I know that I am not trained to be a journalist, and if one of these professionals came into my world and professed to know how to tackle my job, I think I might be a little aggrieved.
Poor journalists! They are in a mighty difficult position sometimes. People think it is a relatively easy job. The majority can write. Isn’t that all you have to be able to do?
Well, not exactly, unless you write for the Daily Mail or the News of the Screws.
No, journalists have an important role to play in life.
They are the commentators in places and on themes that the masses do not have access to influence. In some ways, they are more of a mouthpiece on social change than the elected (and non-elected) members with the power to legislate. They can seriously influence collective thoughts of the masses. Look at how some of the media campaigns over the years have directly impacted on the law being changed.
But journalists also have a responsibility, in my opinion, to reach out and explore, to challenge the norms, to question and consider the societal issues that are most prevalent to the people.
Of course, they have to account the daily or weekly news but I really feel they are also there to get the ball rolling on a range of life issues.
What I really cannot bear sometimes is reading something in the newspaper that really doesn’t take on the enormity of a subject when there is such an opportunity to do so; an opportunity that I would welcome so emphatically. This happened to me yesterday when I read an article about female sexuality.
In gross and possibly inaccurate summary, the article said that women want to fall in love whereas men are just interested in fucking.
Wrong on both counts! Wrong also to continue with this jaded and archaic representation on male and female sexuality! Wrong in not challenging it! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!
There are so many parts of this article that I want criticise, I hardly know where to start!
But let us start at the beginning.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/17/tanya-gold-stripping
1. The Title: “Women watch men strip for the fun of it. But men watch women undress for a much darker reason.” What darker reason? Is being sexual and recognising your sexuality a darkness? Is recognising you are a sexual being not ‘fun’? There are subtle uses of familiar words here that are already perpetuating myths and inaccuracies before the article has even opened. I know that the article is about stripping in public but if you equate this to a sexual situation between two consenting adults, then such a phrase is appallingly laughable, and I know that I am taking this out of context but bear with me. I get a laugh out of seeing a man strip in front of me. I enjoy it because it is ‘funny’ to see an erect cock whereas when I strip, the only thing he wants to do is get his cock inside me, and that is a dark thing? Such a statement on a level of intimacy between two people is clearly stupid but I would argue that the same could be said for collective enjoyment of stripping and all things sexual, i.e. the statement, the title is wrong! Some women may watch men strip for fun. A small minority of men may watch women undress for darker reasons but sweeping statements like this reiterate a degree of separation between male and female sexuality that does not exist!
2. The article goes on to discuss the Chippendales performance and the fact that women were behaving exactly as expected, waving in excitement, acting “like a man” is stereoptypically supposed to at a strip club, whooping and guffawing but then as soon as the ‘sex’ is placed in front of them, they all go shy and timid and don’t really want any more of it because what women really want is a hug and some tenderness. They want the cock to love them. Wrong! There are some women who would quite like to reach out and get a good mouthful of the cock who has just stripped in front of them but because of writing such as this, they have become accustomed to the idea that this is deviant behaviour. Nice girls don’t touch! Nice girls don’t even think such things because admitting that you might be turned on by seeing a man’s cock is not acceptable behaviour.
3. Women, apparently, prefer to watch sexual acts collectively whereas men go to strip clubs on their own. Why is this the case, I wonder? Can I please make it clear here, that the Chippendales do not appeal to me at all. The thought of going to a performance like this is simply not sexual but more of that later. Women do not attend these performances on their own because it is not socially acceptable to do so. By attending alone, you are actually saying that you are going there to get your rocks off. Blimey, our society can hardly bear to think that women masturbate so why would they contemplate a woman going to a sex show to get turned on in the way that they almost take for granted that a man could be attending for the same reasons?
4. The article mentions women’s “hackneyed female fantasy – the policeman, the fireman, the soldier, the gangster.” Although she mentions the fact that this is a hackneyed fantasy, by merely mentioning it, it implies that this is all women are capable of. The “hackneyed” fantasy is there for a reason because women cannot really be fantasising about things that are slightly more errant. I know this is a little trite but let’s take the other side of hackneyed fantasies. Apparently, most men fantasise about watching two women having sex with one another. What if a woman has fantasies about watching two women having sex together? Is that hackneyed too? Of course it isn’t, because the large majority of the population think that it is inconceivable that a woman might have such fantasies because it is far too sexy, and far too in a man’s domain. My point is that female and male fantasies don’t have to be that different. We are human beings and ergo we have sexual desires and those desires should not be portrayed as having huge gulfs between them on the basis of gender differentiation.
I am stopping doing this in number form, not because I have run out of points to make but because what I have to say now needs to be made very clear once and for all.
The entire article is essentially saying that men and women are totally different when it comes to sexuality.
Men can attend strip clubs alone, have a wank, have an ogle and then it is all over. Their sexual urges are satisfied. They don’t need a kiss and a cuddle. They don’t desire the tender post-coital moments because they are already thinking about the next time that they can get cock in cunt. Women however, don’t want to attend strip clubs alone, even if it was ‘allowed’ because they don’t like voyeuristic sex. They may be excited by a huge chunk of beefiness with a big dangling one but as soon as they are invited to go further, they are disinterested because they are “sugar and spice and all things nice”. They want to have an emotional connection with a lover because raw sex is not what women want.
I find this sort of generalisation totally unacceptable for men and women.
To assume or make assumptions that men watch women strip for ‘dark’ reasons is abhorrent. Men want tenderness, affection, warmth in sexuality as much as women do. Likewise, women want horniness, lustiness, sexual fun as much as men. In both cases though, it is simply not acceptable to say so. It is not acceptable for a woman to admit to wanting a fuck – just because that is what they want. They need a cock or a finger inside them to waggle around and hit those important parts of their body, sending them into a climatic state of arousal because that is bloody good for them. Get this – women have sexual urges too!
