Screwed

Our obsession with female anatomy compels women both to conceal and to exhibit their bodies. A woman must expose her body — in part, only, but without a doubt. From a visual standpoint, that’s what femininity means to us: flirting with the limits of the decent and indecent.

Our society has countless unwritten rules separating women from men. This sex segregation has become a well-oiled system that we treasure. We are, on the whole, allergic to questioning the status quo.

Historically, we have physically separated men and women, segregating the spaces in which they evolve. We created schools for girls and schools for boys, assigned men to public spaces while confining women to the home, and established traditionally feminine or masculine professions. Consider pilots and flight attendants: literally separated by a physical barrier.

Today we continue to separate men and women, in public restrooms and locker rooms, when we play sports or when we dance, on official forms (by checking Ms. or Mr., F or M), in language (through the use of gendered pronouns), in toy stores, and in clothing stores. This final example holds particular interest for me, because it illustrates how we differentiate our bodies visually, which impacts our libidos in certain ways.

WHEN EYES REPLACED NOSES

For most members of the animal kingdom, pheromones are what stimulate libido. These chemical signals transmit information between members of a species and trigger a sexual attraction. Humans also secrete pheromones, but we have lost the capacity to detect them: the vomeronasal organ, located in the nose, has atrophied. In its place, culture has taken over for nature, and we have collectively constructed our sex drive around our sense of sight.

We therefore create symbols, continuously and deliberately, that we associate with courtship and sex. These symbols are visual stimuli.

It seems that we aren’t satisfied with merely temporarily segregating based on gender for specific activities — swing dancing, for instance, or urinating. Far from it. We want to be able to know, with just a glance and even from a distance, whether the silhouette on the horizon belongs to a man or a woman. Regardless of the age or size of the person in question, we are determined that the genders should appear fundamentally distinct the moment we register them. To do this, however, we can’t rely only on anatomical differences: we need more. Men and women must be symbolically opposed.

In the Bible, sex segregation through clothing is ordained by God: “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.”¹

This is another direct consequence of the cumshot principle. As we have already seen, women must be passive targets to receive a man’s desire. A woman must embody purity so men will want to defile her. But she must also be easily identifiable so we can know at a glance that she (unlike a man) is above all a body to examine, criticize, or admire.

As I write these lines, sitting outside a downtown café of a major Western city, I watch the passersby who are out enjoying the glorious weather. All are dressed according to their gender. Everything is differentiated: their hair, hats, shoes, shirts, the list goes on and on. Some are wearing accessories that could be considered androgynous — sneakers, for example — but when I take in the full picture, I notice certain characteristics that immediately identify them as men or women.

Women’s clothing is much more colourful: it is both brighter and more varied. Men generally wear dark or neutral colours such as grey, dark blue, brown, or black. Women’s clothing also tends to include patterns and textures (flowers, polka dots, lace, etc.), which rarely feature in men’s wardrobes.

Clothing designed for men covers a greater surface area than clothing for women. Men’s shorts and sleeves are longer (long sleeves cover the entire arm to the wrist, short sleeves cover the shoulder and upper arm). Collars almost always go as high as the neck.

Low-cut tops for women expose the neck, the area around the collarbone, and the top of the chest. Plunging necklines often reveal the top of the breasts, along with a woman’s cleavage. Sleeves come in various lengths: full, three-quarter, short, sleeveless, spaghetti straps, or strapless. Depending on current fashion trends, tops may reveal the lower abdomen or a larger part of the belly (crop tops or belly shirts).

Women’s shorts are also significantly shorter. While men’s shorts are often cut just above the knee, women’s shorts are cut at the mid-thigh, upper thigh, or even reveal the gluteal fold (where the buttocks meets the thigh).

Similarly, women’s bathing suits expose more skin (although they stop at revealing the nipple, which is considered obscene).

Worn almost uniquely by women in our culture, skirts and dresses are an unequivocal visual cue symbolizing the pinnacle of femininity. Until recently, this was actually the only attire permitted to women. Pants were not acceptable — in the same way that it is socially taboo for a man to wear skirts and dresses — until the twentieth century.

What’s remarkable about these types of garments is how effectively they accomplish their role of creating sexual tension around the body. By definition, skirts and dresses are completely open at the bottom. Since they are not closed between the legs, a strong breeze or a deep bend at the waist and — oops! — it is possible to glimpse what should be kept hidden. This happens only rarely, but there is always a risk, nonetheless — which is what makes skirts and dresses so attractive, so feminine. Women who wear them must make sure to be well covered, to cross their legs while seated, to hold the skirt down in the wind, to check that their dress hasn’t gotten caught in their underwear after a trip to the bathroom. And this hyperawareness of the body, this concern for maintaining a respectable appearance while simultaneously establishing conditions to prevent it, is the essence of femininity as we know it.

When we think of a form-fitting garment, we immediately picture a little black dress clinging to the body, Bond-girl style. But beyond this cliché, the truth is that women’s wardrobes largely consist of tight-fitting clothing.

Women’s clothing is made to hug the body’s curves, since we believe a woman’s figure should be perceptible — in contrast to men’s clothing, which is much looser-fitting. Men’s pants are baggier, their T-shirts roomier, even their pullovers have a more spacious fit.

When men are required to dress up, they wear straight pants and a jacket or blazer over a button-up: a combination that conceals their figure. Women, meanwhile, wear form-fitting dresses that hug their every curve. And if the skirt is loose or long, the bodice will be even more revealing.

Of course, women also have more relaxed clothing in their closets; but these items are paired with fitted pieces to create a hide-and-seek effect with the silhouette, according to the fashion trends of the day. And when an outfit is skin-tight, it leaves nothing to the imagination. These clothes are unforgiving; we can see every roll, every bulge.

Since this type of clothing is so uncompromising, women whose bodies don’t conform to our beauty standards develop strategies to hide their “flaws.” For instance, they might wear control-top undergarments that suck in their hips or waist — essentially a modern-day corset. Older or plumper women might also wear loose-fitting clothing with lots of layers for a “deceiving” effect that helps them hide their bodies. In doing so, they stray from the feminine ideal, which dictates that women display their figures. But they are forgiven — and even encouraged — since we believe “imperfect” women shouldn’t be sending visual stimuli when it comes to sex, anyway.

For women who aspire to femininity despite their imperfections (i.e., the majority of women), there are all sorts of highly sophisticated ways to exhibit and camouflage. We’ve all seen the magazine articles and fashion blogs offering readers a how-to guide to dressing for your figure: You have a pear-shaped body. You’re an inverted triangle. These teach women to use clothing to conform to society’s collective beauty ideals.

Tight clothing can be remarkably ruthless, and in this respect the G-string or thong has proved a particularly effective invention. This tiny piece of fabric has a narrow strip that passes between the buttocks so as not to cover the cheeks. It was popularized when fitted pants came into style, and is intended to erase all visible traces of undergarments on this eroticized area of the body. The G-string was marketed to allow women to wear pants, shorts, dresses, or skirts that show off the shape of their buttocks without the view being disturbed by an underwear line — which might break the mysterious spell of femininity.

The same goes for pockets. Most of women’s clothing has no pockets at all (including tiny or fake pockets), while pockets on men’s clothes are perfectly functional. That’s because pockets have a practical function, not just an aesthetic one, and when filled with objects can disrupt the linearity of a garment designed to hug a woman’s curves. “Men have pockets to keep things in, women for decoration,” Christian Dior famously said in 1954.

And don’t forget that almost all women’s pants shown in stores hug the buttocks — so consistently, in fact, that the expression “boyfriend jeans” was coined to refer to pants that do not. As the name indicates, only men (in theory) are expected to wear loose-fitting jeans; a woman who wears them most likely borrowed them from her boyfriend.

As we saw earlier, not all women’s clothing is form-fitting. But when a garment is loose or baggy, women employ other strategies to feminize the outfit, such as adding a belt. A dress can be fitted with a sash or elastic sewn into the fabric to pull it taut in strategic areas, such as below the bust or around the waist: a visual reminder of the body concealed beneath the loose fabric.

Bras are another example of this phenomenon. Women in most societies throughout history did not wear bras. While many say they appreciate the comfort bras afford, bras are first and foremost a fashion accessory that cause discomfort for many women.

For decades, bras were marketed as a way to keep breasts from sagging prematurely. Yet there is no evidence to support this claim. According to Jean-Denis Rouillon, professor at the Centre hospitalier régional universitaire de Besançon who led a fifteen-year study of 130 women aged eighteen to thirty-five, bras actually contribute to sagging breasts.²

Although there is no evidence that wearing a bra helps combat the tendency of breasts to sag due to pregnancy, weight change, genetics, aging, and other natural causes, countless professionals still claim that bras provide the key to preserving firm breasts.

But if this supposed benefit is the goal, bras have a curious design: they lift the breasts and bring them closer together to enhance cleavage. How is this supposed to provide better support? Why reposition the breasts? And isn’t there a risk of back pain by shifting women’s centre of gravity?

Bras have an additional effect: they standardize the way breasts look and hide the nipple. From a glance, one would think women’s breasts are all uniform, while in reality chests vary greatly. Bras are solid; they are modern corsets. Sitting breastless on lingerie store shelves, they proudly maintain their supports. Padding adds volume and hides the undignified nipple, and the underwire and overall stiffness illustrate how the bra is intended to change the chest’s natural appearance. A woman must hide the true shape of her breasts or be considered unattractive — even offensive.

Women’s shoes are often designed without taking into account the foot’s actual shape. That means women must develop skills to wear them. High heels are the best example: since they alter the foot’s arch and overall position, these shoes are difficult to walk in, and downright dangerous where running is involved. They force women to take small, careful steps to avoid falling. Just wearing them can be painful.

Yet flat shoes can also pose a challenge. To keep ballet flats on the feet, for instance, a woman must contract her toes at each step. And since these shoes typically have very thin soles — a feature not generally found in men’s footwear — they wear out quickly.

Whether heels or flats, women’s shoes seem to have been designed primarily as decoration, and not to help the wearer get around more efficiently.

When we talk about our “relationship with our body,” we don’t always include the hair and face. But these features are also sexualized.

Makeup is nothing more than a sexualizing process to make the face appear more desirable. Lipstick accentuates lip colour, eyeliner appears to widen the eyes, mascara lengthens and emphasizes the eyelashes, foundation evens skin tone, blush highlights the cheekbones, eyeshadow makes eyes look bigger. In recent years, the Kardashian sisters have popularized the practice of contouring: using makeup and visual effects to radically change the face’s appearance. Some are outraged by the practice, but the truth is that the sole purpose of all makeup, in contouring or otherwise, is to make the face as attractive as possible according to current trends.

Makeup is to the face what skirts and dresses are to the body: reserved only for women, the restriction itself a mark of femininity. Long hair, skirts, lipstick: the more a practice is exclusive to women, the more those who adhere to it are considered feminine.

And what about hair? One might argue that men, too, can wear their hair long. While this is true, long hair is generally considered a feminine feature, and it tends to be discouraged for men.

Standard practice dictates that women wear their hair long (chin-length, shoulder-length, or all the way down the back) and men wear their hair short (shaved, or two to five centimetres long). Fashion trends allow for variations, but we invariably return to the “men = short hair/women = long hair” binary.³

Men’s hairstyles are practical. Short hair doesn’t get windblown or fall across the eyes. Conversely, many hairstyles for women — even short ones — are designed to obstruct vision and require constant upkeep and attention. Long hair limits the peripheral vision when it’s not pulled back. A woman can be nearly blinded by her own hair if she bends over. Long hair gets tangled easily and requires brushing. But that isn’t all. We expect women to care for their hair using products, such as hair dryers, straighteners, curling irons, hairspray, mousse, special shampoo, extensions, barrettes, elastics, and bobby pins, to name just a few.

As a woman working in the television industry, I see first-hand how much time it takes women to care for their face and hair. CBC schedules approximately forty-five minutes of prep time before female journalists and news anchors go on the air, compared to about five to ten minutes for their male colleagues. In other words: the national television network in Canada thinks a woman needs thirty-five to forty extra minutes of prep time just to appear as presentable as a man. Is a woman’s natural state really so offensive?

Hair care doesn’t end with daily maintenance. A large number of women dye their hair, as well. As women age, they tend to colour their hair to cover the grey, while men are more likely to embrace theirs (“silver foxes” like George Clooney are even considered sexy). Even younger women dye their hair if they feel their natural colour isn’t vibrant or blond enough, or simply to conform to current trends. Here we come back to the notion that colour denotes femininity. As with clothing, women’s hair is expected to be more colourful, and therefore more visible.

Managing body hair is a particularly sex-differentiated practice. Men trim their beards, but in most cases that is the extent of their hair care. Yet for decades, women have been expected to shave their legs, under their arms, between their thighs — not to mention removing any stray hairs on their faces.

When we talk about the importance both genders place upon appearance, it has become fashionable to claim that men are, in fact, “catching up” to women. We argue that men today are just as preoccupied by their looks as women are, and just as likely to make alterations in order to please. This is a prevalent discourse when it comes to plastic surgery, but the figures tell a different story.

According to statistics published by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, women accounted for 86 percent of all plastic surgery patients in 2014. This number doesn’t even come close to 50 percent parity.

