My thoughts

Don't have a blanket trust in researchers in human behavior. Concerning studies on sexuality, *desire*, it's too easy to imagine them unconsciously driven to find the results they are most comfortable with.

Maybe there are bunches of theories afloat in the press, because we're at a transitional stage and are not yet certain as an aggregate which theory we *want* to be true concerning human sexuality/desire.

(I wonder how many men read Richmond's talk of tending to all of women's "omnivorous" [multifarious?] desires somehow more as attending to all their "carnivorous" desires?)

Felt like you were dancing (with and around things) in this article. Being fixed means possibly being passed over/bye, maybe? Maybe that's what it is with anything these days--a lot of things are up in the air, and we sense that if you stick with (what will prove) the losers, you'll "perish" with them. Be the acrobat; keep things juggling--never stick with any one thing for too long; and you'll never be caught, maybe? About keeping ourselves safe, more than it is about keeping ourselves interesting, maybe?

The invisible bi male

I don't know if the omission is repeated in the NYT article, but it is notable that apparently researchers aren't even bothering to study bisexuality in males. WTF?

ANOTHER GRABBER

It looks like Vanessa Redmond is ploughing the same beat as Shannon Rupp.

relationship

I had a relationship with a sex researcher some years ago...we never did get "physical"
but we`d sit by the fire with champagne and she`d slowly recite findings (whisper sometimes) to me. Incredibly Erotic!
All I could say was yeah? Oh Wow.

OUch!

"It looks like Vanessa Redmond is ploughing the same beat as Shannon Rupp."

no no no no no no no no.

This is well written, has direction, is interesting and thought provoking, and even has some kind of original perspective. I don't see neither value judgments, nor bad logic, nor even the hint of a rant!

And it has a clear conclusion!

And a fine conclusion it is!

I've been often quite irritated by the way science treats the topic of human sexuality. A lot of assumptions are made and seem to considered established facts which are more likely outgrowths of our society.
The most irritating assumption is that men are a certain way, women are also a certain (but more 'weird') way, and that a clear conclusion is possible!

O! Yes, let us embrace the mystery!

Excellent article. I agree

Excellent article. I agree with schmendrick. Good stuff.

As a sidenote, and totally apart from the focus of the article (which is women's sexuality), I wonder if the method of selection and classification of male participants in scientific studies of sexuality needs to be re-appraised. The problem I'm seeing is that they're all turning up identical assumptions: male sexuality is "set", without nuance, straight versus gay, no cross-over or variation at any point in the lifecycle. This jives with conventional "straight" wisdom, but not with empirical observation. Not by a long shot. I think what's needed is a longitudinal study of a large pool of males from pre-puberty to sexual maturity in order to hammer down a proper typology for male sexual variation - a typology that is not politically determined in advance. It has to span puberty & adolescence because if male sexuality does indeed become invariable and "set" after a certain age (following an early period of bisexual variation) then these facts need to inform future scientific investigation of human sexuality. The danger of the status quo interpretation is that heterosexist misnomers are being endogenously perpetuated by the very parameters of the studies themselves.

Urban Myth?

"(Which got at least one blogger saying that she knows plenty of women who like to go out and pick up men, not just wait for an invitation)."

I have yet to meet a woman who matches that description. And no, I've not led all that sheltered a life.

Doesn't seem like such a great idea to me

...paying more attention to and enjoying women's (and men's) sexually omnivorous and often mysterious desires?

And given where it's gotten us so far I'd say maybe we've gone a bit too far in that direction.

I'm not suggesting restraint so much as I'm suggesting responsibility. Maybe time for the 'me' generation to turn into the 'we' generation...i

And staying away from the idea that real life, a decent moral and ethical code working hard for stable families and relationships that sometimes seem to have become outmoded because a particular physiological response is complex, ambiguous and multi-factorial and involves some 'pleasure'.

In the end, we're better served by using our minds to do something other than stimulating our desires....

See Roger Shattuck's Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography.

In the end, I'm not suggesting we need to reject legitimate research, but more than ever scientists, critics and popularizers and style setters must accept some responsibility for their judgments and their suggestions.

No need to burn the messenger - but a real need to evaluate, criticize and avoid normalizing rather than simply endorsing the work and adopting it as Gospel. [And yes, the pun is intended - we've been there before and it did not turn out well.]

Important Perspective

A few days ago I noticed the Times article and glanced at it and found myself reading through to the end. The writer interviewed various careful and methodical researchers. It struck me that the findings by the woman in Las Vegas were somewhat against her established concepts and she thoughtfully elaborated on possible conclusions. The ramifications, though complex, are important.

Rather than the conclusions and possibilities that came from Kinsey and Masters and Johnson almost half a century ago, the New York Times article updates and makes more generally accessible a field of behavioral study in an important, contemporary and objective way.

how to

"how to arouse men"

The Rules of Arousal

1) Be human and alive*

2) have an orifice

*optional

BETTER PIECE, SAME GROUND

shmendrick
[i]This is well written, has direction, is interesting and thought provoking, and even has some kind of original perspective. ...[i]

It may be a better piece, but it's covering essentially the same marketing ground. It's from the same genre.

Stereotypes

hmmm... well if we go to the stereotypes of how to arouse men, I guess there's always the ones for women... well just one rule actually.

Rules of Arousal
1) Have a big fat near bottom-less wallet.

I'd be interested to know the population samples of the women involved in many of these studies, and if the majority of them were simply, or largely North American middle class women. In my experience women from different cultures are very different in the ways they express their sexuality, and quite different in what creates desire in them.

What is interesting about the studies is that one way of looking at the results is that men are very in tune with their bodies, and women are not. Certainly not fitting to stereotype there.

The interesting question then is: how much of that dissonance for women is created by their cultural acclimation, and how much is some form of genetic inheritance? But therein also lies a false dichotomy, as there seems to be a mistaken assumption that biology trumps culture. Well in fact your environment has considerable impact on which of the genes you are endowed with get expressed.

One thing is certain about our culture, its attitude toward women's sexuality is remarkably confused, hypocritical and just plain mixed up. Is it little wonder then that this confusion seems to have considerable physiological expression in women?

Important coverage

Great coverage of a pivotal area of human behavior. The Kinsey research broke very significant ground in educating society about sexuality in both men and women. Since then, we've heard way too much about men and not enough about women. Ms. Richmond's research is certainly supported by what most men and women know: most male mammals have a predictable series of behaviors when it comes to sexual interaction with a mate.

When it comes to hominids, for centuries there was little information or curiosity about what women may or may not want. With a growing increase in equality (we still have a ways to go for parity), we can now begin to discover what those wants may be. And as many men already know, the answer may remain elusive. Great article.

The rethinking is slow, but sure

If that article was fluff, as some here seem to think, then let's let's have lots more of the same, Mr Beers, since Vanessa has provided us with an enjoyable and thought-provoking read, worthy of revisiting.

I think that some of us are annoyed that so much of her information re female sexuality is ill-defined and speculative. But I think it should be so and in contradistinction to the more predictable male desirings.

I have long wondered how some women endure the ignorance of many kinds that their male partners exhibit, esp their having to crawl into the sack with them, willing or not, and Vanessa's article brings a few things into focus for me.

Clearly, if women were as dependant upon psychological arousal as a man is for an erection, and if they didn't lubricate automatically upon penetration, there would be far fewer of us born, and fewer lasting relationships than even today's.

And most certainly women have had to evolve a varied bag of tricks to maintain a coping strategy in the wide variety of relationships which have traditionally placed them in a subservient position to the dominant male, among which has been foregoing sexual pleasure, particularly in days past.

It has been only in relatively recent years that that we've accepted that women have a right to an orgasm, and so that and related questions are creating considerable difficulty in balancing our still traditionally conservative values (which we've yet to come to grips with) against what Jeffrey J calls "parity"

I can still recall the outrage in the days when Kinsey did his trail-blazing studies of human sexuality - esp his writing them up English instead of Latin so the hoi polloi could read them, which any "respectable" researcher would not have done. Quite clearly, and as then predicted, this has resulted in our modern Sodom, as GWest notes :

"In the end, we're better served by using our minds to do something other than stimulating our desires...."

Sorry, Garth, your cat's full out of the bag now, and no amount of moralizing about morals will cram its fury back in.

I disagree

And I think the state of the family, the mess in our schools, the lack of critical analysis in the press and the rampant desire to do little more than cater to personal narcissism and self-aggrandizement are all the evidence I need to make that case.

Let's use research dollars - especially publicly funded dollars, to do something a little more worthwhile than prying Pandora's box open a little farther.

Fundamentalism, whether scientific or religious, is not always the best answer.

