I'd Rather Eat Chocolate?

 Why God lies and sex objects object to sex
By Spengler

According to tradition across all cultures, the female sex drive vastly exceeds that of men. The Greek seer Tiresias, who had been both male and female, told the Roman gods (in Ovid's Metamorphoses) that women enjoy sex far more than men. [1] In The Arabian Nights, the Persian Shah Shahryar observes his new bride comporting with a whole troop of slaves. Giovanni Boccaccio famously stated in The Decameron, "While farmers generally allow one rooster for 10 hens, 10 men are scarcely sufficient to service one woman." [2] The matriarch Sarah's first reaction to the  angelic annunciation of the birth of Isaac was, "After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?"

Across ages and cultures, women universally are said to be more libidinous than men. I can find no report to the contrary. Women get most of the pain in the propagation of the species, so they should get most of the pleasure. With the plunging birth rate in the industrial world, one suspects that something has changed in this equation.

A case in point is Joan Sewell's book I'd Rather Eat Chocolate, a middle-aged woman's account of sexual ennui. It is customary to find salacious material on the best-seller lists, but this to my knowledge is the first time that the absence of desire has attracted mass attention. Think of it as a companion volume to Sex in the City. American women are purchasing Sewell's volume, perhaps to leave as a hint on their husband's pillow.

Mrs Sewell "slathers her husband, Kip, in chocolate frosting", reports Sandra Tsing Loh, who interviewed the authoress in the Atlantic Monthly. "She whispers naughty nothings in his ear. She lights candles, dons a bustier and fishnets, and massages him with scented oil. Ho-hum. She would still prefer a brownie, a book - anything to sex. And she says most women, unless they're fooling themselves, consider the deed a chore."

No wonder. Mrs Sewell dresses like a prostitute with her husband. Sex is a chore rather than a pleasure for prostitutes, and it is fair to assume that the same is true for women who act like prostitutes. Women do not like to be sex objects. Yet Mrs Sewell's complaint is epidemic among American women. The supposed sexual freedom of modern secular culture objectifies women, and eventually disgusts them. Nothing is more likely to kill desire than the life depicted in Sex and the City. In another location, I argued that sexual objectification makes women paranoid. [3] It also makes them squeamish.

Americans seem to suffer disproportionately from this problem, but they are not the only ones. A new survey by Japan's Ministry of Health and Welfare concludes that two out of five married couples in Japan do not have sexual relations. Unfortunately the survey did not ask couples why this should be the case - I do not think it is because Japanese women dislike sex - so we shall have to wait for additional information before evaluating this report.

"What do women want?" asked Sigmund Freud, reinforcing my suspicion that the man was a moron (see Put a stake through Freud's heart, May 9, 2006). Women in the modern world want what everyone wants, to be recognized as an individual unique upon the Earth. One does not have to accept the religious view that God made every soul uniquely and for a unique purpose. Individuality is the marketing pitch of modern shopping-mall culture. Women wander through a labyrinth of chain stores that sell the same products in a thousand locations, to pay them to bolster their sense of individuality, which is to say, to become a better sex object.

Prior to our epoch of sexual liberation, men had to court women to mate with them. The desired woman was a princess, the sovereign of the man's heart: that was the point of the ritual of kneeling and presenting a ring, a holdover of feudal obligation and etiquette. Women want to be loved for themselves, that is, for their unique and individual souls. Sexual objectification diminishes their interest in sex.

There is a story about a rabbi who is asked whether sex on the Sabbath is pleasure or work. "If it were work," the rabbi responds, "my wife would have the maid do it." Being a sexual object is work, not pleasure; it is not something one does for oneself, but for someone else, and it must become tedious. Women expect men to love them uniquely and in isolation from the rest of their gender, and want a man who actually and in fact loves her because there is something about her uniquely created soul that fulfills him.

Love and libido, according to the latest research, affect different parts of the brain. Professor Helen Fisher of Rutgers University suspects that low sex drive in women is due to the absence of love. She told the New York Times:

Lust is associated primarily with testosterone in both men and women ... Romantic love is linked with the natural stimulant dopamine and perhaps norepinephrine and serotonin. And feelings of attachment are produced primarily by the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin, which at elevated levels can actually suppress the circuits for lust. I'm not so sure that sex drive diminishes when most people believe it does. Show me a middle-aged woman who says she's lost her sex drive, and I'll bet if she got a new partner, who excited her, her neurochemical levels for lust and romantic love would shoot back up. [4]

Every human being wants to be completed by another person, like Aristophanes' four-legged creatures in Plato's Symposium. The trouble is that if everyone waited around to be quite certain that they were marrying the one individual on Earth whom God had apportioned to them, the species would die out rather quickly.

