Desire

I had a conversation with a group of people a few days ago, and while it was not completely about gender, the underlying assumption of the conversation essentially boiled down to "Men want sex more than women." It made me think about the Cantigas laws, and how they held the assumption of women as having a higher, more uncontrollable desire for sex. And I sort of started wondering where our current conceptions about desire begin. There are a few ways to look at it. In a top down view, it's possible that the conceptions of our media going back for hundreds of years has gradually begun to portray men as more desiring, creating our modern conception. I know that today, most media operates under the assumption that men have a high desire. Alternatively, it's possible to argue that the behavior was always there, and media gradually came to represent it.

But the conversation shouldn't be about that, because they it operates on a flawed principle to begin with. Men don't desire more than women. As Diego said when we talked about Queer Theory, "Everyone has desire." A male desire and a female desire are inherently the same. I think the conceptions of men "wanting sex more" comes from the way our society deals with those desires. A man after he has sex might feel more powerful, more masculine. He might want to tell other men, since having sex can be seen as an affirmation of their masculinity. Certainly there's media that backs this idea (500 Days of Summer). Whereas a woman would probably keep it to themselves - a female might receive harsh judgment for having sex, particularly outside of a relationship, might even be considered less feminine to other men. I think this conception of male desire as greater is more an expression of the fact that men are publicly allowed to display their desire in speech and action - men ask women on dates, no the other way around. The man can confess his desire for the woman, but she "reluctantly accepts" she must be "won" and never too quickly express her desire. Man's desire can be more openly expressed, and so it is perceived to be greater.