Sunday, February 2, 2014

Psychologic Stimulation

I can't even begin to tabulate all the fascinating discoveries I've made while in the course of reading The Kinsey Reports (currently, the female volume), but above all, it's fascinating to me to uncover some scientific evidence (even if just of the statistical variety) on some of the psychological differences between males and females when it comes to the nature of sexual response. Inevitably, the question of nature and nurture arises, and there is always an uncertainty about whether our culture has been shaped around the differences in the sexes, or whether the differences in the sexes have been manufactured by the shape of our culture (or what combination of those factors is involved), but barring the answer to that question, it's interesting to study - not just speculate, but based on considerable un-conventionally-biased statistical sources - the way that males and females react differently to sexual stimuli.

More specifically, I've always been highly concerned about the way that females respond to visual erotic stimuli, as compared to males - which is a topic of considerable importance to me as a straight male erotic model. ...Who has, incidentally, experienced extremely limited attention from females, and a wealth of attention from, instead, gay males. It is not news to me that males are, on the average, more responsive to visual erotic stimuli than females are - after all, this is a speculation I've heard time and time again in response to the question of why visual male erotica is not more popular among females.

Interestingly, if you look at it from one perspective, images of nude females are produced for a straight male audience, and images of nude males are produced (in considerably lesser abundance) for a gay male audience. It's as if females are of no consequence. This actually dovetails with other media in different contexts to produce the picture that seems to suggest that males are the ones interested in sex, while females could take it or leave it. Interestingly, Kinsey et al. has found that while females are, on the whole, less interested in sex than males (although certainly not strictly uninterested, in most cases), there is actually a wider variety of individual variation to be found in females than in males. That's fascinating, too, but it's also a different story.

Although, incidentally, while we're on this tangent, I had a kind of epiphany moment (inspired by Kinsey's own interpretations, to put credit where it's due), that led me to speculate that maybe the reason (or a reason) females are so much more judgmental of other females' sexual behaviors, while males pretty much understand one another when it comes to sex, is due to the great variation between individual females. Males are rarely surprised by or unfamiliar with the sexual experiences of other males, but I imagine a considerably less responsive female would have a much harder time understanding the promiscuous behavior of a considerably more responsive female, when she's already come to the opinion, based on her own personal experience, that sex isn't particularly enjoyable, as a woman.

Honestly, the insights are nonstop. But let's get back to the original point of this ramble, which has to do with visual erotic depictions. There's been a question, in the feminist discourse, about how come there are all these erotic visual images of women in the media, to a disproportionate extent (compared to similar images of men). And the factory answer implicates the patriarchy, which may have something to do with it. There's a whole thing about the sexual objectification of women, and how that's a bad thing, and because I enjoy the portrayal of women as sex objects, yet like to play fair, I've invited, through my photography, anyone and everyone to sexually objectify me. The idea being to level the playing field - not by wiping out sexual objectification, which I enjoy, but by redressing the balance between the sexes, and objectifying men more frequently.

But then I was reading Kinsey, and it hit me. If women aren't interested in looking at men in a sexual way to the extent that men are interested in looking at women (and predominantly gay men, who probably constitute a smaller portion of the population than females, at other men), then it only makes perfect sense that there are more sexual portrayals of women in the media than of men. And it's not some stupid patriarchy thing, it's just how the sexes differ. But then, that's not an entirely new angle for me, because I believe that a lot of the feminist-inspired conflict between the sexes arises as a result of women being fundamentally confused about the nature of male sexuality - or else, they understand it, but are simply willing (and often enthusiastic) to discriminate against men in retaliation for past (and ongoing) treatment of their own sex. (Which is the reason why I am a post-feminist - to use a different civil rights issue in comparison, I don't believe the solution to white ancestors' enslavement of black people is for black people to enslave modern day white people who weren't personally responsible for the slavery in order to get even - the goal is equality, not retaliation).

So, really, I think, as important as it is for men to understand how females respond to sex - and, most importantly, simply to understand that females may respond differently to sex than the average male does (so, for example, she might not appreciate being texted a picture of your dick as much as you might love being texted a picture of her twat), I really think it's just as important for women to understand - and not just understand, but accept - the way men respond to sex. So-called "objectification", "sexualization", porn use, and so on and so forth. None of these are an excuse for men to treat women poorly. At the same time, it is not some big discriminatory conspiracy for men to respond favorably to sexualized depictions of women. It's human fucking nature (that has corollaries in other mammalian species), and I don't see how it's harmful.

12 comments:

  1. I have trouble believing that a study from the 1950's can be considered very realistic when it's about how women feel about sexuality. Even when a 100% anonymity was assured. In a personal interview women would still be very careful about what to admit to, I think. And this was an age where most women only just started to explore the possibility of sex for other reasons than to make babies, safe birth control was virtually impossible. Even modern methods are still risky, and this still makes many women think twice about having sex. And even today women are still suffering from how religion has brainwashed them to think about sexuality. Even with people who aren't that religious.
    It's still considered more a sin for a woman to enjoy sex than for a man, I think, and so it's still less accepted from women to be promiscuous, too.
    I don't believe that women are less interested in sex at all. I do believe it's much harder for a woman to have good and satisfying sex though... since it's about more than a quick come for most of them.

    It's something that keeps me busy, too, especially since I started photographing male models. Men are all too eager to pose, I have loads of volunteers! And they like to push their penis in the lens, too, so to speak. But looking at another nude man is still something they don't like, or, they still deny liking that anyway. Looking at my pageviews with series of male models, this is improving a bit these days though...
    Even when it's considered more normal for a woman to pose nude, maybe, it's still a taboo for many women because they are scared to ruin their reputation.

    But, I think, speaking from my own experience, and from what they know in publicity for example, women would like to be the women they see, while men just want the women they see. Women do enjoy looking at erotic images or even porn. But they are more projecting, I think, they don't look at the men in the images like, oh my god, I want him to fuck me! They will pay more attention to the women in the images, imagining it's them in the photo or film arouses them more than just looking at a sexy man. I enjoy looking at nude man, but it's a whole different thing than a man looking at women and wanting to fuck them, I think. And I think most women have totally different views on what makes a man sexy, too, it's not just about how many muscles he has or how long and thick his dick is, or if he is still young enough. It's more about a general feeling about that man. I can see super handsome man nude, all muscles, good dick, nice face, but if he strikes me like being an idiot, as, I'm sorry to say, most commercial male models do, I will never ever become horny of him...
    So, making sexy photos of men for women is much harder to do than making sexy photos of women for men... Young and pretty (and willing) just isn't enough. And it's real hard to say what would be enough. For example, an 'ugly' older man can still be damned sexy sometimes while a young god can be deadly boring!
    (Not talking about you here, even if you are a young god, there are exceptions! Hard to say why you are one of them... But my guess it's what's going on in your brain, for the most part, the photos prove your skull isn't empty, I guess...) ...
    :-))
    Greetings!
    XXX

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, tremendously, for your insight!

    I agree that, even though I think the Kinsey Reports were way ahead of their time, and I think the issues they raise are disturbingly applicable to the modern climate, one of the questions that keeps coming up in the back of my mind is, how have people's beliefs (and, therefore, behaviors) changed in the past 50+ years? Especially with feminism and the rapidly growing acceptance of homosexuality. I don't know if the Kinsey Institute still takes sexual histories of people today, but I think they should.

    I know, by experience, that fetishism, for example, is not exclusively limited to males, as some "professionals" seem to think. But then again, Kinsey found that the actual variation between individual females was enormous, and that it is only the *average* family who is less interested in sex than men. Then again, that could definitely have been a product of the culture. We can't know if women are biologically, on the average, less interested in sex than men until we develop a culture that does not shame in any way women who *are* as interested in sex than men, and that's the sort of "gender equality" I'm striving for.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes, average family- women having less interest in sex, I can surely imagine something with that...
    If I would have married my first steady boyfriend instead of just living with him, or any of my first 5 steady boyfriends for that matter, I would have thought sex wasn't interesting anymore after, say, maximum two years, too. ...
    And then I didn't even have a child at that time!
    That would surely have dropped my interest in sex, too, I wouldn't even have energy left for sex maybe, especially if I would have like 2-3-4-5... babies in a row, like what was normal for the 50's...
    Most women didn't know anything about sex in those days.
    When my mother married my father she didn't know anything about sex, just that it existed, and she had me at the age of 21 in 1965!
    She got pregnant some months before they got married, by the way.
    In those days most women had little to say about their sex- lives anyway. You fucked when your man wanted to fuck because it was your duty as a married woman, even when it meant having child number 7... That was normal, and it's still like that for many women in the western world, I bet!
    I don't know about America, but I guess it wasn't so much different there...

