How did we get to this? We as a society are completely turned around, flipped upside down and clueless when it comes to talking about sex and what the opposite sex wants. This really stems from a lack of communication about sex, which is caused by the social norm of “sex talk” being taboo, that in turn perpetuates our ignorance. Right? Well in order for us to learn about a topic (and we desperately need to learn), we have to talk about it. So here we go. Lets talk about sex.
Two blog posts ago I talked about Social Engineering, also called Social Conditioning. This explains that much of our personality and belief structure is influenced by and manipulated by the culture and media that makes up our society. Then last week I talked about Gender Roles and how they are socially engineered to tell us how each biological sex is supposed to be in our society. These roles not only tell us, how to be a man or woman, but how to communicate as one. I hope you have checked out the hyperlinks in my blogs, because they go a long way in explaining these effects far better than I can.
We have all had “The Talk.” You know, the one your parents give you about the Birds and the Bees, but other than the “how its done” we aren’t really taught much about it. If you aren’t taught, then you learn by observation. What do we observe,? well, sex in culture and media. Women are told that sex is part of your identity, or that you lose something when you have it. We teach women that they should be ashamed of sex, of having it, of thinking about it, of talking about it, of how often or how many partners they have. Yet we do just about the opposite with men. All too often do we write off inappropriate behavior with things like “boys will be boys,” while at the same time, shaming girls doing the same thing. But I am not going to preach to you about double standards.
What I really want to focus on is how the lack of proper teaching, and communicating leads to learning from sources that are the farthest thing from educational tools. That then leads to behavior that is not only non conducive to successful communication, but harmful as well. This not only dictates your communication during sex, but while dating, while flirting, while at work, with friends, and just about everywhere else, because our gender roles are so much a part of our identity.
How many women do you know that fantasized about their wedding day, or wedding dress as little girls, far before they thought about boys, or sex. Women are told to dream of perfection, and white knights, on horse back, with perfect features and mild lifeless and opinion-less personalities. Don’t you think it is kinda odd that we teach women to dream of a ceremony about the joining of two people in love before they even understand the concept of love. They dream of the wedding with a blank face for the groom, as if the wedding is more important and the groom will just appear when needed, and he will fit right in to this whole plan with no opposing ideas, or opinions, or any characteristics that might indicate independent thought.
As we develop into teens and young adults, we begin to seek out information about sex, and the opposite sex. We are full of hormones, and questions that society says we should be too embarrassed to ask our parents. So who do we turn to? The media, movies, TV shows, books, magazines, rumors from friends, social media sites, web ads, and every other possible source of stimuli being forced into our heads. The scariest thing is, sometimes what we are told is completely and profoundly ridiculous, yet with no one to tell us otherwise, we never know the difference.
Try and think back to your first kiss. Not the kiss itself, but the time when kissing was a new and scary concept to you. Most of us can remember talking to our friends about what we should do, and how its done, and (from a man’s perspective)how to drive a girl wild. Can you remember all the stupid shit you were told. I do: lick her teeth, mouth the alphabet with your tongue, dart your tongue in and out like a snake, just fucking ridiculous shit. I am willing to bet as you read this, there are some notions that you believe about the opposite sex or communicating about sex in general that are just as ridiculous, only they haven’t been challenged yet, so you just go about assuming they are right. We all do that.
We don’t realize how much we learn from the cultural environment around us, and how much our assumptions about the opposite sex are formed by things that have no merit teaching about it in the first place. We have all heard of Twilight, the teen vampire story. As adults with perspective and experience, its hard for us to understand how young boys and girls might use this as a learning tool to fill in the gaps about sex. But really think about what things you used to develop your understanding, and you might find that your tools were just as arbitrary, which is probably why even as adults we have such a hard time communicating about sex.
Teens went crazy, absolutely nuts, almost anarchy when Twilight was in its full swing. Then Fifty Shades of Gray, (if you didn’t know, started out as a Twilight fan fiction that was taken down from the fan site for being too graphic) comes out, and again Fifty percent of the population ( all the ladies) goes absolutely ape shit. Believe it or not, this phenomena has every mans attention. Whether they admit it or not, every man in the country is thinking “what about these men in these books are getting all these women aroused.” Now apply the filter that is the male gender role to their thinking process, and you get men making a list of attributes these fictional characters and their relationships have that are causing such a sexual up roar with women.
Do you know how many times Edward is described as “perfect” in the Twilight books? If you read, you will discover that the Author describes this character as vaguely detailed as possible, yet as the archetype of perfection, often avoiding how in any specific way he is perfect other than that he is “prefect.” So, as a man or boy, trying to identify what about the men or relationships in these books that is so special we look to their actions and how they act towards the main female character. Why? Because Male Gender Roles dictate that in order to be a man you must be desirable by women, and thus your search for what women desire is on going and aimless.
What do we see? A lack of openness of feelings and emotion (except under extreme circumstances), Strong, dark and cold demeanor, Rough and aggressive physically and sexually, even to the point of not having self control. objectified women, and an overbearing need for control over the woman in the relationship. This may not be what she sees, but from the outside looking in, this is the impression many guys get.