I'd be far more likely to support research that helped men understand their 'needs' aren't always the only thing under the table and I'm hardly likely to support the adoption of the same irresponsibility by women.

We've counted on them to sort out our mistakes for generations - encouraging them to adopting a similarly priapean approach to pleasure won't help the situation much.

I’m with Lynn, lovingly healthy sexuality in a stable relationship (however defined) is the key. Aimless exploration of the biology is far less important to the future – and the present.

Boners

This one’s a beauty.
Some guy writes another article on women's sexuality?
Who cares?
According to UrbanDictionary.com, a ladyboner is: When a woman gets turned on by another woman or gay man.
Pretty limited arousal parameters, which usually results in pretty limited perceptions...this is all a woman wants?
…And the flaws.
So they fit something over the male penis but the clitoris is excluded and the test measures the blood flow inside of the vagina? Maybe these scientists could get a grant to understand physical intricacies first.
Where is mention of hormones? Love?
I’m disappointed in this cheesy grab. Pun intended.
This is the Tyee, where’s the scoop? Sure you’re all over the net with this one, but are you in this millennium? There are so many more interesting questions to ask about arousal, than which act of boning turns you on the most …today.

Reader's Responses Are the story

In my next life I want to do an MA thesis studying the articles in the Tyee, along with the responses posted by readers. Particularly with respect to women's issues and women writers.

The reaction is truly remarkable. The chauvinism that women have struggled against is still obvious in public society. Women and women's issues still retain a 2nd class status for some. Thank god for Canada's intellectual community (and the Tyee!), which has moved boldly forward in seeking equality between coverage of male and female writers and their topics.

Great job.

Jeffrey J.

Better not wait for your next life, Jeffrey J., for the time to participate in the dopamine rush of equal rep. while all else rots (in anguish) or wilts (in boredom?), is now. The generation Vanessa talked about earlier--Generationwillneverownahome--would have known instantly--if Hillary had won the presidency--that she'd have continued sending young people to their deaths in Afghanistan, and talked a lot more about how young people need "to work harder" [read: suffer more]. And some of them will soon get over their Obama worship--which promised the near irresistible vision of pacified parents (end of discord), generations uniting--and understand too that he'll primarily be about making sure baby-boomers are taken care of while they spend out their remaining years thinking themselves all Green, tolerant (did you know there were no black people in the major leagues in 1940?, and now we have [voted in] a black president!), relevant, and wonderful--on their way to heaven (while tended to by admiring youngins), surely!

There is nothing bold these days about advancing women's rights. (Unless you long for hell, when the subject of women or race comes up in any conversation, you'd better find means to broadcast your wished identification and thorough support and sympathy!) And don't you see that we've set things up so that people like Harper are going to have such an easy time of it, 'cause all they'll need to do is hire more non-white females to advance destructive policies than the opposition does to hopefully advance nurturing ones--and the opposition can readily be blocked or broken, with charges or racism/sexism? For a taste of what this is like, check out how FOX News tried to identify/destroy Ralph Nader as racist (and itself as pure) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IshiClQqCM.

PC... deja vu all over again...

"...been only in relatively recent years that that we've accepted that women have a right to an orgasm..."

"Women and women's issues still retain a 2nd class status for some."

Well here we have some classic cases of labeling and rather extreme over statement.

Try reading some literature to see the extent men have been obsessed with what women want with regards to love and intimacy through history.

There can be little doubt that there is a lot of confusion out there about women's sexuality. But to assert garbage like it's only in recent years that we've (whoever that is) accepted the "right" of women to orgasm is bizarre and ludicrous. Is orgasming a right? How would we legislate that exactly? Do we quantify it in terms of numbers of orgasms, or do we codify quality based on the length of orgasm, the quantity of neuronal stimulation, what punishments get meted out for failure... yadda yadda.

God save us from academics and intellectuals with no common sense and too much time on their hands.

I'm routinely disgusted by the kneejerk propensity for the politically correct to assign categorical and stereotypical labels in one area, while trotting out the shield of victimization to disarm any critique directed at their ideas. Why not try instead to take the time to intelligently and insightfully discuss an issue?

I also get tired of the notion that all the impetus for change with regards to socio-cultural sexual behaviour rests with men. We're dealing with complex cultural issues here. The behaviour of many women in their intimate relationships leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. Papering over that problem by labeling any mention of it as chauvinism just creates distance and anger. The whole area then just doesn't get dealt with, and instead simmers, and occasionally spits out tragedy.