    Yes... First we need a 100% safe birth control method so that women can finally disconnect sex from having children in their (unconscious) minds.
    Than we need more understanding men...
    I won't see it happening in my time anymore, I think.
    So, I'm really happy to see that there are young and passionate people like you, it gives some hope for the future.
    Keep it up! :-))
    XXX

    ReplyDelete
  4. Subconscious!
    I meant: So that women finally could disconnect sex from having children in their subconscious minds! Their subconsciousness.
    Damned, 'unconscious'... sounds like rape drugs could be involved or something...
    :-))
    See you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Indeed, that's very much in line with what Kinsey found - that in most marriages, since the men were more interested in sex than the women, it was usually the husband who set the pace (in terms of frequencies of sexual contacts) for the wife.

    I guess these things are fairly unsurprising, but it's still fascinating to put some reliable statistics behind it so we can differentiate what's really going on and what people just *think* is going on.

    I'm under the impression that the birth control methods we have now are pretty reliable. What I can't seem to wrap my mind around is that there are still plenty of people who don't seem to have either the knowledge or the responsibility to use them, and are somehow willing to "take their chances", even if it means having a baby they weren't planning for. But that's a whole different can of worms.

    We definitely need to discourage the association of sex with procreation in many a person's mind. That's a mistake that even the average sex educator makes - another thing that Kinsey recognized, was that academics too often confuse sex with the reproductive function - completely ignoring sex's important function as a recreational activity that both provides pleasure and creates social intimacy. Given that a minute fraction of all the sexual acts an individual engages in throughout the course of his/her life leads to procreation (and so rarely is that the goal), to say that procreation is sex's primary function is a bit off, if you ask me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The pill, which I guess is the safest option, is only 98- 99% safe.
    And this with healthy women who take it as they should take it, VERY regularly, at the same time each day.
    Taking it at different times of the day, forgetting to take one, take one on time and become sick can also make it less safe.
    You don't want to know how many women get pregnant while being on the pill!
    And because of this every smart woman or girl knows there is ALWAYS a chance of becoming pregnant when she has sex, even if it's only a 'very small' chance.

    Yes, sex also creates a chemical bond in a couple, making them want to stay together...
    And, no doubt, it has many more positive effects if people can enjoy sex in a relaxed way, for both their mental and physical health.
    Sex education should be about that, too, not just about how babies are made or how to prevent pregnancy or STD's.

    But without a 100% safe birth control method having sex will always be connected with having babies in a woman's mind...

    The Kinsey studies were surely useful and very progressive for that time. No doubt that it changed how we looked at sex.
    But, as you said: We need a similar new study, would surely be interesting to compare them with the old one as well!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Combine that with condoms, and I'd say you're fairly well covered.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yes. Fairly well...
    Which is why women are doing only 'fairly well' with catching up with men, so far.
    How would you feel about being 'fairly safe' for the risk of ruining your young life and body?
    We need 'surely safe' before we can ever get in the same position as men, I think.


    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm not much of a risk-taker, myself. On the other hand, that hasn't stopped a lot of other people from engaging in some fairly reckless behavior. But you do have a point. I think a hypothetical solution to a lot of problems would be to sterilize everyone at birth, but only after retrieving the necessary tissue samples for future in vitro fertilization as desired, so as to separate the sexual act from the process of procreation once and for all. It merely depends on having the appropriate technology. But then, maybe that's just a little too "mad scientist"...

    ReplyDelete
  10. As an ex- Sci Fi literature addict I'm all for it!
    Could help with the overpopulation as well!
    Maybe we can get somewhere with genetic manipulation so that we could skip the sterilisation at birth and that we would need two weeks of non stop wild sex to active our reproductive system, or something like that...
    :-))
    See you!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I was looking for blondes with pigtails on flickr (yes, I felt like wanking to a "classic") but I ende up here!?

    Just wanna say; good luck with understanding what goes on in the female head.
    I gave up years ago! =D

    Cheers mate!




    ReplyDelete
  12. See, that's an excellent example. I think "blondes with pigtails" sounds incredibly appealing, but I can't help imagining the typical feminist voice screaming in the back of my head, "you're objectifying women!" No, I'm not. I'm just being horny, for god sakes. It's what men do.

    Now I'm genuinely concerned about treating women right, and not encouraging a culture that promotes rape, and all of those things (is it really that hard to believe that I could be sexually attracted to a woman and NOT want to use her like toilet paper?), but if the path to accomplishing that involves demonizing the sexual feelings that the average male has for the typical female, then you're doomed to failure, and I have no interest in supporting that.

    Sigh.

    ReplyDelete