Five Things Stephen Fry Got Wrong About Women and Sex
British comedian Stephen Fry claims he was misquoted in a recent article for Attitude Magazine in which he accused women of not liking sex as much as men. Feminists denounced his remarks, while evo psych advocates jumped on the opportunity to convince somebody that evo psych is a real science.
Anyway, Fry’s reasoning is that if women enjoyed sex as much as men, then there would be straight “cruising” locations like those in the gay community. Now, setting aside the fact that this is an oft-repeated and tired old bit that I’ve heard other comedians recycle before now, I’ve come up with a list of reasons why Fry might mistakenly think this way.
The gayest expert on women's sexuality ever.
Oh and also, he claims he was misquoted in an article that was taken out of context, and since he’s just so wonderfully funny, I in no way am holding his comments against him.
1. Quality vs. Quantity. Saying that women don’t like sex because they don’t go cruising for anonymous NSA hook-ups is like saying wealthier, upscale people don’t really like alcohol because they don’t drink Pabst Blue Ribbon, or adults don’t like music as much as kids because they don’t listen to Ke$ha.* These are qualitatively different preferences, not a one-dimensional measure of interest in a broad category.
2. Orgasmic Parity. It’s 2010 and women are still faking it, according to the latest surveys. I can understand enthusiasm if your physical pleasure is guaranteed to come (har har) with the culmination of the act. If women are less interested, it could be because their partners still aren’t very good at getting the job done.
Yeah, I know, women need to speak up, communicate, clearly say what they want, guys want to please them but don’t know how, etc. I fully agree with all that, but let’s acknowledge that this is akin to a woman having to direct the whole damn show, which can be tiresome. I completely understand why anyone wouldn’t want to give the same lesson to a new student over and over again. Again, when your release physiologically defines (in many peoples’ minds) the completion of the sex act, and you don’t require much stamina, maneuverability, flexibility, patience, or what have you on the others’ part, a NSA-casual hook-up is a more tempting offer. For others, it’s more hassle than it’s worth. Some people find it easier to train one novice at a time.
3. Marginal Utility. When a rational economic actor has a lot of something (say, opportunity to get laid, or experience in getting laid, or willing partners, etc), they value each incremental unit less. This doesn’t mean women see sex as having less intrinsic value, it’s just maybe not as productive of a use of time and energy as pursuing other things… like obtaining college degrees or entering the work force.
4. Most of the world is kind of a heterosexual cruising area. Or rather, the heterosexual world doesn’t really need a cruising area, other than perhaps those big-city nightclubs. We meet everywhere. If somewhere between 2 – 20% of the population is gay, or exclusively seeking same-sex hook-ups, (a comically imprecise estimation, I know) then it must be more difficult for a gay person to find a willing partner than it is for the straight-identified. Hence, gay cruising areas likely came about as a sort of sexual-partner-market, reducing search and transaction costs for everybody. Oh, and also.
5. Real differences between genders in what affects desire, mood, and how one defines “sex.” It would be intellectually dishonest to ignore the fact that psychological and sex research seems to unveil all kinds of differences between how men and women respond sexually. Sex, desire, and sexuality are multi-dimensional subjects, and it’s difficult to quantify any individual’s affinity for sex as a whole. Some people hate this but really love that, others hate that but are really into this other thing. The brain is a fascinating machine, and 99.9% of us don’t know f***-all about how it works. So let’s just chill the eff out, and just stop regurgitating old, worn-out comedy routines about the stereotypical differences between men and women.
*Yes, I just called Ke$ha the musical equivalent to anonymous sex in a dirty truck-stop bathroom.
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I dunno, these are mostly good points but I don’t think it really negates the obvious truth of Fry’s underlying claim. You linked to Casual Encounters. Notice that the “m4w” section has about 10 times as many entries as the “w4m” section. You’ll see the same pattern in any forum whose primary purpose is to help men and women meet for casual sex. There are women out there who are interested in casual sex at any given point in town, but it’s much, much less common.
I’ll concede that on average, men are more likely to seek casual sex than women are. My point in linking to Casual Encounters was to show that straight cruising areas do exist. However, I still take issue with any claim about women’s and men’s respective interest in sex if that claim rests solely on one gender’s propensity towards anonymous sex with strangers. Maybe an addiction model is more appropriate? Haha, imagine: “Man, that guy’s such a sex (cocaine) addict, he’ll hook up with some rando chick in a dirty bathroom (snort lines off a dirty bathroom counter).” And like Whitney Houston, some of us are too rich to do crack. :)