The complexity of sexuality

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

Sex. It’s the reason we’re all here. More than anything else, it’s thought about, talked about and/or done. Yet we know so little about it.

Two recent books try to remedy this lack of knowledge, and their authors will be at the Cherie Smith JCCGV Jewish Book Festival on Nov. 24. In Libido Unleashed: A Night to Remember, Dr. Abraham Morgentaler (Why Men Fake It: The Totally Unexpected Truth About Men and Sex, Henry Holt and Company) and Daniel Bergner (What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire, HarperCollins Publishers) will be interviewed by Rhona Raskin, a registered clinical counselor, writer, TV personality, and former host of Rhona at Night, a radio show in which she answered questions about sexuality and relationships.

Morgentaler, associate clinical professor of urology at Harvard Medical School and director and founder of Men’s Health Boston, is a leading authority on men’s health. Asked why he has written Why Men Fake It at this point in his career, Morgentaler told the Independent, “As one of the rare breed of physicians who specialize in male sexual issues, I’ve been provided a remarkable, unique experience with what men really think and feel about sex and relationships, with their pants down, literally and figuratively. After 25 years of practice, my own assumptions and ideas about men have evolved considerably, and I felt it was time to share what I’ve learned. The truth about men is so different from what we think we know about them, and so much more interesting.”

The same could be said for what we think we know about women and for What Do Women Want?, Bergner, a contributing writer for New York Times Magazine, interviewed medical professionals, scientists and sexologists, as well as many women, about female sexuality. He told the Independent that he was motivated to write the book when he “stumbled into the lab of Meredith Chivers [of Queen’s University]. She was doing fascinating work, studying women’s desire. The results of her experiments posed profound riddles. I wanted to follow her journey and the journeys of other scientists, and I wanted to interweave those scientific stories with the sexual lives and searching of everyday women.”

In the book, Bergner notes that sexology has been, and remains to a large extent, a male-dominated discipline, implying that men have been more studied and are, therefore, more understood. Yet Morgentaler comments in Why Men Fake It, about men, sex and relationships, “The truth is, we know next to nothing.”

“Sex is a break in the normal fabric of our lives,” posited Morgentaler about why we still know so little in this area. “Men and women who are so germ-phobic that they won’t touch a doorknob directly with their hands will, in the throes of lust, rub themselves, body against body with another human being, and exchange body fluids. We have yet to acknowledge the animal part of our sexual desires and behaviors, and sex remains a secret, dark place. This is why I find sexuality endlessly fascinating, as there is a tension between our primal animalistic urges with the societal rules that govern acceptable behavior. There is still shame associated with our primal experience of desire and sexual behavior. We’ve come a long way, yet there is still a long way to go.”

While noting “that Canada seems a lot more willing than the U.S. to fund scientific exploration of sexuality,” Bergner added, “But that said, I think eros makes most of us uncomfortable, even as it thrills us. It’s such a powerful and essential force; it’s central to who we are as human beings. We’re uneasy about looking at this force too closely, too candidly.”

Anyone shy on the topic will find What Do Women Want? and Why Men Fake It uncomfortable reading at times. One can understand how simplistic stereotypes of women and men have developed to gloss over our more primal aspects.

“Standard roles are soothing. It’s nice to keep things in their proper place. And this is especially true with something as potentially unsettling as sex,” said Bergner. “Eros can be anarchic. Better to keep it in its box. This has served men especially well, I think. How comforting to men, and to society as a whole, to trust that women are at least somewhat less driven by libido and – genetically – at least somewhat better suited to monogamy.”

Morgentaler would disagree that the stereotypes have served men well. One of the prime motivations to write his book, he said, “was to show that men are so different from the stereotype of the selfish, inconsiderate individual driven only by his own sexual self-gratification. Curiously, men perpetuate these same stereotypes, which are really myths once men grow beyond their adolescent phase. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that men care as much or more about their partner’s satisfaction as their own. Indeed, a large part of a man’s sense of his own masculinity comes from his assessment of his ability to please his partner. This is the opposite of the selfish stereotype.

“The reason this and other stereotypes (e.g., ‘always eager for sex, always ready’) persist is 1) men don’t talk about sexuality, and 2) we are in a crisis as to what constitutes masculinity these days. While men can no longer rely on being the sole ‘provider’ in a relationship with regards to money or status, they have held onto old notions of what men are supposed to be like sexually. My hope in writing about men and sexuality is that men who feel different from the cartoon-ish, sexually salivating simpletons shown for years on television will find comfort and courage in recognizing that they are not weird, or alone, and will begin to embody a new male sexuality that acknowledges who they really are, with respect for their partners.”

One of the many interesting scientific findings reported in What Do Women Want? is a difference between what researchers, through various methods, determined was arousing women physically and what women admitted to being aroused by (sex with a stranger versus a friend, for example); as well, women were more likely to underreport their number of sexual partners when their truthfulness wasn’t being measured (by a polygraph they thought was real). One possible reason given for the disconnect was wilful denial, partly due to societal expectations, with more sexual freedom accorded to men. This, however, is a moving target.

“While it is clear that women have had more repressive ‘training’ regarding their sexuality than men over the last several decades, things are changing so quickly with gender and sex that one could get whiplash trying to pin down what’s happening,” said Morgentaler. “I have men with normal sexual function coming into my office requesting a prescription for the ED [erectile dysfunction] pills because they fear they cannot keep up with overt sexual demands of their female partners on the dating scene.... Gone are the days when men had access to more sexual information than women. The Internet has changed all that, and feminism has allowed women to express themselves freely about their sexual desires. Men have to adapt. I see gender roles in sexual relationships changing already, and it will be interesting to see what happens in the future.”

Interesting, indeed. One of the conclusions of What Do Women Want? is: “The stereotypes of male versus female, that male desire is far more promiscuous, seem more and more open to question.”

“Letting go of the principle of monogamy is difficult for most of us to truly consider,” acknowledged Bergner. “That goes for me personally, even after the years of working on this book. In some ways, monogamy, our grasping after fidelity and constancy, is our attempt to ensure that we won’t die alone; it’s our attempt to allay our most basic fears. We’re left with a paradox: there’s lust on the one hand and the promise of forever on the other. This is what we’re faced with as human beings. I guess this is an answer to your first question about why I wrote the book. I wanted to grapple with this fundamental problem.”

“Men have gotten a bad rap when it comes to sex, and a major contributor to this has been the notion that men are cheats by nature and women are not,” said Morgentaler on this topic. “Yet infidelity has never been restricted to men, and men are as shaken up as women when they discover their partner has had sex with someone else. Growing up at the tail end of the free love movement, I am familiar with the ‘romantic’ notion that men and women alike should give in to our polygamous nature, and free ourselves from traditional relationship pairings. However, I’ve come to see this idea as anything but romantic. Sex may sometimes be nothing more than sex. Yet most often sex between two individuals who share feelings for each other is something far more meaningful than simply sharing a physical activity together. It is unlike going bowling or skiing together. It is magical. The challenge as human beings with ‘lust in our hearts,’ to paraphrase former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, is to find a path whereby we are free to experience what is true about our sexual urges while being able to fashion a personal life that provides the features of trust, companionship and love that so many of us desire.”

Libido Unleashed starts at 7 p.m., on Nov. 24, at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. For tickets ($14): ticketpeak.com/jccgv or 604-257-5111.

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