Can we talk about the differences between women’s and men’s sexuality?

[IdaBWells]

I know this is a super tricky one but the fact is that women (as many of our current threads demonstrate, such as girls being sexually harassed in uniform) are the sex that are predominately harassed for sex and that men are much less discriminating in who they they will sleep with? Pornography is mostly made for men, not to say there aren’t women who are interested in porn but it’s something that pretty much all men are expected to be interested in.

I am NOT saying that women are not highly sexed or interested in sex but that men are much more aggressive in pursuing women and girls and see females as objectified sexually in a manner that women do not constantly see men. Of course women find men sexually attractive but they don’t have the desire to constantly want to touch them or harrass them.

So when we talk about people “identifying” as women when they are men why are we not allowed to openly discuss the fact that they are not going to experience their sexuality like an average women. For example I often see comments by MtoF trans people who want to be attracting male attention in the street in a way that most women find offensive.

I'm guessing that if women did not have to worry about men being two-faced dangerous predators, then women would have a whole lot more exuberant sex with random men. We can't say women have a lower libido when the playing field is so unequal in regards to personal safety.

As a matter of fact, I'd guess that women actually have a much higher libido than men -- how else do you explain the fact that women keep marrying into the class of people who keep trying to take our rights away? Do you think black women would be as eager to marry racist white men? Because that oppresser-oppressee dynamic is what women continually tolerate.

Anyway. Transwomen are transwomen, they are not women. Which means they approach sex the same as men. I'll never forget the first time (and the second and the third!!) that a transwoman walked into my work positively gleeful, just thrilled to bits that some random guy on the street had grabbed ass. Not one bit of fear, not one bit of shame, just sublime happiness -- which of course begs the question... why exactly do they claim to be afraid in the men's bathroom???

Anyway, I knew right then that I'd never want these people speaking FOR women as if they were one.

some men of course. It's pretty obvious that most men are decent enough not to rape, catcall etc. Problem is, of the ones who do, they're serial repeat offenders.

Ok. A few differences I'm aware of: men are more visual. They can decide whether they'd have sex with someone based on first impressions. Sex has no or little danger for them; they can't get pregnant, and HIV transmission from female to male is more difficult than the other way around; their reputation is augmented not tarnished if they are promiscuous -so they find casual sex very attractive and many (most?) women do not.
There's increasing evidence that circumcised men fuck more roughly and cause their female partners more discomfort, they also experience a loss of feeling which gets worse as they age and as a result are more likely to suffer with ED. This is more of a US problem as here it's really only Muslims and Jews who are circumcised.
Porn addiction is causing young men performance issues, and an ability to climax with a partner (death grip symptoms from wanking too furiously, basically) which is upsetting to those female partners too. Plenty of evidence young men are coercing young women into anal sex and various other practices copied from porn. NoFap movement was set up to combat porn use. In males it's particularly addictive because it serves up infinite instant visual stimuli triggering the search for novelty, and of course requires zero effort from the male himself unlike acquiring a girlfriend.
Whore/Madonna dichotomy is prevalent everywhere, a female is either a saint happy to do drudge work or a heartbreaking whore. There's no in between.
Men use prostituted women and rate them afterwards on punternet. Men go dogging in car parks (with a handful of women occasionally). Men consume more porn. Men choose not to use condoms.
I guess it must be infuriating for an incel to have this sexual smorgasbord on display but be prevented from accessing it. A good looking or confident man could have a whale of a time.
Oh yeah, incels - they genuinely believe the sexual revolution and the advent of birth control was their downfall. Since then, apparently women have engaged in hypergamy, where the top 80% of women sleep with the top 20% of men (who are called "Chads") instead of the 1 - 1 pairings the incels are convinced were the case beforehand. Now obviously this wasn't the case, perhaps in other cultures a young man can be expected to be allocated a wife to breed with and to have as a helpmeet but in this country there were always single men who lived in remote areas, men widowed, and an element of competition for a mate. So I have a sneaking suspicion those incels would have been single in Victorian times and blaming it on something else, the influx of Irish maybe?
Male control of female sexuality is partly driven by their subconscious desire to make sure any offspring produced are their own. link
What else? I think men think about sex more often, so there's a good chance it's crossing his mind more often, and there's little social pressure to behave himself so yeah, harassing women on the street is common. Schoolgirls? Men who like them are a pains to portray themselves as hebephiles not paedophiles but I call them the latter, to their face. Not interested in their historical justifications, a 13 y.o. girl is a child and the man who expressed an interest is a pervert.
Perverts are another topic. Paraphilias are mostly male. Sexual attacks by male perpetrators vastly vastly outnumber female ones. Even in the regimented world of BDSM, I've been told it's men who flout the safety rules and fail to learn how to practice BDSM safely. Not my thing, so my info is second hand there. I think there's something unhealthy about some of the BDSM relationships I've seen but that's another topic.
Polyamoury/polygamy/swinging: I've seen women who seem less into it so many times now the topic makes me queasy. Again though, just personal experience and second hand info. Presumably there must be some men unimpressed their wife is swinging but going along with it to please her, but I haven't seen them.
On another forum someone was discussing bisexual women (it was a lesbian board) and said they prefer not to sleep with them because they could tell they normally slept with men. The sex was faster, more focussed on genitals, etc. I found it really surprising because I'd never noticed the difference between women who commonly slept with men and those who hadn't for some years or never had, and the poster is right, there is a big difference.

