We select our sexual partners based on gender, age, and beauty. This selection process necessarily causes some, who are deemed more desirable, to have an abundance of sexual and bonding opportunities in their life, and others to have little or no opportunity to get their needs met. It divides us into the "haves" and the "have-nots".
Beyond beauty and age, there are also social skills - the ability of people to maneuver in the nuanced world of social cues and clues, and to be able to express feelings easily and accurately, to be emotionally intelligent, to be socially skilled. Men on the Asperger's spectrum (and there are four times as many men than women with Asperger's) have greatly reduced chances of finding a sexual or a bonding partner. Social and emotional skills are critical to many women; and men without them will not be favored.
I have, personally, puzzled over this imbalance for years, and as I get older, I notice an ever shrinking number of women who are attracted and available to me. I am rapidly falling into the category of the sexually undesirable, simply because of age.
I am going to address this problem in heterosexual terms. I applaud and am proud that we are addressing the needs of the LGBTQ community - that needed to be done. However, the 98% of humans who think in binary terms and prefer the opposite gender should also have their needs more clearly addressed.
The different experiences of men and women should be noted clearly. Very few men will say they have all the sex they want in their lives. Many, many women have all the sex they want - many women are seeking more emotional connection than sex, or they already have satisfying sexual relationships, or they have lost sexual desire. This creates a deep imbalance between the genders. If you look at those who show up at any event with sexual overtones, and who use the online dating, porn, and prostitution industries, as well as those who engage in sexual acts of violence, it is overwhelmingly men.
Often society is blamed for this imbalance. It is said that assigned and assumed gender roles play a huge part in the sexual problems of modern society. While there is truth to that, I do not believe that the imbalance between the genders is primarily a societal problem. Society merely encodes the values that are already present in individuals - it is the collection of individual preferences that creates the problem. Evolution has built the desire for sex into fertile creatures. Older men are still fertile, and older women are not, resulting in many women losing their libido after menopause. Thus, older men have a desire for younger women. As much as we would like to have someone to blame, the fact is that we are becoming trapped by our own sexual natures into a dilemma for which there are no easy answers.
Straight men cannot be asked to get their sexual needs met by other men, any more than gays can be "cured" of their homosexuality. Sexual preferences seem to be pretty much hardwired in us and not very subject to choice. Men *can* learn to get some of their emotional and touch needs met from other men, and I believe it is crucial that we do that. Male bonding is greatly needed, and may relieve some of the loneliness that men feel. But saying that heterosexual men should meet their own sexual needs as a gender is not respectful of their nature, any more than asking women to ignore their feelings and be responsible to meet men's sexual needs.
In traditional societies, it has been the obligation of the wife to satisfy the sexual needs of the husband, regardless of her own level of desire. That may have eased some of the problem. However, our culture today has considered women’s rights and thus, it is no longer legal to hold women responsible for the sexual needs of men, and men can no longer legally use the institute of marriage to demand sex of their wives. And yet, the desire for sex is a need inherent in men; not one created by women. While obligatory sex may have been a societal solution at one time, it is no longer viable in today's society.
I suspect some men would be less likely to be violent if they had a satisfying outlet for their sexual needs. Do not misunderstand - the responsibility for men's behavior is *always* on themselves, not on women or society; we are always responsible for the harm we do to others, regardless of the strength of our desire. However, if we, as a society, could find some better way of meeting men's sexual needs, it could reduce some of the violence we see today. If we want to have a happier society, we have to meet the needs of *all* people within it, to the best degree we can.
I do not see any easy answers to this dilemma. However, a few things could help:
- Men can learn to meet their emotional needs, and even touch needs, from each other, through men's groups and male friendships. That can relieve some of the isolation and loneliness that men without female companionship experience. Men have significantly more difficulty being close to their own gender than women, but that can be overcome.
- Prostitution could be legalized. If women are being asked to do something as intimate as sex with someone they are not attracted to, there should be compensation for those willing. In fact, there should be deep honoring, not scorn, for the women who choose this profession, because they are addressing a deep and crucial need in our society. To want women to be sexually available, and then scorn them for being so, is the height of hypocrisy.
- Men can focus on learning relationship skills and increasing emotional intelligence and sensitivity, and thus provide more of what women want from men in return for a sexual relationship.
Human needs are important, and we owe it to ourselves to build a society that meets as many of our needs as possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment