It is perhaps a truism in some circles, but it has been said that the net effect of the Sexual Revolution has not been to elevate women, but to denigrate them, to bring them to the level of the man.
It seems intuitively obvious to me that women are capable of much greater enjoyment of sex thaan men. They have more refined senses than men do. If the moment of “ringing the bell” is a few moments for men, the after-tone for women seems to go much longer.
The ultimate aphrodisiac for women is trust rewarded. I wrote this in my notes a few months ago, and I believe it is true. I think for most women who are honest with themselves, the most satisfying moment is when they are lying in their lover’s arms, feeling warm and protected, vulnerable and safe.
For men, I think the greatest aphrodisiac is simply physical beauty, of the sort that for whatever reason appeals to them as individuals. The greatest guarantor of long term happiness, though, is acceptance. In their own way, men are vulnerable too, to the covert attack on their sense of self embedded in rejections of various sorts.
It seems to me that pornography is a means for systematically deducting trust from sexual relationships. It is a vehicle for converting love into lust, and complex human feelings into manias and compulsions. It appeals directly to what is worst in men, which is the objectification of women–treating them as other than individual beings, with needs, hopes, and the potential to love–and the avoidance of the fear that attends risking rejection through emotional openness and attachment.
Self evidently, we are all born with a sexual instinct that needs to be expressed for us to be happy. It does not seem to me that it has to be expressed impersonally, and with many partners. This is the point of marriage. Not all marriages work out, for a variety of reasons, but this basic vehicle balances both the need for sexual expression and the need for safety.
Is it the only vehicle? No. If everyone were honest, if everyone were emotionally mature enough to see other people as they are (and as importantly as they want to be), then over time marriage would be less important. Yet, the importance of committment between individuals would not diminish. You can’t trust people who are “here” one day emotionally, and gone the next. And the more times trust is violated, the harder it becomes to achieve satisfaction even in a sexual relationship.
We see the argument that to “repress” sex is unnatural, that optimal health depends on expressing it as often and in as many ways as possible. This argument neglects the emotional consequences of such behavior. For women, I think they lose a part of their identity, that of the loving woman, caring for her loving man. It is perhaps a cliche, but I think it is hard-wired into them. For men, they lose the sense of being reliable, sturdy, “there”, especially for a family, which in the end is the point of sex.
For that reason, I developed the notion of “qualitative repression”, which is the suppression of our higher, more refined instincts in favor of our more primal, more animalistic ones.
I would submit that having and raising children is one of the most satisfying experiences which is possible on this world. I don’t think any career or personal success can equal it, although of course those things are desirable. The pursuit of sex, qua sex, diminishes the capacity to do this well, and for many eliminates entirely the desire to have–and take responsibility for–children. Constant sexual “movement”–either a roving eye, or roving genitalia–leads to divorce, and unhappiness for those who stay married. The other side of the fence is always greener. Yet when they get there–having suffered in the meantime–I think many find it is just as brown, and possibly worse.
Trying to find fulfillment through sex leads, in my view, to the collection of invisible scars. It leads to “experimentation”, which amounts in the end to the substitution of quantitative variety for qualitative variety. Why not group sex? Why not bisexuality? Why not sadomasochism?
Qualitative variety would be different senses of love, engaging with all your senses open, trying to see another human being as they are and want to be.
I believe innocence, potentially, is as natural as sexual expression. The two combined are heaven on Earth, and heaven seems to be receding. Bringing it back (or, perhaps, bringing it here for the first time in human history) requires understanding that what we are doing, on balance, is not working, if by “working” we understand qualitative fulfillment and genuine contentment.