We do not have time to find our one true love among the other 6 billion inhabitants of the planet, but we (and women especially) need to believe that we are close to the mark. That is why God lies to us or, rather, induces us to lie to ourselves. That particular lie is the euphoria associated with falling in love. We cannot be sure that the person with whom we fall in love is uniquely apportioned to us by destiny or divine decree, yet that is the way it seems to us when love takes hold of us.

I say that "God lies" because of an extraordinary precedent in Genesis 18, the annunciation of the forthcoming miraculous birth of Isaac. Three angels appear at Abraham's tent and inform the centenarian that his elderly wife Sarah will bear him a son and heir. As noted, Sarah bursts out laughing at the idea that her elderly husband might give her pleasure, and God lies to Abraham to protect his feelings. The text reads:

9 And [the angels] said unto [Abraham], Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent.

10 And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him.

11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.

12 Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?

13 And the LORD said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old?

14 Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.

15 Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh.

Perhaps Abraham did not quite believe God's explanation, for he growls at Sarah in verse 15, "What are you laughing at?" Or perhaps we are to understand that Abraham's outburst at Sarah preceded God's explanation in verse 13. In either case, the medieval Jewish commentators observed that God lied to Abraham to preserve domestic harmony.

This remarkable fact I learn from the newsletter of the Orthodox Community at Brandeis University, whose motto is "Truth even unto its innermost parts" - excepting one, evidently, namely relations between men and women. An article by Adena Frazer titled "God's white lie" observes, "The Talmud explains that God edited Sarah's statement for the sake of peace (Bava Metzia 87a). Apparently, he felt that repeating Sarah's original comment would detract from the couple's domestic tranquility." [5]

It is not always the case that the truth shall set you free. Sometimes the truth will make you crazy. That applies in the case of decisions we must make on Earth that affect our sense of immortality. The choice of marital partner and parent to our children is the most important an intimate of these, and its implications are too sensitive to let truth get in the way.

Of course, woman discover in time that Prince Charming is neither a prince nor particularly charming, and men discover that the woman who once seemed to distill the energies of the universe into a single draft are not much different from a range of other women. Even God cannot keep the truth from us forever. If things work out, of course, by the time we come to our senses, it is time to fall in love once again, with our children.

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'Born-Again Virginity' in the Age of Girls Gone Wild

'Born-Again Virginity' in the Age of Girls Gone Wild

By Amy DePaul, AlterNet
Posted on March 20, 2007, Printed on March 21, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/49318/

Oh Ashley... it's been three weeks, am I a virgin again? Ramona
Born-again virgins, usually young people with a sexual past pledging to start fresh and commit to abstinence, take endless abuse on MySpace. Here, in Web pages filled with youthful accounts of hook-ups, parties and daily minutiae, writers muse over what constitutes born-again virginity, tongue planted firmly in cheek. Is it a year without sex, or as Ramona (above) might suggest, something more short term?
"I used to have a roommate who was a 'born-again virgin'," one Myspace user asserts in a typical posting, " -- what a crock of shit that was." Popular depictions of born-again virgins do little to add credibility. For example, Luanne from the animated sitcom "King of the Hill" vowed in a church ceremony never again to have premarital sex. A later episode depicted her pregnant, however.
Further reinforcing doubts are provocative musical treatments like singer Noa Tylo's 2001 album, "Born Again Virgin," which one reviewer called "a dark and broody dance-music exploration of sexual intensity." Hardly monastic!
Meanwhile, singer-songwriter Cindy Alexander's song "Born Again Virgin" begins, "Hey it's nice to meet you/I'm a born-again virgin" and later proposes, none too coyly, that "maybe we could touch." (Blame it on Madonna's 1984 hit, "Like a Virgin.")
Rooted in Evangelical dogma, born-again virginity has become easy to mock. But, for a large number of teens, abstinence supporters -- and, surprisingly, a cadre of mature single women - born-again virginity is no laughing matter. What, then, is the appeal of born-again virginity, and does it work?
AKA 'secondary virginity'
Born-again virginity originated from chastity campaigns organized by Evangelical Christians in the early 1990s. Currently groups such as Silver Ring Thing (www. silverringthing. com) and Worth the Wait (www. iamworththewait. org) promote teen abstinence on a massive scale, encouraging young people to take virginity pledges and seal the deal with wallet pledge cards and purity rings.
Does pledging work? In the short term, yes. But not in the long term, which is where born-again virginity comes into play. Abstinence pledges are successful with young and mid-adolescents, often delaying sex by 18 months, according to a 2001 study by sociologists Peter Bearman and Hannah Bruckner. Still, a follow-up study by the same authors showed that 88 percent of pledge-takers eventually had premarital sex.
"Secondary" or "renewed" virginity, then, may be a key retention strategy of the abstinence movement because it allows fallen pledge-takers back into the fold.
Virginity pledgers who break their vows are welcomed home with the proviso that they stop having sex and re-commit to abstinence: "If you have already had sex," it says on the Worth the Wait Web site, "don't throw in the towel just yet. You CAN start over and take a vow of renewed abstinence." Silver Ring Thing offers a similar message: "We recognize the fact that many students who attend the SRT are or have been sexually active, and they need to know if it is possible to begin again. The answer is YES, YOU CAN START OVER and, in fact, for this reason many students attend our program."
In this way, pledge groups touting secondary virginity operate in much the same way as Alcoholics Anonymous, which positions itself as a support system for all problem drinkers -- whether they are on, or off, the wagon.
Seriously, born-again virginity
There is a strong argument to be made on behalf of women -- Christian or not -- taking control of their bodies and making choices that are right for them.
This is essentially the approach that author Wendy Keller took in her 1999 book The Cult of the Born-Again Virgin. Keller had been working as a successful literary agent and stumbled onto born-again virginity in a social circle where you might least expect it: among 30- and 40-something high-powered career women. Rather than emulating Sex and the City's Samantha Jones, who uses her sexual prowess to dominate men and feel powerful, the women depicted in Keller's book had decided that taking themselves off the dating treadmill would empower them, and it did.
"I was at a cocktail party in Philly with a client at a friend's house," Keller recalls. "A woman was there who was dynamic and vivacious and successful and pretty. I asked if she was dating anybody and she said, 'No, I'm a born-again virgin and believe in being celibate until I find the right guy.'" Keller's first thought was to avoid the woman but when she heard the term again at a brunch in New York City and then later in Malibu, she knew she was on to something. She began researching born-again virginity and developed a self-help book advocating it.
Her book encourages women to stop using the pursuit of men as an excuse to avoid confronting their own problems. After it was published, Keller recalls, "There was a nuclear explosion." She appeared on hundreds of radio shows and garnered an overwhelming response: "I had everything from teenagers calling me on the radio crying because they'd had sex with nine boys and needed to make better choices to husbands saying, 'My wife has decided to become a born-again virgin.'"
Keller found herself under attack from different camps: Playboy and Maxim chided her for her supposed prudishness because she advised sexual restraint. Meanwhile, Christian broadcasters were incensed that she would not advocate premarital abstinence.
"I got a lot of heat from the Christian community because I would not say it's a good idea to be celibate until married. It [premarital abstinence] was a bad choice for me. There were people who had made that choice and paid a high price for it," Keller says. "The way I see it, the born-again virginity movement is temporary celibacy, and it's about not waiting for a man to fix every aspect of your life. The point is to get your life working."
Sex, lies and born-again virginity
Recent research raises troubling conclusions about the way teens practice secondary virginity. Janet Rosenbaum, a doctoral candidate at Harvard University, last June published findings in the American Journal of Public Health that adolescents are prone to recanting virginity and secondary virginity pledges. She found that those who take pledges are likely to recant their sexual histories.
By documenting the extent to which young people lie about their sexual experiences, her findings raise concern over whether teens might take their virginity renewal literally, believing that if they stop having sex they can conceal their past from a spouse or doctor and, in so doing, spread or ignore STDs.
Perhaps this concern highlights a need to reinvent born-again virginity so that it does a better job meeting the needs of the people who choose it. First, teens need to know that born-again virginity doesn't mean they can pretend they never had sex and leave diseases undetected and untreated. Second, born-again virginity should be a feminist-inspired route to autonomy of mind and body: a recourse for adolescent girls seduced by exploitative and ultimately fraudulent media depictions of youth sexuality. In this era of porn on-demand and girls-gone-wild, it's easy for girls to believe that early promiscuity will make them powerful, when it is more likely to lead to unplanned pregnancy and STDs, if not shattered self-esteem.
Third, every young woman deserves candid conversations -- not about purity for the sake of her future husband -- but about desire, responsibility, self-respect and self-determination. For herself.
Amy DePaul is a writer and college instructor who lives in Irvine, Calif. Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post and many other newspapers.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

