{"id":71873,"date":"2013-11-16T14:00:53","date_gmt":"2013-11-16T19:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=71873"},"modified":"2013-11-15T20:49:25","modified_gmt":"2013-11-16T01:49:25","slug":"wham-bam-its-hookup-man-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/polyamory\/wham-bam-its-hookup-man-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Wham, Bam, It\u2019s Hookup Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you have more orgasms from one-time hookups, or from sex in a long-term relationship? I think your answer in the comments would be just as valid and probably, given our demographic and general level of expressive skills around these parts, more interesting than the New York Times<\/em> blog entry that generated a discussion on just that topic all over the Internets last week.<\/p>\n

\"Poly
Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“In Hookups, Inequality Still Reigns,” by Natalie Kitroeff in the New York Times<\/em>\u2019 Well science blog<\/a> looked to research and anecdotes professing that women find it more difficult to come when they\u2019re in a quickie or one-night stand with a man.<\/p>\n

I’m making this one clear in advance: this blog post will revert to heteronormative terminology just to keep from blowing my word count. We\u2019re talking straight men and straight women who identify squarely in their respective typical gender. <\/p>\n

But I\u2019d like to say that as happy as I was to see this research, any sex research, being done and discussed in public forums, it\u2019s not enough — we need to get similar work done beyond the cisgender<\/a> barriers. How about a study on Lesbian Bed Death, for instance (a popular term for the phenomenon in which women in long-term relationships not only don\u2019t have more orgasms, they lose all desire whatsoever)? <\/p>\n

So here are some facts and figures from the article:<\/p>\n

Research involving 600 college students led by Justin R. Garcia, an evolutionary biologist at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, and researchers at Binghamton University found that women were twice as likely to reach orgasm from intercourse or oral sex in serious relationships as in hookups. The paper was presented at the annual meeting of the International Academy of Sex Research and at the Annual Convention for Psychological Science this year.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Similarly, a study of 24,000 students at 21 colleges over five years found that about 40 percent of women had an orgasm during their last hookup involving intercourse, while 80 percent of men did. The research was led by Paula England, a sociologist at New York University who studies the dynamics of casual sex.<\/p>\n

By contrast, roughly three quarters of women in the survey said they had an orgasm the last time they had sex in a committed relationship.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While the article itself was fairly straightforward, the flurry of commentary that followed allowed people to bring up any number of old tropes:<\/p>\n

\u2022\tWomen need love and commitment to come
\n\u2022\tWomen are the ones who feel emotion, and men just don\u2019t care
\n\u2022\tWomen take a long time to come, for physical reasons
\n\u2022\tMen watch too much porn, and it destroys them
\n\u2022\tMen are a bunch of bros who don\u2019t care about nobody
\n\u2022\tThe young folks are all \u201chooking up\u201d too much and that didn\u2019t happen in my day
\n\u2022\tWomen are hooking up in hopes of finding true love and getting their hearts broken<\/p>\n

And much, much more! It sounds like one of those K-Tel Record Collection ads, and it\u2019s just as dated. I\u2019d really like to hear your comments and reactions, so I\u2019ll just share a few of mine.<\/p>\n

First, the physical reaction: what grabbed my attention was the link headline, \u201cwomen find orgasms elusive.\u201d I\u2019m always tickled by the characterization of the female orgasm as a shy, mysterious creature, like a springtime forest fawn, or the Chupacabra. This gives me an idea for an X-Files-type show about stalking the female orgasm, and it would be so great if Gillian Anderson could star. Just that concept alone could make a few female orgasms less elusive, if you know what I mean (and I think you do).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also thinking of a Marge Piercy novel in which the heroine feels like she needs to apologize to her fellow feminists for being able to have an orgasm through penis-in-vagina contact alone. Some do, and more power to them, which doesn\u2019t mean less power to those who have them any other way.<\/p>\n

Another missing piece: just because it\u2019s less likely for a woman to get off during a quickie doesn\u2019t mean that women in long-term relationships are all getting off. If there are problems with communication, stating what you want, doing what you want — these can all exist years into a long-term relationship as well, depending on the people involved. Time and proximity can heal a lot, but these can also add bricks to the wall. Ever ignored an issue in a relationship and hoped it would fade away, and as it sort of did, did you watch any hope of resolving it fade along with it?<\/p>\n

Then again, time can be counted on to make some communication imperative. Through relationships with people (including myself) with long-term physical and health issues, and through relationships with people (including myself) of a certain age, you learn that it becomes very difficult not to come right out with what you want and what\u2019s bothering you. You know, time is running out — don\u2019t be shy. On a simpler level, once you are past 40, you are not expecting everything to be a porn movie (though it\u2019s fine having an ideal to reach for). For instance, from the New York Times<\/em> article:<\/p>\n