ETERNAL AROUSAL

Jeffrey J.
In my next life I want to do an MA thesis studying the articles in the Tyee, ...

It'll be a restless existence. Eternal arousal at the hands of those who know hot to titillate and tease, with "intellectual pieces" on sex.

I can't help it. Everytime I drop in on this thread and see people trying to take this article seriously I see an advertisement from the 1970s. It shows a casually well dressed, youngish professional male, nice looking guy, and the line across the ad reads "What kind of man reads Playboy?"

right to le petit mort

" the "right" of women to orgasm is bizarre and ludicrous."

I too was befuddled by this. Mostly because I wondered at what point in a liaison this right would kick in? Actual intercourse, oral sex, heavy petting, dinner and drinks? Even more interesting to me is the idea that a woman might have that right, but a man doesn't.

Interesting.

Labels

Yeah, I get the same feeling although the image generated is circa an early '90s university setting where a Dworkin-like woman is displayed above a quote:

"Intercourse is the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women"

Heck we can throw labels around all you want RS. I'm not entirely sure I see their utility. But perhaps smug self-satisfaction in creatively pigeon-holing people is easier than tackling complexity. That certainly seems to be the case for a number of the above comments. Kinda sad really.

I recall reading that in the

I recall reading that in the past Chinese men were actually educated in the skill of "pleasing a woman". Perhaps it's time for a little 101 at VCC... might help "stimulate" the economy too, all these folks signing up for a little continuing education.

Chou Dynasty - 770 BC to 222 BC (pre- Confucianist)

Perhaps the trick is all in the yin and the yang:

"The Chou dynasty had a Taoist doctrine although Taoism itself was not a formal religion yet. They divided men and women into the yin and the yang. Women were said to have an unexhaustable supply of yin
While men had a limited supply of yang.
It was forbidden for men to use up their yang essence without acquiring plenty of yin essence. That meant that before a man was allowed to ejaculate, he had to
prolong it, making a woman orgasm several times to acquire her yin essence. If a man ejaculated or used up his yang essence without taking any yin essence it was said to cause him health problems and even death."
from: http://www.bigeye.com/sexeducation/ancientchina.html

pursuing only the "orgasm"?

First of all, for Fii's benefit, China has never had a religion - our definition requires a belief in a God or Gods. That the Chinese believed in a God is a myth Christians promote to underscore the falsity that we humans have ALWAYS believed in a "God" in some form. The Chinese, the first truly "civilised" peoples in the world, followed the advice of Philosophers, as any truly civilised peoples should do. And now to my rant :

Having come of age in the Fifties and having personally witnessed the arguments endlessly discussed in the also trail-blazing "Playboy Philosophy", which has been successfully vilified and dismissed by the neocon "Moral Majority" - I am now surprised to see them resurface now in the Tyee, which usually has a decidedly Libertarian flavour.

"Women's Liberation" will never come about until women are sexually free. That issue is still writ large in "choice" re abortion, which Conservatives see only as a moral lapse, and prostitution, for another.

Underlying that premise is the Christian notion that we humans are predisposed toward "sin".. And underlying THAT notion is the "Desert Religion's" preoccupation with procreation as a means of increasing the numbers of the "tribe", and hence their many proscriptions re sexual “sin”, which they retain the right to delineate, intended to foster the secure raising of children.

Anyone at all familiar with these religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - knows that while male indulgence in sex outside of marriage is theoretically proscribed, that practice has never been seriously attacked – as is to be expected, since these religions are paternalistic and male dominated. The good ol boys reigned there too, and still do.

And so in the past we’ve seen the female as virgin until marriage, having value only as bearers of children whose paternity is assured, become the only role for the average woman. The reconstruction of that role is today still far from being accomplished.

And so the old role is under attack by women - not because it is 100% wrong, but because it has been forced upon them, leaving them unfree to pursue other options. And I recall the fight in the 40s and 50s just to have divorce granted by the State, as being a bitter one.

Always opposing such change are religiously-driven outfits like Real Women, and the Moral Majority, who maintain that Women's Liberation puts marriage and “the family” under attack. And of course it does .... traditional marriage, that is.

More below

More orgasming

It is somewhat sad to see the friction caused within modern relationships as we males try to adjust our traditionally-driven views re what "maleness" is, (and which a lot of unthinking women subscribe to), with the untraditional goals women now seek.