What’s more, a 2015 publication by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reports that 92 percent of so-called minimally invasive surgeries were performed on women, compared to 8 percent on men. The numbers for conventional plastic surgery indicate a ratio of 87 percent female and 13 percent male. And while there has been an increase in both types of surgeries over the long term, the rise has been more significant in women (+118 percent) than men (+24 percent).⁴ These statistics contradict the idea that men are “catching up” to women in this department.

The visual stimuli that draw attention to women’s bodies and create sexual tension around them are those that

But to be clear: I’m not arguing these practices should not exist, nor that women should not adopt them.

Nothing I have described above is inherently “bad.” Wearing long hair, trading comfort for aesthetic appeal, applying makeup, exposing one’s skin — none of these behaviours is wrong, superficial, or sexist by default. They are all perfectly valid and rational choices. Fashion can be a form of expression and a symbol of belonging, a sign of rebellion and way to break with previous generations (e.g., teenagers whose style shocks their parents). They can also be the opposite: a manifestation of conformity, a way of showing that we follow society’s codes and we aren’t going to make waves. These practices can also be about seduction, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Given the sexist differences we have observed, we could argue women should simply opt out and put an end to the inequality. But doing so would overlook the fact that we could easily argue the opposite: men could very well start adhering to these fashions and customs, too. They could, after all, wear skirts and dresses, put on makeup, shave their legs, wear tight clothing, and dye their hair blond. Why not?

A FEW CLARIFICATIONS

There will always be men who wear clothing that defies the conventional trends. But these men are considered “effeminate” or “eccentric.” The same goes for women who wear typically masculine clothing; we call them “butch” or “tomboys,” or even say they have “let themselves go.”

Some fashions allow cisgender men and women to play with styles that are not generally associated with their sex. But when this happens, people usually display enough of the characteristics associated with their own gender that we can easily tell the difference. To date, our culture has never accepted a truly lasting, non-gendered fashion.

Fashion and its codes are not inherently problematic. What is problematic, what is sexist, is when they are drawn along gendered lines. Women are conditioned to follow a pre-determined path within a patriarchal culture, where femininity is associated with sex, beauty, superficiality, and, in the face of any transgression, immorality, while men are required to conform to a different, though no less compelling, code.

The problem is that we separate the sexes, telling them they must present their bodies differently because we treat them differently. We refuse to grant them the same symbolic value, sexually and politically.

Finally, contrary to what we like to believe, gender-based fashion differences are not intended to accommodate the real anatomical differences that exist between the sexes. They are artificial markers, created to meet cultural expectations.

These fashion differences have numerous consequences for real bodies, which we end up mistaking for “innate” behaviours and attitudes. We end up associating clothing-related mannerisms with women: shoes can cause changes to our gait, skirts restrict our movements, we sit differently in pants and play with hair differently depending on its length. Our attire can have a positive or a negative impact on our general well-being. Fashion affects our behaviours in both large and small ways. These differences constitute what we have come to call “feminine” and “masculine.”

Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than to merely keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world’s view of us.

Objectification is the art of seeing or interacting with a woman in a manner that ignores her humanity. We erase her personality, desires, and free will in order to focus solely on her physical appearance. Her body becomes an object to act on, irrespective of her emotions, thoughts, fears, and desires.

In the grossest caricature of objectification, a woman is literally treated as an object of consumption. A woman-table. A woman-steak. A woman-beer.

We often cite objectification when examining advertisements intended to sell a product. But the phenomenon has a much wider reach. Objectification occurs in art, fiction (think of the countless movies where the woman exists to serve the fantasy of the male hero), and pornography (no example needed).

And objectification goes well beyond images and fiction. Simply introducing or interacting with a woman in such a way that ignores her own wishes is to objectify her. A woman who has been assaulted or sexually harassed has been objectified. The offender is wholly unconcerned with the victim’s emotions, which allows him to treat her as a tool he can use as he wishes, without consideration of or respect for her humanity.

Desiring someone does not equal reducing that person to a thing. The difference between the two lies in understanding that the object of our desire might not desire us in return. That person might not necessarily want what we want, and we cannot ignore this fact. When we take these circumstances into account, we act respectfully toward the person we desire.

Objectification is a way of submitting a woman to a man’s desires and completely disregarding what she wants for herself. It is acting as though the only thing she could desire is to fulfill a man’s needs.

Every object requires a subject. This acting subject — the man — is the only one with real importance. He is considered a human being, with goals, wishes, and desires.

Style is the primary vector of objectification when it comes to gender division. It is what puts women’s bodies on display — so that we come to see their image as what defines them — and brushes men’s bodies aside. Men are defined by their personality, words, and actions, not by their appearance. This results in an imbalance of power that benefits men.

