Different Strokes

I asked my oldest daughter about the differences between male and female sexuality. She said women fantasize more about having things done to them, while men focus on what they would like to do. Likewise, women are far more touch oriented than visually stimulated. I believe we require a certain amount of courtship, conversation and foreplay prior to leaping into bed with someone. Of course it is possible for a less patient male to resort to well-advertised full body masseuses, personal escort services, high priced call girls or the ubiquitous streetwalker.

He might even indulge in telephone or computer sex, although I don't quite understand the pleasures of electronic sex. I am even more bewildered by those who prefer to look at poorly drawn pictures of human copulation, photographs of unclad children engaging in erotic activities, or those who place adds in newspapers, looking for "obedience training" from a dominate partner. Such services can be quite expensive, occasionally dangerous and as far as I know the working girl or boy doesn't derive much pleasure from such transactions.

My daughter also commented that it is easier for men to get turned on and have an orgasm than it is for women. This fits into my personal observation of men, the heterosexual variety of which seems easily aroused by the sight of an attractive woman, particularly one with long hair, long legs and an ample bosom. It isnt that my daughters or myself don't admire a good-looking man, particularly one with an easy laugh, and long dextrous fingers. Nevertheless, we are far more likely to be turned on by his personality than the size of his penis.

Sexual Passion or True Love?

As a young girl, I was repulsed by the inept groping of inexperienced young men and completely repelled by the lecherous old men who sided up to me in darkened movie theatres. However, like many of my contemporaries, an older man, who claimed he loved me became my seducer. It never occurred to me that his idea of love and mine were light years apart, or that a barely pubescent girl was hardly an appropriate candidate for sexual passion. The confusion between love, romance and sexual activity seems to affect both men and women and may account for a considerable number of disastrous relationships and a number of embittered women and frustrated men.

Lust & Consequence

Lust may be one of the seven deadly sins, but like pride, gluttony and sloth it seems quite typical of the human condition. As lustful creatures, we crave pleasure. We lust after wealth, position, power, the admiration of our peers and the obedience of those we deem inferior. However, lust is only concerned with desire not with consequences and when it comes to sexual activity, females need to anticipate the consequences or suffer them!

This is not to say men are eager to impregnate innocent young girls or even seasoned old ones. However, many of them leave such issues up to their partners and focus on the temporary pleasure of sexual congress rather than the more or less permanent results. The sexual chasm between men and women may be tied to the evolutionary principle of reproductive success or our instinctive desire to propagate our kind. As far as I know both males and females of all species possess this instinct, however each species and each gender have their own strategy for genetic immortality.

Our Procreative Heritage

Traditionally, mammals are divided into those who seek shelter within the herd, those who congregate in small bands or packs, and those who prefer to go it alone. Herd creatures, such as zebras, cattle and antelope generally consist of one dominant male, his harem of more or less compliant females and their offspring. Once a young male reaches the stage where he challenges the head of the household, he is usually chased away or takes the dominant males place. This ensures that only the most powerful male gets to pass his genes on.

Like the great ape and chimpanzee, our primate ancestors congregated in small groups. It is easy to imagine human society as small bands of hunter-gatherers, roving the savannahs and jungles, small infants clinging to their mothers breasts; young children following close behind and sexually mature young men looking for a receptive female. Then as now, females looked after the young and selected potentially competent sexual partners. Competence in this epoch probably referred to physical strength and hunting capacity along with his status in the band.

The older, more experienced male, the one who proved his virility, cunning, and ability to intimidate less proficient males presumably enjoyed the favours of the high caste, fertile females. The subordinate or inexperienced males had to settle for less endowed females, join forces to indulge in a little gang banging, kidnap unwary females from neighbouring bands, or choose between homosexuality, celibacy, and non-productive forms of self-gratification.

I doubt archaeologists or anthropologists will ever be able to replicate the life circumstances and mating patterns of our Palaeolithic ancestors. However, it seems likely that a males reproductive success was based on his ability to inseminate as many females as possible, while our foremothers success would be based on how well she could look after her offspring. Quality, not quantity would govern the successful transmission of maternal genes from one generation to the next. In any case, because of the relative ignorance regarding the joint contribution of sperm and egg to the formation of a child, it is likely the relationship between mother and child would outweigh any other relationship. Mother love would form the bedrock of our distant ancestors emotional life.

Co-operative Relationships

There are only a few problems with the ideal of an exclusive mother/child bonding. Most women find it difficult to fight off giant cave bears, keep the hearth fires burning and collect enough nutritious roots and herbs to feed themselves and their offspring without assistance. Human babies demand a lot of attention and pregnancy complicates a womans capacity for biological self-sufficiency. As much as mom might have wanted to be independent, keep her children to herself and satisfy lustful urgings on her own terms, she probably found it necessary to build a co-operative relationship with the male of the species

Initially, old Lady Nature relied on biological incentives to ensure the survival of kith and clan. She encouraged frequent mating by hiding the female ovulation period, expanded the size of womens lactating apparatus, and gave men an extraordinarily large and sensitive reproductive organ. She encouraged humans to share warmth by divesting us of superficial hair and to spend our nights together by limiting visual acuity in low light. Sexual pleasure was probably the greatest bond between the sexes during humanity's hunter-gatherer stage.

In addition to their sexual skills, females learned to lure the mate of their choice into relatively permanent relationships by mastering traditional domestic arts. There is something quite pleasant after a long day of mastodon hunting to relax around a blazing fire, wrapped in scraped and softened furs, eating the Palaeolithic version of mulligan stew. Anthropologists are relatively uniform in assigning such life sustaining tasks to females and it is probable that our foremothers were responsible for the cultural innovations, which made life a little more comfortable for our forefathers.

I tend to romanticise the hunter-gatherer life style of our Palaeolithic ancestors. They were unburdened by the need to set clocks, catch buses, keep their cars in running order and propitiate the deities of the workplace. They didn't have to worry about dressing for success, preparing a resume, collective bargaining, unemployment compensation, or corporate and governmental dumbsizing. It is fairly well known that hunter-gatherers are among the best-fed people in the world and manage this with only two or three hours of work a day. They rarely succumb to our modern obsession with wealth, gadgets, property and social status.

The Fall

Organised warfare did not exist until the advent of the agricultural revolution, the invention of a hierarchical social structure, and the virtual enslavement of women as breeding stock. People who depend on the bounty of nature, the availability of game, fish, nutritious herbs, fruits and roots have a different attitude toward sexual relationships than those who depend on agriculture. The former is unlikely to want hordes of children encumbering their semi-nomadic lifestyle or to view women only in terms of their procreative capacities. There would be a tendency to limit their population. However, this would not detract from the almost religious awe evoked by the mystery of childbearing or the respect allocated women by virtue of their capacity to ensure the survival of a tribe.

Nevertheless, about ten thousand years ago, the emergence of organised agricultural societies fostered a need for male children to till the soil, protect the crops from predators, and add to the family estates. The desire to control the well-being and future growth of the tribe, family, or nation state was tied to the principle of ownership and property rights. During this revolution, women and the products of their bodies, children, became property.

Our poor foremothers learned to predicate their worth on how many male children they could produce, the status and material wealth of their family and the success of their husbands. They fell prey to the notion that a real woman was one who could satisfy a real man, and the business of a real man had little or nothing to do with domestic or childbearing activities. The activity which elicited awe and reverence among our Palaeolithic ancestors became a prison. Women's work became invisible, taken for granted and ultimately valueless. Motherhood became increasingly marginalized as an occupation. By the advent of the twentieth century, the domestic activities, which preserved and maintained the economic welfare of the family, became dependent on the forces of the marketplace.

Romantic Love & Madness

During the 13Th century, a partial compensation for the marginalization of feminine roles reared its lovely head. In France, a gaggle of wandering troubadours came up with the peculiar notion of romantic love. They sang their hymns of praise to the wonders of feminine beauty and vied with each other to win the favours of the noble women of those days. The idea that a knight or noble man could be driven mad through love of an unattainable, generally married woman and that women had an innate power to evoke such sentiments became widespread.

The belief that love was a form of insanity and that people who fell victim to it couldnt help themselves, was common during the middle ages and continues its irrational, mysterious course today. The essence of romantic love is the belief that emotional expectations and desires are more competent to guide sexual alliances than reason or material considerations. Many people suffer from the illusion that there is a special someone for them, a man or woman who will fulfil their dreams, who will value them above everything and everyone.

This fantastical creature will transport them to a magic land of candlelight and roses where pain and sorrow; doubt and fear; emptiness and loneliness will be banished through the enchanting power of Love. Unquestioning belief in the power of love generally encourages the fantasy of the Soul Mate, that ideal partner who was destined for me and me alone, who will fulfil my purpose, accommodate my imperfections, and devote her entire being to winning my love.

Unhappily, the romance of persistent pursuit, of dogged fixation on the object of desire, encourages the spectre of the Stalker and can culminate in our convincing ourselves of a love that never was, or could never be. Likewise, the romantic image of someone dying or sacrificing herself in the name of love plays a major role in this fantasy. Far too many people confuse the depth of their love with the degree of their willingness to suffer.

A Modern Victim

One of my clients, an attractive, intelligent, successful saleswoman fled her abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend for the safety of the family abode. Her boyfriend periodically raided her bank account, invited his less than savoury friends to their apartment to partake in various forms of drug induced ecstasy. When she objected, he tossed her down the stairs. One of her chief complaints was "He thinks he can get anything from me, for a line of cocaine or a little marihuana!"

One night she woke up to see a shadow learning over her, with a large hunting knife in its hand. Panicked, she let out a scream and rolled over the opposite side of the bed. Alerted by her shrieks, her stepfather charged into the room and disarmed her former significant other. The local constabulary was summoned and the repentant boyfriend was carted off to jail. The following day her stepfather went down and bailed him out. Apparently, the stepfathers liberal sentiments and new age principles couldn't abide the notion of anyone languishing in durance vile! Since she hadn't actually been injured, she surrendered to the ethics of live and let live.

About two weeks later the boyfriend returned confronted her on the front porch and grabbing her long hair, dragged her off the porch into the street. He vowed she could never leave him, he loved her too much to let her go and that he would die first. She got away and promptly went into hiding; she didn't even let her mother know where she was. During this time we discussed her ideas about love, relationships and self-esteem along with her experiences. In my naive optimism regarding the supremacy of rationality and enlightened self-interest over the vagaries of emotional entanglements, I assumed she had learned her lesson and would avoid further interaction with this particular individual. This did not prove to be the case. The last time I spoke to her, she announced that they were going back together. When I protested, she vehemently declared,"But I love him!"

Love Conquers All?

Although my romantic soul often subscribes to the notion that love conquers all, forgives all and endures all, I regard such beliefs as belonging to a theoretical state of being. Like my mother, I generally assumed women stayed with destructive, abusive partners because of their financial situation, lack of support, or the perceived needs of minor children. Since my former client had a large network of supportive female friends, was childless, and made an excellent living on her own, I found her decision to remain in a destructive relationship incomprehensible.

Perhaps, she was a victim of low self-esteem, poor parenting, and a deluded subscriber to the notion of "Stand By Your Man" or maybe she just preferred the devil she knew. Since we parted company many years ago, I don't presume to fathom her motives. Nevertheless, I have learned the delusions surrounding issues of romantic love can be no less devastating than those promulgated by the myths of Victim and Oppressor or Winner and Looser