I'll never forget the first time (and the second and the third!!) that a transwoman walked into my work positively gleeful, just thrilled to bits that some random guy on the street had grabbed ass.
Yeah that's so far away from what a female response would be, it's not even funny.

Ida, as previous poster said, the question is how women would live out their sexuality if they were typically in a position of power.
I will say that I have on occasion seen women (one in particular) who did pursue men, aggressively, particularly younger ones, apprentices, she oversaw. If a man had acted like that, sooner or later one of the young people targeted would have complained, imo. She herself said as much at times, and I also at times told her to tone it down. I really liked her and we had a friendly relationship, so we talked rather openly and whenever she talked about some colleagues butt, I shut her down. (Most of her targets were in their 20s but occasionally they were 16! She was in her thirties at the time.) So, that experience made me take the whole ‚different sex drive of the sexes‘ thing with a grain of salt. As always, it may be overlapping Gaussian curves with differing averages and a lot of overlap plus depending on socialization and societal structure.

Apart from that, I think it is plausible that men with paraphilia, like autogynephilia, will be sexualized above male average. After all, it seems to go along with massive porn consumption (yes, I know men who definitely do not watch porn. It is not a myth. )

I think a big part of it is that the male attention you get in the street, pubs and nightclubs, often comes with a side order of aggression

For the first time in years I had a man come onto me in a club recently and I'd forgotten how scary it was, I could feel the undercurrent of 'if I don't like the way this goes, the situation could change dramatically'. In the end I left, just because some man had taken a liking to me.

Maybe if you're similar size / strength to other men it doesn't feel so threatening?

I don't usually hit women but her calling me a man is worse than physical violence.

Wow. Just because a lesbian gave voice to her shock at the sudden realisation that the person she was having sex with had a penis. Utterly appalling.

And so, so male.

If a man had acted like that, sooner or later one of the young people targeted would have complained, imo
I've seen a lot of that. Older women sexually assaulting young men by grabbing them hard between the legs, the young guys are mortified but don't complain. Older women making constant comments about a young guy's looks. It's like they want their work life to be "it's 11:30, diet coke break" and they can't see they're being abusive.
If a man acted like that he'd be sacked.

JudyDiana
I bet it never even happened. A lesbian who couldn't tell the person they were going home with was male bodied? How drunk were they to not notice the height, the ha ds, the voice, the walk, the hips, etc etc etc...

If a man acted like that he'd be sacked

Not in my experience

If a man acted like that he'd be sacked.

Or voted in as POTUS.

There's increasing evidence that circumcised men fuck more roughly and cause their female partners more discomfort, they also experience a loss of feeling which gets worse as they age and as a result are more likely to suffer with ED. This is more of a US problem as here it's really only Muslims and Jews who are circumcised.

