Monthly Archives: December 2022

As I wrote Monday, for many people sexual relations work like retail shopping: women run the store and sell sex to men, in return for money, gifts or marriage.

Of course when women give sex to men, they get sex in return but that’s not a fair exchange, it’s “giving it away.” Underpinning this is the assumption, sometimes implicit but often explicit, that women control the market because men are much hornier: “The one who is more eager to make the deal is in a weaker position than the one who is willing to walk away.”

If that were true, society wouldn’t have to slut-shame women, restrict access to birth control or employ female genital mutilation to stop them from having sex. There’s be no problem keeping women virgin until marriage. Nevertheless, many people remain convinced women only put up with sex to land a boyfriend or a husband: they can’t stand the act but they lie on their back and, as the phrase goes, think of England.

A Twitter user named Scott Gurstein, for instance, claimed a few years back that women tolerate sex “under limited circumstances and during limited time frames. That’s nature’s design.” A writer named Brad Anderson similarly says he’s “yet to meet a hetero woman who enthusiastically participates in sex.” Why yes, the jokes do write themselves. Not so funny is the argument by religious complementarian Douglas Wilson that sex is something men do to women, not with women, and it can never  “be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party.” In Wilson’s worldview men conquer, women submit.

These views aren’t as far outside the mainstream as they should be. It’s a staple of relationship-advice articles that a woman would never go to bed with a man unless they were in love or thought they were headed that way. TV writer Tracy McMillan said in 2011 (I’m not linking but you can find her Why You’re Not Married article easily enough) that marriage “involves [men] sacrificing their most treasured possession — a free-agent penis” so the sacrifices women make — cooking his meals, picking up after him, doing the laundry — are trivial by comparison. Women, of course, give up their free-agent vagina, but McMillan doesn’t see that as an equal sacrifice.

One point I make repeatedly in Undead Sexist Clichesx is that proclaiming universal rules for what women (or men, etc.) want is an exercise in futility. Sex is no different.

Some women like it a lot, some not at all or not very much. Some like it in particular ways, particular positions or with particular partners. Some women see sex and love as inseparable, some separate them quite well. Women can be polyamorous, monogamous or asex. They have exclusive relationships, open marriages and relationships that are mostly monogamous with a little straying now and again. They can be sex-positive or reject sex-positive feminism (more rejection here). None of it is because women are fundamentally and universally wiredd that way; the path depends on the individual.

Some women do have low or no sex drive, but so do some men. Some women aren’t into sex because of rape or incest trauma in their past. Many women have a healthy sex drive but can’t achieve orgasm from vaginal penetration. Some women don’t enjoy sex because they’ve been taught their pleasure is unimportant. Bad sex for men, as writer Lili Loofbourow says, means unsatisfying sex; for women it means feeling like crap either emotionally or physically: “One side will endure a great deal of discomfort and pain for the other’s pleasure and delight. And we’ve all agreed to act like that’s normal, and just how the world works.”

Or consider the argument that wives are obligated to put out when their husband wants sex. As D.C. McAlister puts it, (not a direct link) even if she doesn’t want it she should go ahead instead of refusing, which is selfish and unloving. Just lie there and think of England. Religious conservative Lori Alexander says women must put their husband’s desires ahead of their own; writer Caitlin Flanagan says 1950s marriages were happier because women did indeed make love regardless of their own wants and needs. I don’t doubt the men were happy, but the women?

It’s small wonder some women aren’t into sex if their experience consists of lying there and enduring it when they don’t really want it. She learns sex is a chore, the man never learns she’s not happy, nothing ever changes or improves.

It’s the most dismal view of consensual sex I’ve ever heard.

I go into these cliches in more detail in Undead Sexist Cliches, available as a Amazon paperback, an ebook and from several other retailers. Cover by Kemp Ward, all rights remain with current holder.

This is one of those cliches I was sure I’d blogged about before, but apparently not. It’s a significant one, as witness I devote a chapter to it in Undead Sexist Cliches. It’s the belief that sex is like retail shopping in stores run by women but patronized by men.

As Echidne of the Snakes detailed some years ago, some social scientists approach sex as a form of economic theory, but it’s quite common in unscientific, pop culture views of sex. Women control the store and maintain a monopoly on the sex supply, at least regarding straight men: they have it, men want it, and the only way men can obtain it is by paying the store’s price.

This can be actual cash (for prostitutes), expensive gifts, love, or the ultimate purchase price — marriage. Less scrupulous men use lies (“You know I love you, right?”), manipulation or coercion to get sex from the store without paying.

In the real world, consensual sex is a two-way street: women who give sex get sex in return. In the sex-as-retail interpretation, this isn’t an acceptable transaction: the woman is “giving it away”, a tragic mistake that devalues her sex supply and makes her “cheap,” so no man will ever pay full price again. The guy, on the other hand, gets cool points because he obtained bargain sex, like getting Netflix of Disney + using someone else’s password.

By this logic (I use the term loosely) it’s always a mistake for a woman to put out before she has a ring on their finger. As the old saying goes, if she gives away the milk the man will never buy the cow and she’ll die alone; if she keeps her chastity belt on, the man will bid higher and higher until he finally pops the price. Though of course, other women might undercut her price, but that justifies slut-shaming — make sure nobody breaks with the sex cartel and sells cheap and everyone will benefit (except the women who get slut-shamed, but nobody making this kind of argument cares about them).

As Echidne points out, this is grade-A bullshit. A sexual marketplace like Baumeister imagines would require women have control of their sex lives, with the right to choose husbands or lovers. For most of recorded history women haven’t had that freedom. Decisions about their body traditionally belonged to a woman’s parents, her husband or her pimp. Custom and law added further restrictions on women’s freedom to have the sex life (or lack of one) they prefer.

Women would also need the freedom to refuse men they weren’t interested in, but that hasn’t always been an option either. Women in arranged matches end up the sexual property of the man their parents pick for them. Rape and coercion also restrict women’s right to refuse men. So does women’s supposed obligation to provide men with “service sex” or “duty sex.” Echidne compares women to Ming vases: yes, they command a high value in the marketplace but they have no agency in who owns, buys or sells them. And if the owner decides to smash one for kicks well, that’s his call.

The concept of the sexual marketplace tangles in with multiple other cliches. That no woman can be happy if she’s not married. That men are heartless jerks incapable of marrying for love. That women don’t have to compete for men — they can just wait passively and pick whichever man makes the best bid. And that under certain circumstances, women have no right to refuse sex. Certainly not if they’re married: if a man’s paid that much, he’s entitled to your body, 24/7 (as Phyllis Schlafly put it). Even if they’re not married, the same principle applies: if he shelled out a C-note for dinner, isn’t he entitled to something more than a peck on the cheek? According to Warren Farrell, if the woman lets the guy take her out when she has no intention of sleeping with him, that’s date fraud, and just as awful as date rape.

The reality? No man (or woman, or nonbinary) ever has a right to sex with someone else. Not to their spouse, their partner, their date, nor anyone else. Even if the woman got naked and French kissed him for an hour. Even if he has a hard-on. And sex is not a matter of economics.

I’ll return to this topic in a week or two. Until then you can read more about the sexual marketplace in Undead Sexist Cliches, available as a Amazon paperback, an ebook and from several other retailers. Cover by Kemp Ward, all rights remain with current holder.