I was chatting about relationships when someone asked me what I find attractive. I couldn’t think of a specific thing, but a number of things to avoid, one of which is more an approach to relationships than a physical trait.
Some people enjoy getting or giving control: spanking, bondage, handcuffs, or maybe some role-play. Partly, no doubt, this is about the fantasy of having to do nothing while pleasure just comes your way and someone else does the work. But there’s a still a weird link between sex and dominance that can’t be ignored.
It’s there in pornography, as we read about in the news or see directly for ourselves. Men degrading women, commanding them or using them, tainting the way people interact in real-life relationships. Pornography might normalise such behaviour, but I don’t think it creates the desire.
Many people feel a need to link sex to dominance in some way: to establish and enjoy influence over someone else. Some people think that flirting is challenging the other person; that insults and mockery build relationships. I think I understand why; it’s about excitement, dominance and rising to a challenge. If someone else behaves like a doormat, accepting or agreeing with everything, there isn’t much character there and it’s hard to be interested. You hear nothing new from your echo. Insults are a way to demonstrate independence and, through wit, intelligence.
Sadly, however, not enough intelligence for me. I remember a young lady I met as a postgraduate who expressed an interest in polyamory, an interest I was happy to talk about, as I do not regard sex as a holy occasion of immense import for any relationship. This led her to start the insult challenge; I don’t remember what she said, but I can make up an equivalent:
‘is that because you’re so unlovable you’ve got too much spare?’
I was younger and less wise, but already I recognised the challenge. I still wasn’t interested in accepting, so I didn’t rise to the challenge. One could reply ‘Maybe you think I’m unlovable because your heart is so withered it has none to give’, and that would have risen to the challenge. One could reply ‘Weren’t we talking about sex, not love?’, trying to keep the conversation alive without responding to the insult at all. Or one could reply ‘It’s not lovable to insult someone in the middle of a friendly conversation’, responding to the rudeness directly.
Whatever I said, it wasn’t that first option, and she was unimpressed. Maybe we went through this cycle a couple of times, but very quickly she said ‘you just mouthing off. You don’t understand at all’. This was possibly a last attempt to challenge me, but I was disgusted with the whole conversation, so I just raised my eyebrows and walked off with a sigh.
For many people, this is how relationships work: it’s a game of establishing dominance. People will keep sex or love from their partners, withholding them until they get what they want, be it housework, agreement or some other favour. It reminds me of the bullying I grew up with: if you display any desire, it’s a weakness to be exploited.
Coming back to the chat I started with, my friend told me about a group of women who share tips about how to manipulate their partners, and how she finds it shocking. I don’t: I’ve seen enough of such behaviour to know how it’s more common than not in relationships. Many people know no other way of interacting; it’s what they grew up with, saw at school and experience from potential partners themselves. It’s a subculture that you can observe in many ‘reality’ television shows that involve dating and relationships.
I understand how such a relationship dynamic can emerge. Let’s say that the man is feeling horny and starts groping his wife. She’s really not interested right now and rejects his advances; there are other things on her mind that she thinks are important. Maybe some housework is weighing her down, so she has two things to communicate: she doesn’t want sex, but she does think some chores should be done. It’s not hard for those two things to intertwine; do what I want and I’ll do what you want.
And, phrased the right way, with thought and consent from both sides, it might be reasonable. Both of them, hopefully, have a similar enough desire to keep the home in order, and both of them, hopefully, do find the other attractive, so agreeing which thing to act on right now doesn’t have to be manipulation. It becomes a dynamic of dominance when it’s an ultimatum or a lottery said with distaste or derision: do things for me and I might be good enough to tolerate doing this one thing for you.
That’s not attractive to me. I’m not so stupid I can’t spot such obvious manipulation, nor so meek that I’ll put up with it. And it would be deeply unarousing to know that any eventual sexual activity is mere payment for other services rendered, rather than something my partner is enjoying.
What’s most attractive is not big breasts, muscular legs, a slim belly or even a pretty face. It’s a woman having genuine desire for me.
There are women who think that women should manipulate others like this. There is a book, called Honey Money, by Catherine Hakim, that says precisely this to all its readers. Men and women experience sexual desire differently, and Ms Hakim, an ardent feminist, builds her thesis from this.
For men, as I can well attest, desire is like a hunger. If I have not been sated recently, it will start to distract me from my life; I will spontaneously desire sexual satisfaction. But if I see an attractive woman, that desire is multiplied massively, just like seeing or smelling good food will make a starving person’s stomach rumble.
That’s how the husband was feeling in the earlier example. He was feeling horny anyway, and saw his wife, and because he is attracted to her, she made him even more lustful. And because they are in a relationship he felt able to show his desire and appreciation of her.
Women, on the other hand, rarely feel so spontaneously horny. Their arousal comes not entirely from within, but much more from the environment. It’s something that builds gradually; hence the whole concept of foreplay, which for many men is entirely unnecessary. Part of a woman’s environment is the amount of stress she’s under: having a litany of chores hanging over her will dampen her mood, whereas for a man his lust, like the need for food and water, comes first, and will help reduce his stress.
Some women recognise this, and will endure the beginning of sexual activity, knowing that with a little bit of time they will begin to enjoy it. This probably depends heavily on the woman, the partner and the trust in the relationship.
Mostly, however, men have a greater need for sex than women do, and the economic laws of supply and demand say that scarcity adds value. Ms Hakim proudly advocates what other women do either quietly or subconsciously: selling sex for favours. Prostitution, but preferably only within a relationship. My friend’s group of female friends, and my postgraduate acquaintance, all agree: the point of sex is to extract something else in exchange, and to be the one who dictates the terms of the exchange.
For vast numbers of people, dominance is a major factor in sex. It’s pleasurable to have dominated someone. For men, this can be either physically or economically, and occasionally emotionally. For women, it’s much more that last one, unless you regard ‘sex-for-favours’ as economic, rather than emotional, dominance.
For millenia, men have been the dominant sex because of their physical strength. Ms Hakim thinks that now strength is irrelevant in modern society, it should be women because they are the guardians of scarce supply. This is one reason why many women are especially outraged at other women’s promiscuity: slut-shaming by women is a way of preserving their own ability to manipulate men. Not the only reason, though, as large numbers of people link notions of purity to morality, with religious men and women alike regarding women who have had sex as ‘fallen’ and impure, and therefore less morally valuable.
However, whether it is strength or scarcity, we should ask not only whether one sex can dominate the other, but whether this is right. Sexual interactions cannot escape moral judgements; some moral judgements, such as calling a woman who enjoys sex immoral, are unjustifiable relics of a bygone bigoted era. But we can still look at sexual interactions through a moral lens.
Is it right for someone to use strength to take what they want? Not any more. But what about Ms Hakim’s thesis? We have people talk about wage-slavery: the way that the poor are tied into tiring, unrewarding work through the need to afford basic necessities. We talk about worker exploitation and price gouging and we are currently seeing endless news stories worrying about the cost of living, alongside protests demanding government action about the price of energy and fuel.
Clearly the economics of supply and demand have their limits for most people: it’s not always right to take as much as you can from a captive market. Some behaviours are exploitative and immoral, even if they are legal for now. I think that establishing dominance in sex is exactly the same. It might be legal. It might even, sometimes, be truly consensual and good. But overwhelmingly it’s an ugly demonstration of a twisted soul inside.
And black, twisted souls are not attractive.
