Figuring Out If a Women Really Wants It « Modern Love Sex & Relationships
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Lately I’ve been thinking about the, sometimes thorny issue of consenting to a sexual act. Recently, the topic kept presenting itself to me from different angles.
About a week ago, I was listening to a radio interview of two college-aged women who were present at a party celebrating a win for a college athletic team in the Silicon Valley area of CA. The party was in the small home of one of the players off campus.
These women described what they witnessed and what they did when an 18-year-old inebriated and passed out woman was sexually assaulted in a bedroom by approximately a half-dozen males at the party. On the radio, they were describing how the case played out in court recently to their chagrin, particularly because they were witnesses and yet, had never been called to testify. They went through the gory and frustrating details and it appears that further action may take place in court. Clearly, this passed out woman could not have consented by any definition of law though, unfortunately, this is not as uncommon as we would like to hope.
Then, I was reading an article about a new book, Studies in Applied Interpersonal Communication, by Michael Motley, a University of California at Davis professor. He did an interesting study on how males and females interpret what females say when in the very early stages of sexual kissing.
When a female says, “It’s getting late,” she means that she wants to stop what they’re doing and go their separate ways. If she finished her sentence, it would go, “I should already be home in bed – alone.” Most males in this study, however, interpreted this to mean that she wants to skip the preliminaries and go forward a bit more quickly.
Or, if a woman says, “I’m seeing someone else,” (meaning that she wants to stop because her affections are really with another man), males tend to think this means, “Keep going, but let’s be discreet,” or “Keep going, but I want you to know that I’m not making a commitment.”
Motley concludes that in their efforts to not offend or upset their male partners with direct and forceful words, women are merely confusing them. He found out that men would prefer to hear it loud and clear, even if it smarts a little bit, rather than trying to read the woman’s mind and risk offending her and/or losing the sexual opportunity.
Then, last night I watched the fourth and final episode on VH1 about the sexual revolution covering the 1950s up to the late 1980s. It was a well done piece and, from my view point, accurate. I’d lived through many of the hallmark events they highlighted during my 22 years in San Francisco. Colleagues, friends, and professors told the stories on screen that I had personally watched unfold.
One woman, at Plato’s Retreat in New York City, was trying to set a Guinness Record for having intercourse with men in a particular amount of time. She was aiming somewhere in the 80s. When she was interviewed midway through, she commented that she didn’t feel sexually fulfilled yet. Then, after her record-breaking marathon was over, she still commented that she could have enjoyed even more. Though she seemed euphoric, she did not seem “chemically altered,”; this was just who she was.
Then I thought about these three scenarios together. I realized that there was a connection between the illegal acts of the multiple rapes at the party, the misunderstanding of female communications during the early stages of sexual contact, and the quite amazing state of sexual desire the Plato’s Retreat woman demonstrated. Some young men (and some old) hope that women are insatiable, want it any time and any where, and that somehow having sex with them will contribute to the woman’s life, even if she’s unconscious.
In each of these scenarios the woman’s interest in sex is different. In one case, we don’t know what she wanted. And, while it’s possible that her idea of a good time is having intercourse with a roomful of young males while she’s unconscious, that’s not a bet I’d be very willing to take. In the next scenario, we’re not talking about rape – it’s merely miscommunication and misunderstanding. She might be interested in sex with the male in question, but just not right then. In the last case, she is very eager to go through as many men as possible and it’s clear that she does want this experience.
When I consider all these stories, I am struck by how accurate Alfred Kinsey was in the 1950s when he observed that women have a much wider range of variation than men in how they approach sex, what they do, and how they feel about it. So, what’s the “take home message” here? Crystal clear communication about sexual activity between people is a must.
http://www.webmd.com/
Lately I’ve been thinking about the, sometimes thorny issue of consenting to a sexual act. Recently, the topic kept presenting itself to me from different angles.
About a week ago, I was listening to a radio interview of two college-aged women who were present at a party celebrating a win for a college athletic team in the Silicon Valley area of CA. The party was in the small home of one of the players off campus.
These women described what they witnessed and what they did when an 18-year-old inebriated and passed out woman was sexually assaulted in a bedroom by approximately a half-dozen males at the party. On the radio, they were describing how the case played out in court recently to their chagrin, particularly because they were witnesses and yet, had never been called to testify. They went through the gory and frustrating details and it appears that further action may take place in court. Clearly, this passed out woman could not have consented by any definition of law though, unfortunately, this is not as uncommon as we would like to hope.
Then, I was reading an article about a new book, Studies in Applied Interpersonal Communication, by Michael Motley, a University of California at Davis professor. He did an interesting study on how males and females interpret what females say when in the very early stages of sexual kissing.
When a female says, “It’s getting late,” she means that she wants to stop what they’re doing and go their separate ways. If she finished her sentence, it would go, “I should already be home in bed – alone.” Most males in this study, however, interpreted this to mean that she wants to skip the preliminaries and go forward a bit more quickly.
Or, if a woman says, “I’m seeing someone else,” (meaning that she wants to stop because her affections are really with another man), males tend to think this means, “Keep going, but let’s be discreet,” or “Keep going, but I want you to know that I’m not making a commitment.”
Motley concludes that in their efforts to not offend or upset their male partners with direct and forceful words, women are merely confusing them. He found out that men would prefer to hear it loud and clear, even if it smarts a little bit, rather than trying to read the woman’s mind and risk offending her and/or losing the sexual opportunity.
Then, last night I watched the fourth and final episode on VH1 about the sexual revolution covering the 1950s up to the late 1980s. It was a well done piece and, from my view point, accurate. I’d lived through many of the hallmark events they highlighted during my 22 years in San Francisco. Colleagues, friends, and professors told the stories on screen that I had personally watched unfold.
One woman, at Plato’s Retreat in New York City, was trying to set a Guinness Record for having intercourse with men in a particular amount of time. She was aiming somewhere in the 80s. When she was interviewed midway through, she commented that she didn’t feel sexually fulfilled yet. Then, after her record-breaking marathon was over, she still commented that she could have enjoyed even more. Though she seemed euphoric, she did not seem “chemically altered,”; this was just who she was.
Then I thought about these three scenarios together. I realized that there was a connection between the illegal acts of the multiple rapes at the party, the misunderstanding of female communications during the early stages of sexual contact, and the quite amazing state of sexual desire the Plato’s Retreat woman demonstrated. Some young men (and some old) hope that women are insatiable, want it any time and any where, and that somehow having sex with them will contribute to the woman’s life, even if she’s unconscious.
In each of these scenarios the woman’s interest in sex is different. In one case, we don’t know what she wanted. And, while it’s possible that her idea of a good time is having intercourse with a roomful of young males while she’s unconscious, that’s not a bet I’d be very willing to take. In the next scenario, we’re not talking about rape – it’s merely miscommunication and misunderstanding. She might be interested in sex with the male in question, but just not right then. In the last case, she is very eager to go through as many men as possible and it’s clear that she does want this experience.
When I consider all these stories, I am struck by how accurate Alfred Kinsey was in the 1950s when he observed that women have a much wider range of variation than men in how they approach sex, what they do, and how they feel about it. So, what’s the “take home message” here? Crystal clear communication about sexual activity between people is a must.
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