Vanessa Martini, 23, from Marin County, Calif., learned early on that most men she slept with casually would not intuit her needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t hooked up with anybody who was so cavalier as to just, like, not even care,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I think most of them were somewhat baffled that it would require more than just them thrusting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Martini said she was never taught how to have good sex, let alone how to ask for what she needs. The education she received in school was aimed at stopping teenagers from having sex at all; there wasn\u2019t much discussion of arousal. Ms. Martini said most cultural representations of sex left out the messy details.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we view sex in porn and in movies and in books, people aren\u2019t talking to each other like, \u2018Oh, my foot\u2019s falling asleep, we need to move,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wholly applaud these women for speaking out and using their names. It\u2019s another indication that we\u2019re really getting there — we can actually talk, here. And she perfectly identifies the problem: it\u2019s not a sex issue, it\u2019s not a relationship issue per se. It\u2019s a matter of education and communication. What\u2019s a girl to do? At least when I was young, I could learn from books, which I think have a bit more realistic depiction than today\u2019s porn. But even with all the great sex and relationship advice columns, podcasts, videos and presentations out there, the complaint of these young people in the articles is that they get no education beyond porn. <\/p>\n

The whole time I was reading, I wondered: \u201cWhat about the men?\u201d And the next day, an article in Salon<\/a> helped answer that question, \u201cDudebros are sexually confused,\u201d by Katie McDonough. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m no men\u2019s right\u2019s activist — they\u2019re tiresome and limited in imagination and argument through their constant sense of bruised privilege. And dudes\/bros\/jocks have been the \u201ctypes\u201d to cause my own sexuality the most damage, in every way from direct physical assault to attempts at shame and humiliation, to devaluing in the workforce. Yet I still can\u2019t see the kind of all-out open season on \u201cbros\u201d that\u2019s happening without speaking up. This article looks at how this situation hurts men, too: <\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we set up this conversation is often a very binary way of approaching and thinking about sex,\u201d Joshua Rosenberger, assistant professor of global and community health at George Mason University, told Salon. \u201cWe say, \u2018Oh, women are not experiencing pleasure in the same way as men,\u2019 and it brings with it the assumption that men are enjoying sex all of the time and these other hypermasculine stereotypes about pleasure.\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n

And men can be equally terrified of it. That real sex — with an actual person! — would be intimidating to young guys who may have only been exposed to it through porn seems like common sense, but men\u2019s feelings of vulnerability or inadequacy are almost entirely absent from the popular discourse. And since the culture is mostly silent on men\u2019s lack of sexual education, so, too, are plenty of men.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What\u2019s happening because of this lack of education is unfair from either side of the straight divide. Men have long been encouraged to \u201coutsource\u201d their emotions to women, and women have sucked this up as a sort of invisible privilege. Yes, sister, we are the only ones who care, who love, who pine. But I can tell you that access to the deep feelings of a man — of any fellow human — is a privilege and a treasure. It\u2019s what we\u2019re here for. And if men are shut off from participating in that exchange, they\u2019re being robbed of a birthright. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been married to Isaac for almost 18 years, and I\u2019m still finding things out about him. (That sounded odd. But it\u2019s good! I mean in a fun, sex way, not in a babydaddy-in-three-neighboring-counties way.) Just a few minutes ago, he was stretching out on the floor before a workout, and talking with me about his love for me and for our daughter and how he has been handling his emotions as she gets older and he gets more worried. The other night I said something to Chris about us being well past the three-year mark when passion and New Relationship Energy is said by researchers to die a natural death. If I want to smile, I think about him growling low into my ear, as we sat on the couch watching a movie: \u201cDon\u2019t give me that three-year shit. I love you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long-term or short-term, friend for a night or an eternity — even the simplest hookup can still be a full-spectrum experience. But the people involved have to have access to every color in the box.<\/p>\n

Encouraging men to outsource their emotions buttresses a sort of female privilege, one we ought to know is not any good for us. Early feminists had to fight the image of the \u201cangel in the house\u201d who was too pure for politics and therefore shouldn\u2019t vote. And the next question has to be: Who benefits? Who gets something out of young men being turned into emotionless robot dudebros? <\/p>\n

Well, if they don\u2019t care about anything but domination, competition and scores, it\u2019s easier to get them to work in a heartless banking system that bunches mortgages together according to arcane formulas and accepts the fact that the bros\u2019 bottle service at the strip clubs is being financed by families being foreclosed. (Wall Street is the worst of bro culture.) It makes it easy to get them to go out on a football field and risk brain injury. It makes it easy to get them to practice politics as a game, and pass life-altering legislation and practice dirty dealings to undermine an opponent. It makes it easy to get them to go to war, or to develop weapons for war, or to develop reasons for war.<\/p>\n

About 50 years ago, we started seeing a revolution for men. They were claiming their feelings, their sexuality, and their fullness along with their long hair. Like other revolutions of that time, it\u2019s under fire. Men fighting for their full humanity is a war I\u2019d like to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila Do you have more orgasms from one-time hookups, or from sex in a long-term relationship? I think your answer in the comments would be just as valid and probably, given our demographic and general level of expressive skills around these parts, more interesting than the New York Times blog entry that generated … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71873"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}