Men are human beings too. They want to feel wrapped in affection once they have had sex. They want to feel the warmth and the joys of intimacy with another that includes the opportunity to lie together having had sex and just allow that gorgeous feeling of togetherness ride over them.
Or of course, this might not be the case. There are some men who just want a fuck. They recognise their sexual urges and they want to do something about it. End of! However, judging by the young women I have seen on holiday this year, walking around the streets half clad with tits and pussies moreorless in your face, I would surmise that there are plenty of women out there who want exactly the same thing. They are gagging for a quickie! They’ve practically got their knickers off ready for it, and whilst that is not what I would want, and whilst I am not saying that just because they are dressed provocatively means that are automatically inviting it, we have to get used to the idea that some actually want it!
What this article does is perpetuate a whole load of myths based on flimsy and inconsequential evidence. As one commentator puts it, “Interesting article, but global pronouncements on the motives of entire genders with no evidence just makes it a curious talking point.”
Another commentator puts it more succinctly than I ever could.
“Men are allowed to eroticise women. Women are rarely given the opportunity to eroticise men; it's all for laughs. If I were a guy, I'd be pretty pissed off that my sexuality was constantly being ridiculed. It insults women too. Once again we're being told our desire doesn't exist. Being a straight woman can feel like having a fringe sexuality.
The idea that women aren't really interested in sex, that it's all about giggles and cuddles is utter nonsense. I wish this article had delved deeper and looked at why and how that idea is perpetuated in our culture instead of presenting it as some essential difference between nasty men and nice women.
The issue is not what we reveal about ourselves when we watch strippers but what it reveals about our culture.”
And here lies the real essence of such drivel. This article is not revealing anything about anyone other than the writer and the society that she writes for being unable to accept that women have raw, instinctual sexual desires that are not deemed to be socially acceptable. Even those of us who feel more sexually enlightened than others cannot really ‘come out’ and admit to the fact that we like sex, we want sex, we need sex.
Try as I might, I cannot bring myself to walk into my lover’s house and drop my knickers at the merest of provocation or hint that he might want me to do this because for my entire lifetime, I have had it drummed into me that I must contain, suppress or ignore the nagging little point that I may be a sexual beast, and if I did behave in that way, the only obvious thing to be said for me is that I am a nymphomaniac, and whilst we are on that subject, what is the male equivalent for such a phrase? Oh that’s right – there isn’t one!
With glorious synchronicity, last night a friend of mine was telling me why he split from his partner. He lived at one end of the country and his lover at the other. Due to a variety of commitments, they could only see each other once a fortnight. When they met up, they had the most incredible and frequent sex; three or four times a night and the best sex my friend has ever experienced. One of the reasons that he thought it was the best sex was because his partner was open and honest about her sexuality and her sexual needs. Nothing was held back, and this was exacerbated due to the lack of frequency of their sexual encounters. He walked in the door and she was pulling his dick out of his trousers before he could recover from the four hundred miles or so journey.
The split came because my friend happened on one occasion to be too knackered to do anything about it. Even little blue pills could not have ‘lifted’ his game and all he wanted to do was climb into bed, take his lover in his arms and gently fall asleep with the woman that he loved. She was agonisingly pissed off and threw him out of the house because he hadn’t performed.
Obviously, there was more to the split than that but in some ways, I really admire her for being honest enough to say, “Listen matey, you are needed for sex and you had better give me a damn fine seeing to”. But it also illustrates the fact that whilst my friend clearly enjoys sex in a way that men are supposed to, he also wanted the other stuff too. He wanted the affection and understanding. He got as much out of lying naked with his lover than actually having penetrative sex. Gross and inaccurate stereotypes based on gender differentiation should not be part of the real world.
So I say to Ms. Gold, author of this piece, and her editors - if you cannot consider an article that breaks down and challenges these inappropriate and stereotypical myths then please, move over to enable others that can. Let us please look at de-flowering female sexuality. Let us stop seeing men as some sexual predators who are only interested in getting their cocks dampened in pussy. Sex is far too important to trivialise in this way, and I am sick and tired of feeling like a social freak because I have the foresight and awareness to admit that I want sex.
And whilst we are on that subject, there may be women out there who just want sex and are happy to be fucked by anyone because it is the sex that is important to them. All I can say is that they are deeply flawed in some ways too, just as the stereotype of their male counterpart is. They are missing out on the real joy of sex; the sex where rampant sexuality is very much a part of it but so too is that utter oneness and connectivity that can only come from having sex with someone that means something to you. To me it is rather like masturbation. You can get a kick and an orgasm out of touching yourself or using a vibrator and the physical excitement and energy from that orgasm is bloody good but without the affection, without the touch of another human being, without being able to see the effect of your orgasm on another, without sharing each other’s orgasms and sexuality, the sex is a mere shadow of its potential being.
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A footnote: I am slightly heartened by the fact that this is the second article in one week of a sexual nature that invited comments. This is the second time in that week where the comments have surpassed the 700 counter.
There is an interest in sex out there and judging by the comments, there is an interest in challenging the very things that I am suggesting.
A second footnote: Do feminist writers really think that they are doing women a favour by suppressing female sexuality in this way? How can it be good for womankind to be robbed of the right to be sexually expressive?
A third footnote: ‘F’ words and gender – just for a minute, think about words beginning with ‘f’ that have something to do with sexuality. Put these words into columns of male and female and both. How many harsh, raw words are being placed in the male side? How many ‘frivolous’, flirty, fun words are in the female section? Take it further than the letter ‘f’ and see how even through our language we are perpetuating the problem.
A final footnote: I want a fuck!
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