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Caring but not sharing

Separate bedrooms are all the rage among American couples - so it can only be a matter of time before the fashion reaches Britain. But would that be a bad thing, asks Zoe Williams Zoe Williams Tuesday March 13, 2007 Guardian It is easy to think the worst of Americans. Perhaps you have just read that they are indulging a new trend, that of separate sleeping quarters for married people. Aha! you think. They are craven, status-driven warthogs, who simply wish to flaunt their wealth by the incredible amount of space they can take up, because their houses are so huge. Or maybe it is the snoring. They have to sleep separately, because they all snore. And they all snore because they eat too much. The research vice-president of that nation's National Association of Home Builders has said: "It started with the his-and-hers closet ... now the demand is for the his-and-hers bedroom. It's a market-driven demand that's going to continue." Naturally, you think: what else would it be but market-driven? What trend ever occurs in that bloated nation that isn't just the agglomerated me-me-me demands of a load of grabby warthogs? The truth is, of course, that if you have a spare room at all, which I do, then you could just as easily call this a his-and-hers bedroom arrangement, if you could just get your boyfriend to sleep in it, possibly by coaxing him up there with a trail of chocolate buttons. Or maybe I am getting it mixed up with how to get a cat to use a cat-flap. And if you snore, which I do, and so does your boyfriend, which he does, and so does your dog, who learned it off you, and so does your cat, probably, except with the least body mass she is the quietest, then there is no reason at all why separate sleeping shouldn't be a brilliant idea. I am America, in other words. Certainly to my dark psyche. All the America-hate is just self-hate with a geo-political spin. The first image that springs to mind is the 1950s film. "Like Doris Day," says Emma, my friend, when I mention it to her. She has conflated two concepts: "Hollywood classic" and "sexless marriage". Where these intersect is the area of separate bedrooms or at least twin beds. Because of the original filmic motivation - that a double bed signified sexual decadence, where twins signified propriety - one thinks of separate sleeping quarters, naturally enough, as sexless. Such a couple must be very prudish, and frigid, you think - if they were red-blooded, they would want to sleep together. Now, I don't want to depress young couples just starting out but I think most of us, being honest, would admit that double beds do not, within the context of a marriage, necessarily spell out "red-hot congress occurs here on a twice-nightly basis". Once you admit that, you can start to countenance the possibility that separate rooms, far from being the death knell of physical togetherness, might actually spice things up a bit, like that rabbi whose major sex tip is: "Try not to undress in front of one another." It's not so much the familiarity and the contempt stuff. Contempt can come from anywhere. Sometimes your husband might only just have come back from a very long business trip and still drive you up the wall. It is more about the formal structures that separate rooms would necessitate. On such occasions as it was called for, you would have to find some way of luring your other half into your room. Perhaps they had been yawning a lot all the way through West Wing; you would then know that special measures must be taken. You might have to leave a trail of chocolate buttons. Sorry - I am painting an inaccurate picture indeed of my actual boyfriend, who doesn't have a sweet tooth and wouldn't cross the street for less than a Quaver. But you see where I'm going - the more trappings there are surrounding the activity, the more scope for innovation. The more scope for innovation, the more likely you are to invent a new kind of light bulb while shagging and immeasurably improve the net profitability of your lovemaking. Of course, the other way separate rooms could enhance your love life is if you lived in the olden days, and were posh. Almost the entire genre known as "English country-house fiction" (all about sex, not to be confused with country-house poetry, which is all about houses), from The Shooting Party to Gosford Park, would be non-existent if it weren't for the fact that rich people never knew where their spouses were in the night, so never kicked up a fuss if they were having affairs. Without this feature, the aristocracy would have almost nothing to recommend it, apart from one or two recipes. That said, it will be long time before society as a whole comes naturally to associate separate beds with a healthy sex life. You only have to think of the umbrage you take when you get to a hotel room with twin beds in it. If they are apart, you think: Hmph! Rage! They can see we're a couple. What do they think - that we're having a holiday from all the enormously tiring nookie we have in our regular life? And if the twin beds are pushed together, you think: Hmph! Rage! They're not even the same height. Do they think we're not going to notice? Sometimes in an American hotel, they have two ginormous double beds in the one room, as a kind of warthog-twin-variant. It has been my eternal fear that whichsoever boyfriend I am with will decide, from a purely pragmatic perspective, that it might be fun to have one bed each, and I will be so totally hurt and insulted that our relationship will never recover. I pre-empt this possibility by booby-trapping the second double with prickly hairbrushes and knives. I stayed in a rather delightful place called the Sands family resort hotel once, me and my ex-ex; they gave us a room the size of a squash court, which had a double, two singles and a bunk bed in it. It was just confusing. One night we ended up sleeping on the beach. We were drunk, mind. But most of this stuff is about whether you are being promoted or demoted, isn't it? I mean, if your beloved suddenly wanted a separate room, that would clearly be a relationship downsize. I think you could confidently consider yourself downgraded from "life partner" to "periodical cohort". But if you started your relationship, say, in twin beds (and I really have started a relationship like this), then there is almost nowhere to go but up. Maybe these Americans with their his-and-hers suites all come from households with very great financial disparity, so that there's a constant struggle for territory, as one party holds all the cash-cards and the other tries to claw back power in other ways. Maybe in a circumstance like that, just being vested with more physical house-space is a win-win situation, and the ramifications for your sex life are secondary to the power balance. Or maybe it is just the snoring. One should never underestimate the power of the snore.