Why women have sex

[LadyBlaBlah]

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/28/sex-women-relationships-tanya-gold?fb_action_ids=3023185662982%2C2659272674836%2C2659286875191%2C2659264114622%2C2659264074621&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_source=other_multiline

Kinda wish she had just left it as the quoted number 1 reason - orgasm.

No real need to harp on about trapping men, prostituting oneself etc.

There's only one good reason - because you physically want to have sex with that person.

I think girls need to be educated that all other reasons are spurious.

Curiosity, to be cool, revenge (on someone else), because he says he'll leave you if you don't etc are ba...a..d reasons for having sex.

"Women have sex because they are raped and coerced"

For FUCK'S sake... How many times... That makes it sound like a conscious decision.

I'll start on my other problems with the article later. Now have to shred tights calm down

That's a really terrible article. Badly written, evo sexist and just so wrong.

I never think about sex and rape...I mean I know rape is forced sex but it's such a violent act that it's not 'having sex' is it? (perhaps I'm not making sense)

OK I'll bite. I haven't read the book, and its not the world's best written book review but...

Onehandflapping - it doesn't ask why should women have sex, but why dothey (or at least why do they report they do in whatever the survey was) which seems like a legitimate and interesting question.

Ladyblablah - it wouldn't have been much of a survey if it was only allowed to give one answer ...and anyway, if the only reason is orgasm, there are easier and simpler ways to achieve that.

I think what they did was do a survey which asked a bunch of women 'have you had sex in the last ....' and then 'why did you have sex'....so if some of those women answered 'because I was raped/cooerced' then that is their answer, no? I don't see why it should be ruled out.

....I did think the bit where they said men often have sex on the first date, but women often have sex on the third date a bit ...somebody must be embroidering the truth in their survey responses there surely?!

I think people do have sex for a variety of reasons, but not always the same one each time. So their surveys must have asked women to list the different reasons why they have engaged in sex on different occasions and/or the reason they did it the last time they did it. And TBH if they asked a lot of men why they had sex on the last time they did so, I bet they would get an equally wide range of answers, including 'We are TTC', 'Because I love my partner', 'To make up after a row' and loads more as well as 'Because I had an erection.'

This is why I'm more and more keen on definitions of sex that aren't simply 'putting a penis inside a woman'.

SGB - Yes I'm sure you are right people have sex for different reasons at different times (and sometimes multiple reasons) If you ask enough people you can build up a picture (like if you ask what did you have for dinner yesterday, you don't capture the overall variety of any one persons diet, but if you ask enough people that doesn't matter)

LRD - why - from the findings of this study -do you want to change the definition of sex? What is the 'this'?

I meant this thread by 'this'.

I mean, sure there are lots of reasons to do PIV and some of them are absolutely lovely for reasons aside from orgasm (such as TTC). Others are frankly awful.

IMO lots of the reasons 'women have sex' might be solved if we didn't elevate PIV to the supreme and defining sex act, if we didn't view penises as the sex-defining organ.

I think if we didn't assume sex=PIV, we might also have an easier time moving away from the assumption (rape myth) that rape is a form of sex.

Just my thoughts.

LRD -

But if the reasons are real reasons (and there is no particular reason to think they are not) then you can't make them go away just by calling it something else.

Apart from rape and coercion I don't think it's at all obvious that the other 300 odd reasons are necesserily problems which have to be solved, and that there is one correct reason for having sex.

if someone is happy with the sex they are having (for whatever reason) then why is that necessarily a problem?

I think you're missing the point.

There is, IMO, nowt wrong with saying you want to have sex to TTC. If you don't orgasm, you may not mind. What you were doing didn't have to be about an orgasm for you and in reality, maybe it won't always happen. It does need to be about an orgasm for your DH since trying to get pregnant off pre-ejaculate is pretty ridiculous.

OTOH, if you''re having sex for teh purpose of having sex, you probably do want an orgasm.

It'd be kinda nice if the language let us split up the activities differently. It'd be really nice if 'sex' routinely meant oral or manual or all sorts of other things than PIV, because these are nice and would also help distinguish between sex for pleasure and sex for procuring sperm.

No?

LRD

What the survey seems to be saying is that women have sex for a lot of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with seeking orgasm or procuring sperm

E.g to find out what it's like, because the person you love wants to and you're not bothered either way, as an expression of commitment, force of habit, because you are going away for a while....plus.. all the machievelian motivations mentioned in the article.

Why is that a problem, and if it is how is it solved by calling it something else?

I don't see what the point is of all this mucking around with definitions is. 'sex' can already mean a whole range of things anyway, but it's useful also as a straightforward definition of intercourse. Try teaching sex education by making a clear distinction between sex for pleasure and TTC as two quite different things with different names....it's a recipe for confusion.

Himalaya:

I said I was referring to this thread.
I thought, and think, that if we didn't constantly assume PIV=sex, things woud be better. I gave some reasons why. One that occurs to me now is that it's actually kind of insulting to me as a woman.

I suspect it'd make sex education a whole lot easier, especially for children who are not in fact straight males.

As to why having sex for what you term 'machiavellian reasons' is a problem, the answer is because, funnily enough, I don't myself think coerced sex is either great fun or terribly good for a relationship. I don't know if not focussing constantly on PIV would help this, but I suspect if girls did not grow up being told the organ that defines sex doesn't belong to them, we might have less of the 'menz needs' crap.

I'm sorry if you think that is confusing. It is just an opinion.

Sorry, that came across as snotty.

I just meant, it was a speculative comment about something I was pondering. I don't want to sidetrack the thread by getting into it, it just happened to be what occurred to me when I saw the different ways people were responding.

This article is disgraceful.Fancy asking women questions like that.I'm boycotting the Guardian an going over to the Daily Express!

I agree with LRD. Erect phallus in a hole is the default for sex.

I like this discussion on sex from Cath Elliot (and there are links to her other excellent blog posts on this). This isn't meant as a derail but sometimes women have het sex to keep partner happy and to keep the relationship going. It is demeaning and leads to self esteem issues.

toomuchtosayformyself.com/2011/11/26/consent-is-not-always-given-by-choice/

Dworkin - what did you mean to write when you said het? Hot? Had? Her? Pet?

I read it as het = short for heterosexual.

Looking at the keyboard, it might be 'the' mixed up...

um no, it means heterosexual.

yeah, it might be.

LRD, bo offence taken!

By machievelian reasons I didn't mean coercion - was thinking more of some of the other reasons given - revenge, to get back at a partner who has cheated on them, to make themselves feel good. To make their partners feel bad, to lure a man into the relationship, to try and keep a man so he is fulfilled and doesn't stray etc...

Still not sure what the outrage on this thread is about.