even though this NYT article is like 50 pages long and tragically mis-titled (splashed with ryan mcginley photos to boot = my ambivalence) , i do think it’s something everyone should take the time to read. there’s nothing novel here, except maybe increased “empirical” grounding for things we already knew or assumed. sex science has always been on my list of dream careers. is that weird?

a big chunk of the piece posits how the sense of being desired is crucial to female sexuality. duh, right? but i think the researcher/scientist sound bites (that i list below) come across eloquently and succinctly. it’s all so very true. am i pig-headed or naive to believe so?

a consistent feeling of being desired is key to any relationship’s vitality and longevity, and core to any person’s pysche and confidence, whether you’re male or female. everyone needs to feel nurtured, loved, and adored. everyone needs to feel special, admired, respected for his/her unique traits, or sense of humor, or intelligence. but let’s face it, we all need to feel like sexy, hot, desirable pieces of meat too. it fits into the equation, and we can’t live without this healthy sensation. conversely, it’s just as important to feel that same sparky, uncontainable lust for your partner as well, and express it best you can.

maybe what i’m describing is an impossible reciprocation. but i’d like to believe this kind of relationship can exist.

without further ado, here are the striking snippets from the article that resonated with me. and yes, please file this blog entry under “random” and “no $hit, sherlock.”

She, even more than Chivers, emphasized the role of being desired — and of narcissism — in women’s desiring.

The critical part played by being desired, Julia Heiman observed, is an emerging theme in the current study of female sexuality. She pronounced, as well, “I consider myself a feminist.” Then she added, “But political correctness isn’t sexy at all.” For women, “being desired is the orgasm.”

The generally accepted therapeutic notion that, for women, incubating intimacy leads to better sex is, Meana told me, often misguided. “Really,” she said, “women’s desire is not relational, it’s narcissistic” — it is dominated by the yearnings of “self-love,” by the wish to be the object of erotic admiration and sexual need.

And within a committed relationship, the crucial stimulus of being desired decreases considerably, not only because the woman’s partner loses a degree of interest but also, more important, because the woman feels that her partner is trapped, that a choice — the choosing of her — is no longer being carried out.

A symbolic scene ran through Meana’s talk of female lust: a woman pinned against an alley wall, being ravished. Here, in Meana’s vision, was an emblem of female heat. The ravisher is so overcome by a craving focused on this particular woman that he cannot contain himself; he transgresses societal codes in order to seize her, and she, feeling herself to be the unique object of his desire, is electrified by her own reactive charge and surrenders. Meana apologized for the regressive, anti-feminist sound of the scene.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 9:03 pm and is filed under excessively navel-gazing, random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.