Think of Twilight, True Blood, Fifty Shades of Gray, Vampire Dairies, Jersey Shore…so many more, they all instill the brute aggressive male role that promotes violence and sexual assault against women. And if you think that men should know better, that boys in high school should know better, I ask how? society isn’t correcting these misguided assumptions, school isn’t and neither are the parents, they are feeding it, perpetuating it. However, I would like to be clear and stop any misunderstandings before they happen. There is a line, As far as these gender roles tell us to go, society still tells us what is right and wrong. I am not saying the Rapist, or men who abuse women are not at fault or somehow not to blame for their own actions because they are. That being said, gender roles and these notions in our culture and media give a lot of well intended men and women some pretty misguided ideas.
Lets talk about the act itself. The act of having sex, is a mystery for youth, only to be unveiled through bad experiences, let downs and unmet expectations. The only thing guiding us is the tools society says is okay to use…the media. Women are taught that they shouldn’t experiment with their body, and learning what makes them feel good is naughty and makes them ugly and less desirable; while at the same time, told that they should be a porn star in the bedroom. We have all heard “A lady in the street, a Freak in the sheets.” They are taught that a man should automatically be good at sex,that he will know exactly what to do, and how to do it, so that the woman will be satisfied beyond comprehension. And if that doesn’t happen, someone he is less of a man. Men are taught that size is the only thing that matters and if your big enough all you have to do is pull it out and stick it in. What a load of bullshit! Ladies and gentlemen, no one gets an instruction manual for having great sex, nor does the media have any good advice. It is absolutely insane to think that a person who does not even have the same anatomy as you, has any concept as to how to please you without some dialog.
I had a friend in high school that read somewhere that you can give a woman an orgasm just by talking in a low voice; that somehow the resonating of a low sexy voice would turn them on so much and so fast they would just orgasm right there on the spot. I laughed really hard in my head but didn’t challenge the idea. So for a good couple of months he would just walk up behind girls and whisper in their ear something sexy, thinking he was giving them orgasms. He would run up to me right after and say that he had just given so an so an orgasm…God I hope he doesn’t read this, I think I’m Facebook friends with him. My point is, neither sex is taught by a reliable means how to treat, engage in, or talk about sex, and until someone says “that is wrong” we continue believing no matter how absurd. . I will say that from a purely biological stand point guys are much more simple. But don’t trivialize that fact, because that has its own set of problems.
Imagine it this was, a woman’s body is like a remote control, with a bunch of buttons to press. Yet every woman’s body has its own configuration with the buttons in different places, all different from the rest. Now imagine a man’s body as a remote control, but with far less and completely different buttons. How is it fair to expect a man to know what buttons to press to get your “movie” going if you don’t even know where your buttons are, let alone how to work them yourself? Followed by the misrepresentation of sex in the media, I.E. (If I just act like a jack hammer, she will get their eventually, or that every man on television can bring his partner to orgasm over that 2 minute commercial break to conveniently finish at the same time, or that its the mans responsibility at all, as opposed to a shared activity.)
I could go into a bunch of facts about sex, and how much both women and men don’t know about the body, but I will just give you a Hyperlinks for that. I will say that lying about interests or being satisfied is the worst thing you can do. This only perpetuates the notions that there is nothing to talk about, and no need for change. People feel like they have to protect their partners ego, but that just leads to complications and dissatisfaction later. We are so self-conscious about being judged and shamed for what we like that we rather live a lie. This is the worst communication strategy ever.
I read this article the other day about a women jogging, and while she was out she saw a cyclist, and smiled at him and waved as they passed each other. After a few blocks of jogging she notice the man who was cycling had double backed and parked his bike and started jogging along side her. The article was about the fear in her mind, and the types of uncomfortable and dangerous situations women are put in while jogging. The jogger was so afraid that she called her husband, yet never told the man that he was making her uncomfortable, in fact did not verbalize to him anything that might give him the message his presence was not wanted. If you are a woman you might already be taking sides and calling him a creep. But is that really fair?
I can think of about 10 movies and TV shows that I have seen a “Meet Cute” scene where a man and woman are jogging and the man does something similar to get the woman’s attention. In fact I have seen it Twice on Royal Pains (a TV show) and in a half a dozen Romantic comedies. The point is, both men and women are learning how to interact with the opposite sex from things in the media that may or may not be an accurate depiction of how to go about communicating. If you do not challenge these notions, then we are only perpetuating this behavior. I can guarantee the cyclist didn’t see anything wrong with his approach, and will probably try it again on another women, because the woman didn’t challenge his notion that that approach was okay.
Both women and men tend to dichotomize or simplify what we know. We do this to break our notions into what society is already telling us. Men and women are both looking for things in the media that already correlate with the designated gender roles. We determining what is good and what is bad material to utilize in understanding how to communicate about sex with no real flow of logic, but rather at random. men are told they aren’t suppose to ask, and women are told they aren’t suppose to tell. How does that make any sense? It is all too easy to say “all men are pigs.” or “I bet she is a lesbian.” It is much harder to come to terms with the idea that no matter how old you are, you are probably not communicating about sex or to the opposite sex in the most productive way.
There is hope, and we are making progress. Think about that absolute frenzy I was talking about with Twilight and Fifty Shades of Gray, ten or twenty years ago I don’t think women felt as comfortable about expressing their interest in sex as much. Twenty years ago, these things would have been purchased in secret and discussed only in select circles. It is great and wonderful that women are able to express their sexuality more without being shamed as much, but there is a long way to go.
The Man In The Hat 