is ‘hard-wired’ nature, and that culture is simply a myriad reflection of it (with differing emphases for different times and places).

‘ “I have certainly read about sex from a male perspective in words like “she took me into her body” or whatever – there’s a certain era of romance in which that was more common, I think. ”

That’s a man’s version of a rape fantasy. Just fabulously romantic.’

Wait, what?

I am seriously alarmed by your supposed logic here. Women and men alike have been societally conditioned to accept “penetration by male” as normal, as opposed to “enveloping by female”. Women fantasise all the time about being penetrated – of course, since this is how society defines sex – and it is seen as normal.

And if a man chooses to fantasise about being enveloped by a woman – simply *different societal terminology for the same act* – that qualifies as a rape fantasy? If a woman fantasises about her body enveloping a male, is she fantasising about committing rape?

I am quite shocked, if this is genuinely what you meant.

“I wonder why so many male ‘experts’ are so determined…”

Uh… the article is explicitly ALL about the work of female scientists…

It’s tied to the apparent will of the sexologist to find the essence of feminine sexuality

But isn’t that what scientists DO? Like people who study prejudice try to do experiments that test a generalized boxes-and-arrows model of prejudice, they don’t just sit down with an individual jerk and say “how do YOU feel about East Asians?” Science is all about impersonal understanding of sometimes very personal things.

What I *really* didn’t like about the article is the whole element of “we know how women think that they don’t”.

Again, a science thing. We study prejudice, then go around with this smug feeling that we know about people’s automatic prejudices that they aren’t even aware of, etc.

I thought the most telling part of that article was the quote about all the funding is for research into *differences*.

Once more, standard operating procedure for science. If you want to study X, then question 1 is: “how is this different than Y, and how is it the same.” In fact, the more similar they appear to be on the surface, the more interesting the differences you can find are, and vice versa.

What human interaction can happen outside of culture?

When did that ever stop scientists trying to do heredity studies and evo psych to tell them apart? The main post here seems hostile to the idea that biology can play any role at all, and indeed makes a compelling case for why culture is more powerful than the article suggested… But isn’t this an empirical question? Someone needs to go and check out other cultures. Do women in highly egalitarian places have similar rates of rape fantasies? That would go a lot further towards settling it, surely?

It completely breaks down at the point of individual response

Uh huh. But that’s true of almost all psychological generalizations. If twin studies show a 50% genetic contribution to, say, conscientiousness, that doesn’t tell us anything about any one person, nor does it say we shouldn’t be upset if they keep turning up late to highly time sensitive things. All research has limits, it’s just the nature of the beast.

I’ve found that it’s not the people doing research who are afraid of the messy complexities that come out of studying human behavior, it’s the journalists and pop-culture writers who really try to frame these issues as a debate between soundbites.

Is there a single topic that they DON’T cover in glib and mostly inaccurate sound bites?

Some people are not able to perceive such things.

And other people work hard to conceal such things. The binary presented in the article of “visible / not-visible” was way over simplistic, but men have at least one ‘tell’ that is far more obvious and difficult to simulate / hide. For whatever that is worth.

Also, some people point out that the article doesn’t cover ethical issues, is restricted to heteronormative sex, etc… All true, but then it never promised to be a comprehensive review, right? It’s a news article, not a textbook. It’s fair to complain that queer sexuality is systematically ignored in general, but not sure that can be laid at any one article’s feet.

Isn’t the notion of enveloping originally from Luce Irigaray? See for instance her 1974 Ethics of Sexual Difference, which I think precedes Andrea Dworkin.

Also, really enjoyed your post. I do think, however, that at some point we must go beyond the re-iterations that women’s bodies are sexualised. If we have to cover that territory every time we speak about female sexuality, or even female subjectivity, we might never move on. I personally would have thought an exploration into ethical side of female sexuality should have been included in the NYT piece. That is, the question begs to be asked, ‘Do women take responsibility for their sexuality? If so, how? If not, why not?’ My feeling is that this article suggests that because women have submission fantasies, or because they are sexually ‘mysterious’, women are still not held responsible for their sexual actions. This works to place them into the traditional female = passive role.

Kerner says he was raised to think of women as his equals. However, that statement is very male chauvinistic because it views the male as the norm of humanity. Kerner needs to aspire to become a woman’s equal.

The article dealt with this. The researchers reapreatedly noted the disparity between what the test subjects reported and what the instrumentation showed and concluded the test subjects were saying what they thought they should say – on what valid basis they didn’t say. Courts used to trust instrumentation more than what pedophiles reported about their deisres too.

“Honestly, I thought the most telling part of that article was the quote about all the funding is for research into *differences*. ”

Another telling part of that quote was how that represented a change from earlier research which tended to assume men and women responded alike – Kinsey, i think it was.

“I have certainly read about sex from a male perspective in words like “she took me into her body” or whatever – there’s a certain era of romance in which that was more common, I think. ”

That’s a man’s version of a rape fantasy. Just fabulously romantic.

“Ah…but then those persons would have to admit that they might have to do slightly more “work” than show up with an erect penis and cater to their own desires.* Which explodes the whole…I’m awesome, she’s the one who has the problem orgasming myth.”

So true – how we have backslid from the 70’s. I wonder how you might relate the same insight to “erectile dysfunction”?

In a completely different meander, the “penetrate/envelop” thing – I have certainly read about sex from a male perspective in words like “she took me into her body” or whatever – there’s a certain era of romance in which that was more common, I think. Pity it’s not these days, it does sound a little more elegant than our worn-out penetration metaphors.

Honestly, I thought the most telling part of that article was the quote about all the funding is for research into *differences*. That suggests to me a profoundly ideological imperative at work here, looking to produce a heteronormative notion of sexes as “opposite.”

I mean, this is just a series of cliched tropes masquerading as research, producing through interpretation what it suggests to be merely describing.