« I Start Sentences with the First Person | Home | I Am Suddenly So Freakin' Productive »

May 11, 2006

It's Always Somehow Her Fault Too

In the "Thank God Someone Else Reads These Crappy Patriarchy-Loving Rags" category is this piece from Rebecca Traister at Salon. Ms. Traister neatly shreds an article from the Washington Post, which blames the impotence problems of young college men on... get this... horny college girls! That's right! In the "Jesus Fucking Christ" department, Laura Sessions Stepp has written an article called "Cupid's Broken Arrow" announcing that

for a sizable number of young men, the fact that they can get sex whenever they want may have created a situation where, in fact, they're unable to have sex. According to surveys, young women are now as likely as young men to have sex and by countless reports are also as likely to initiate sex, taking away from males the age-old, erotic power of the chase.

After explaining that impotence should be refered to as Erectile Dysfunction (ED for short), Ms. Stepp analyzes a few images of limpness and powerlessness, concluding that

Such images disturb because sexual performance is still, in the minds of many males, the sign of authority and dominance, perhaps the last such symbol in a society slogging its way toward gender equality. (Emphasis added--and gee, I wonder where guys get that?)

Those in the first years of testing their manhood may particularly see it that way.

When the tools work, there's nothing like it, says Devin Jones, a sophomore at Maryland, who read several how-to books about sex before going all the way with his first girlfriend. "When she got an orgasm, I felt like the man," he says in an interview, pounding his fists on his chest. Will Skelton, who graduated from George Washington University last year, says good sex "is all about self-worth. If you know you're a helluva lover, you're more confident with women and men."

And it goes on and on about various ways women put too much pressure on guys, and so ruin their erections...though it also takes some time to consider things men can do to themselves, like drink too much alcohol or coffee, smoke too much tobacco or marijuana, or take too many anti-depressants.

Luckily, before I read that crap myself, I got this excellent analysis from Ms. Traister:

Perhaps (and I realize this is pie-in-the-sky thinking here) the leveling of the sexual marketplace Stepp writes about, in which women and men enjoy and pursue sex with comparable vigor, could be good for both sexes. First, it could deflate some of the frequently unearned but long-held stereotypes about guys who'll have sex with anything that moves, who consider each conquest a notch on their bedpost, who are more turned on by the pursuit than by the physical pleasure of union. Perhaps, if sex with women is something that they didn't have to finagle and tease and chase their way into, if it was just a fun activity that two people who liked each other chose to engage in and that often felt really great, everyone would have a better time.

Bzzzzz! Apparently that answer was incorrect. According to Stepp, we're not looking at the maturation and increasing sophistication of the socio-sexual dynamic here. We're looking at the loss of manhood in its purest form. Guys who can't get woodies for any old girl on the block are a poignant representation of the crumbling power of the erect phallus, which is, after all, as Stepp writes, "in the minds of many males, the sign of authority and dominance, perhaps the last such symbol in a society slogging its way toward gender equality." Wow. Stepp isn't doing the men she's writing about any favors in treating their condition not as a treatable health problem related to stress or their recreational habits, but as an actual loss of their masculinity, the ultimate cost of gender equality.

Posted by Holly at May 11, 2006 11:39 AM

Comments

Posted by: Reese at May 12, 2006 9:56 AM

Posted by: Juti at May 12, 2006 3:49 PM

Posted by: Holly at May 12, 2006 10:40 PM

Posted by: frankengirl at May 15, 2006 11:32 AM

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)

Security Code: