Understanding Male and Female Sexual Fantasies

Kevin: And we have different values as well, don't we?

Gil: Yes, this is all true, but I think there's a difference between arguing that, just because this may be the case, obviously one would be nurturing and the other one wouldn't. I mean, depending on what sort of culture we're in, and what sort of values we're brought up with, what sort of society we have, what sort of language is in place, the sexes will be different. And in this case I would say a lot of it is that women don't have the same opportunities as men have in terms of being able to express their sexuality. Women are always being seen in terms through the male, rather than as individuals.

Kevin: Let's look a things a little bit from the biological perspective. I'm not sure what relevance this is going to have to the discussion but we might be able to make it fit in. Now, the human child is different to a lot of other animals on our planet in that it takes a long time to develop - to be able to learn language, and to be able to stand on its own two feet and live by itself. So it needs nurturing and it needs a lot of work done, presumably by more than one parent. So it's in the interests of the mother to find somebody or something which is going to support her in the rearing of the child through this long period of time. Whereas the man doesn't so much have this concern. The more he can spread his seed around the place, the more he passes on his genes. So romance is a means of woman capturing a man, tricking him, or by any means possible getting him into that wedding. On the Internet, the most popular discussion group for women is "Weddings"! It seems to me that the whole of a woman's life centres around the wedding. With all the soapies, the ratings shoot up whenever they have a wedding on one of their episodes. Men aren't interested in weddings.

Gil: But we've constructed romance. I mean, where's the romance in the other cultures? Let's look at aboriginal culture and ask where is their view of romance? Their view of romance will be different from what our view of romance is. It's just that we look at male sexuality and the way it is-

Kevin: Well, aboriginals may have no need of romance, but certainly--

Gil: I wasn't saying they didn't have romance, I'm saying why aren't we saying that they do in fact have romance? Just because they don't read Mills and Boon and wear white veils . . .

Kevin: Perhaps.

Gil: So what I'm saying is: in our culture, we're just saying that what women are doing is romantic and men aren't. I surely think I'm romantic!

Kevin: Yes, romance for men is a lot different. Take the Marquis de Sade, for example - seeing as we are talking about sexual fantasy. I would describe him as a very romantic man, in the sense that he had an ideal and he pursued it relentlessly and with great consistency. So this is a form of male romance. It's very different to the female form of romance, which always is about capturing a man into a relationship to support her. What do you think about this issue, from the biological point of view? You would expect there to be large differences in our psychology and our fantasies, wouldn't you?

Patricia: I wouldn't mind getting clear on what you're saying. Are you suggesting that biologically, or naturally, or whatever you'd like to call it, men tend to be inclined to not want to be hooked, but women want to hook.

Kevin: Yes. I get that impression that is the case.

Patricia: Okay. Well, actually, thirty or forty years ago it was in women's best interests to hook-up with a man, because in terms of employment opportunities and so on there wasn't terribly much on offer for women. So to find a man who could provide for her, to help her raise her children, was a fairly sensible option. Nowadays, that's changing. I mean, we still have a fair way to go in terms of equal opportunity and so on, but times have changed, and I think women now are not as inclined to feel that that's the only option they have. A lot more women now are choosing not to get married. They're choosing perhaps to be single parents. They'd prefer to be with a good man rather than any man.

Kevin: What do you think, Sue? Do you think women are changing gradually?

Sue: No, not at all. In the sense that Patricia was saying there about women becoming single parents, and being prepared to wait for that special man to come along instead of just grabbing anyone off the queue, you can see that the government - especially in this country - has taken the place of the husband, and provides and protects and supports women, and is seemingly doing a mighty fine job for the amount of single parents there are around. Now does this mean that she has changed? That is, has she really become more independent? Has she changed the basis of her psychology, which is, to my mind, submission. I say no, obviously. If you have a look at her, she's still not striving for anything. She goes on her merry way every day, wishing and dreaming the same dreams that she's dreamed for eternity, and she definitely isn't evolving into an independent, single-minded, self-reliant creature.

Kevin: I think we have to remember that, genetically, women are the ones who are supposed to have babies. So there is something in women other than culture. We can't pretend to ourselves now. It's been found that even when women in their twenties are very interested in their career, once they reach their thirties and they still haven't had a family, their interest in their career declines very rapidly and they become a lot more interested in having a family. And this is one reason why a lot of employers are not that interested in employing women - because they know that the odds are that this is going to happen. So all these points tend to indicate that there's something much deeper than culture which is creating these different values and different ideas and different fantasies.

Gil: I think we should still try to make a distinction here. I mean, if you want to talk about it in terms of biology and evolution, the female of the species are the ones who have babies. Well, if we don't deny that, and I guess none of us here want to deny that, we can still look at how many ways women can have babies - depending on the support networks that we have for women. Sue just said we have governments who support women in this case. Then it automatically follows that, if you go on supporting them in this way, then obviously they're going to remain wanting to be supported. But if you look at different programs - and I don't want to get into that at the moment - but maybe different ways that women can support each other, well, then their values will be different. Okay, men and women might value differently - I agree with that - and that may be a biological thing that we can never get past - I don't know. But even if we assume this, just because they value differently, there's a difference between that and how they value differently. So in our society, the way they value differently manifests in a certain way; in another culture, it might be another way. But to work out which is the fundamental part that is biological - well, I wouldn't like to say that it's passivity. Just because they have a baby doesn't necessarily mean they're passive.

Kevin: Well, it has been found that testosterone makes people more aggressive. It gives people more of a tendency to want to control - which is closely linked with aggressiveness. If men are caused to want to be aggressive, to want to control, then it's in women's interests at least to play a role of being passive.

Gil: Why?

Kevin: Because in that way they can manipulate the man. If they can't compete with him on pure aggression; if they can't defeat him at his own game, they can at least defeat him by means of looking attractive.

Gil: You're looking at it in a very Hobbesean way here - in terms the competition between individuals. If it's true that men want to dominate - and I guess a lot of feminists have said it, and I guess most people say that men want to dominate Nature and therefore they want to dominate women - so they want to dominate anything around them--

Kevin: This is undeniable, I think - in every culture.

Gil: Okay, but we've got to look at how domination can also appear. We've got the word "domination", we've got the word "aggression", but we can display aggression in different ways. And when it comes to the role of men and women, you're assuming that because the males are dominant the females have to figure some way to trap the males or--

Kevin: Get her own way.

Gil: But, surely, there's complementary parts of it? The male and female can complement each other. It doesn't have to be a struggle between them where one entraps the other.

Kevin: Well, I think men and women do complement each other in the sense that men are dominant and women are submissive. Wouldn't you say, Sue?

Sue: Yes, that's the dynamic there. If women aren't submissive then men can't get their pleasure, their sense of themselves through woman. So what's the good of woman if she's not submissive, and vice versa? This is the dynamic between men and women.

Patricia: But that almost sounds as though testosterone is a given. Men are aggressive because they have all this testosterone running about in their bodies, therefore women should be passive! You can almost say that an implication of this is that women, if they're exposed to a threatening situation with a man, like rape, should just lie back and think of England.

Kevin: We're not saying that women should be passive but that women--

Patricia: But you're sort of implying that women should somehow curtail their behaviour, their attitudes, their psychology, the way they just "be" in the world, to accommodate men! I mean, I'm wondering why one would think that?

Kevin: Well, I think women should be given testosterone. But we're going to have a bit of music now, and we'll come back and continue on this very subject.

Last updated: 8/05

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