I have to take issue with this. Firstly there are many non Jewish/Muslim circumcised men in the UK. Secondly where is the evidence of rougher sex from those without a foreskin? This sounds like terrible judgmentalism and quite hurtful IMO.

The biggest difference is the men have been given free reign to explore their sexuality for 1000s of years. Women have not.

Men are not more visual. I think if there weren't ethical concerns, we weren't conditioned to not like porn and it was made for a female gaze, women would enjoy porn just as much as men.

I used to love being catcalled or wolf
whistled in the street and never felt threatened by it . Probably those who feel the same wouldn't say these days as we recognise many don't like it. So not sure that's evidence of being on not being a woman either.

I did wonder if that was real: on the other hand, there are shorter men with small hands and feet, voices in mid range etc - I had a boyfriend like that once. Someone who is determined to "pass" can learn a walk, just as an actor does (high heels would help). And yes, I imagine being drunk would help too ... so not sure I would dismiss it out of hand.

The evidence shows that men are more visual (on average) when it comes to sexual arousal. Whether this is innate or socialised or a mixture of the two is a different question, of course, but that applies to most issues.

I think the OP was concerned about what is currently the case, not what hypothetically might be in a different culture. Because that difference makes it inappropriate for males to talk about their own sexuality as if it were the same as women's.

I’d say it’s all about power, not sexuality. Men are bigger, stronger, faster, so they always have the upper hand over a woman. Men are positively encouraged to act out their sexuality and women are not, and women know they are at a physical disadvantage. It’s all about power, both societal and physical imo.

Of course women find men sexually attractive but they don’t have the desire to constantly want to touch them or harrass them.

When I'm sexuall'y attracted to someone, I do have a desire to constantly want to touch them. But I also know it's socially unacceptable to do so, especially if that desire is not reciprocated. So I tend not to do it, though I have noticed I am more likely to touch their hand in conversation. I do manage not to grab their arse or anything.

I think a lot of it is down to socialisation - it's more socially acceptable for men to harass women than vice versa, as part of that "boys will be boys" idea. I know plenty of men who wouldn't harass women or touch them without invitation, whatever they might desire to do, but it is not universal and that's mostly societal. They do it because they can do it without much censure.

Diffident
Not judgemental, it's not something I'd do to my son but that's a different topic. My point was that a significant percentage of men have altered penises that are both less sensitive and with less skin movement, and that affects their sexual behaviour and the comfort of their sex partner so it's relevant. There's also a theory that inflicting that much pain on an infant causes permanent changes in the brain, but that research was defunded. As I say, the US is very different to here, many men are routinely circumcised as infants for non religious reasons although the numbers are decreasing. They also have some questionable medical ethics with regards to the removed skin, as it is used to make fibroblasts and face cream with no financial compensation to the child.
This is off topic now but I'm happy to post in a new thread about it if you like.

Badstyley
I agree, that's the end result of it anyway. Regardless of why men's and women's sexuality is different the deciding factor is power.
It's still interesting to look at how the sexuality is different though, especially as most posters here have relationships with men.

There's also a theory that inflicting that much pain on an infant causes permanent changes in the brain, but that research was defunded.

Yeah, because selling foreskin tissue is big business, so of course they wouldn't want to end that. Plus: some people deciding on the funding may be circumcised and take this personally.
And the ultimate bummer: There is something like a circumcision fetish, there are actual internet sites for it, like there are for nappy wearers, furries....(one of the premier Australian pro-circ docs was actually linked to that circ kink).

(off topic, sorry)

"As a matter of fact, I'd guess that women actually have a much higher libido than men -- how else do you explain the fact that women keep marrying into the class of people who keep trying to take our rights away?"

Surely this is about social conditioning and security rather than libido.

deepwatersolo yeah I'd heard of that. Disturbing.

innate or socialised or a mixture of the two is a different question

Not really. Because it isn't that woman are innately less visual, that is imposed upon them. We need to be differentiating between the two.

By stating man ARE more visual, we are most likely perpetuating the suppression of female sexuality and exploration.

By identifying some sexual traits as masculine and feminine we are encoding century's of sexual repression onto the next generation.