This is a conflict conservatives hope to inflame in the hope that the old values will supervene. An example of that desire is seen in ruinous divorce settlements imposed upon men by conservative judges in the hope of making divorce unpalatable.

But as I noted for GWest, the sexual cat is full out of its constricting bag, and no-one is going stuff it back in, particularly in the form of paternalistic marriages. And however distasteful it may be for prudes, the “right” to an orgasm will remain as symbolic of women’s drive for sexual freedom.

But marriage is far from becoming obsolete. Some women and men will still opt for the traditional variety, while others will increasingly opt for simply living together.

For most people, living with another person will remain as the most fulfilling life option, and concern for offspring will also remain a central concern for parents, with the traditionalist's "continuing the bloodline" of decreasing importance.

May I suggest then, that traditionalists get out of the way, and help instead of hinder women in their search for "parity".

And here's an aphorism I picked up from the Playboy Philosophy "

"Men will never be truly free until women are" …….Think on it.

amendment

Please allow me to modify the last sentence in the first paragraph of the post directly above to read ".... with the untraditional goals those same women now seek."

IMO, the addition of "those same" emphasizes the Catch 22 both sexes face as they seek adjustment to changing, sometimes conflicting, values.

Couples who spend most of

Couples who spend most of their life together in a loving, sharing way, are not best understood as traditional, for history has offered us very little of such. My guess is that the healthiest of the current generation, who are very at ease with the specific sort of talk about multiple partners, orgasm and pleasure, Vanessa offers, and who would find 50s Playboy stuff, at best, humorously clumsy and silly, will end up in the kind of lifelong (essentially) monogamous relationships History has so long held up as the ideal. Not about control, not about putting a ring on it, but about life partners enjoying an ongoing, enjoyable "conversation"--sexual and otherwise--with one another. Relaxed and fun, not tight and dutiful.

We've got to stop teaching boys a history where their origins are in the management and abuse of women. It's sin focussed and abusive. Something drove men to feel the need to want to control women. The current answer seems to amount to suggestions of some inherent badness, but I think fear of female sexuality arises out of boys being used sexually by their mothers--out of real felt personal experience of fearful female sexuality, out of incest. Women are always suspect in the male imagination, after that. As women get more respect and love, they feel less of a need to use their boys to ward off their depression, and their boys grow up fearing women less and less. And so we get some of the healthier couplings we see today.

The cause of most divorces.....

....men who bore (meaning can't please anyone but themselves) women............

Oh well,

I'll leave it to Patrick McEvoy to represent the silliness of some of the comments here :

"We've got to stop teaching boys a history where their origins are in the management and abuse of women. It's sin focussed and abusive. Something drove men to feel the need to want to control women."

Unless you understand how and why things have gone wrong in the past, you cannot possibly know what to change, or avoid making the same mistakes again.

And unless you can respect the pioneering efforts of the Kinseys, the Masters and Johnsons, the Hefners and all the others who challenged authoritarian convention by wading into forbidden waters, you're a fool to boot.

Of course their findings look archaic now, but they began our long overdue inquiry into human sexuality, and opened a new area for the process of hypothesis and antithesis in the always laborious and never ending struggle to define "truth" concerning human affairs.

Yapping and nipping at the heels of those who question already received wisdom will forever be the religionists and the social conservatives - who will claim they already know the answers, and so it's foolish not to take their advice.

If we had followed their advice, we'd still be living in caves.

ME2

I did suggest what went wrong in the past. You missed this, I guess. Too bad, for I very much was wading into forbidden waters with the idea of widespread maternal incest as the cause of men's desire to control female sexuality.

And I think you should be fair and add to the list of those who "[y]ap and nipp at the heels of those who question already received wisdom," the new avant-garde. People actually becoming nurturing life-long partners, and not just romancing the idea of it, may actually be something quite new to History.

ME2

ME2:

I appreciate, though, that you are not one of those who would chain people in; that you are someone who finds abhorrent that women and men have for so long not known what it is to feel relaxed and free about their sexuality; that you are someone who will do his damndest to make sure we don't go back to the "good old days" of circumscribed freedom and relationship misery.

I am concerned, though, that the new wave of progressivism (when it comes) will sound only as old conservatism--something to be fought, not embraced--by those whose progressive heroes date back awhile. (I'm in contact with some of my progressive heroes, but they can't recognize when their own ideas are being pushed forward--they sense only regress, alas.)

Cheers,
patrickmh