Women’s fashion systematically places them in the role of object. A woman is fundamentally decorative. Her purpose, her raison d’ être, is to attract attention by magnifying her body — deforming it, colouring it, moulding it, concealing it, and exposing it.

Men’s fashion is much more pragmatic. Instead of attracting attention to the body, it neutralizes it.

Our society believes that men are too respectable to have their bodies put on display, though it has no problem demanding that women turn on the fireworks in order to entertain and excite.

As a vector of objectification, fashion greatly impacts the way men perceive women — and how women perceive themselves. And by influencing how we use our bodies, fashion also has an impact on our sex drive.

Women’s fashion constantly exposes heterosexual men to visual stimuli that draw their gaze to the female body. The stimuli men put forward, on the other hand, don’t give women much to work with.

A woman must make a conscious effort to sexualize a man, since doing so runs counter to the prevailing culture. Our society does not predispose women to look at men sexually. Yet men don’t even have to lift a finger: in our culture, the female body is already eroticized. Men’s libido is constantly primped, pampered, and massaged.

Predictably, the consequences of this double standard are at odds with each other: men’s sex drives are continuously stimulated, while women’s are grossly ignored.

Indeed, the mass objectification of women is so powerful that instead of checking out men, women’s attention is often directed at other women.

I was a teenager when I first realized this. I was riding the bus to school, watching the other girls get on, and noticed that I was more interested in them than the boys. It was the same thing every time I walked into a room: I would always check out the women instead of the men. When I became aware of it, I started scrutinizing what everybody else was looking at. Unsurprisingly, men looked women over — some carefully, unreservedly, and without shame, as if trying to publicly demonstrate their virility. But I also noticed that, like men and like me, women checked out other women. Women especially notice other women. In other words, men look at women and women look at women. Everyone, it seems, has their eyes trained on women.

We expect men to enjoy and be excited by a woman’s appearance, and we expect women to see themselves through the lens of other women. After all, don’t women look each other over as a way to compare?

The cliché would argue they’re in competition with each other, and there’s certainly merit to this. As women grow up in a world obsessed with their appearance, they need to see how they measure up, to know where they rank in men’s eyes. The answer has a direct impact on the type of attention they will — or will not — receive.

But this “competition” isn’t the only reason women observe each other. Simply put, women’s fashion is more interesting than men’s fashion. It is more visually stimulating, no matter who is looking. Moreover, women — like men — unconsciously internalize the notion that women are objects to size up, admire, or disparage (even when the gaze is directed at them).

Straight men develop a libido that corresponds with the mass objectification of women. They desire women, and they feed this desire by staring at them — a practice that is encouraged by female fashion. The circle is complete.

But straight women are out of step in terms of their sexual orientation. Since men’s bodies are presented as uninteresting and thus ignored, women are more apt to be visually drawn to other women, even though they ultimately want to sleep with men. This is how women become autophiles, or sexually attracted to themselves.

Heterosexual women construct their sexual identity in contrast to what our culture sexualizes (women’s bodies), and many end up being aroused by their own image or by projecting themselves onto other women. It is their own body that excites them, and above all, the sight of their body or that of another woman (in porn, for instance) desired by a man.

“Men look at women, and women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women, but also the relation of women to themselves,” John Berger argued in the 1970s.⁵ Dubbed the “male gaze” by film critic Laura Mulvey,⁶ the dominant masculine view of women colours all our perceptions, both on-screen and in real life, and has deep repercussions on female sexuality.

Women see men’s desire as a detour, a type of psychological splicing used to compensate for the fact that they receive almost no sexual stimuli from men.

Women become aroused when men desire them. This narcissism may also provide a counterbalance for the fact that having access to a man’s body (considered nonsexual by default) is not enough.

Let’s take a classic scenario: a man and a woman want to have sex. They are attracted to one another, but the man is already more aroused because he has been receiving visual stimulation for hours. They find a room where they kiss and touch one another with their clothes still on, until it becomes too much and they start to undress. As the woman’s shirt hits the ground, the man sees her bra — hiding her breasts but calling attention to her chest. Tension fans his desire; there is one final step before he can behold her naked. The mystery remains. But when the man takes off his shirt, the woman hardly skips a beat: she has seen male torsos in contexts as nonsexual as the pool or the beach, or even walking down the street in summer. But once her bra is unfastened, the man will have access to a part of her body that is reserved for intimacy.

When a woman removes her shirt, the eroticism it generates is not equal to the eroticism generated when a man removes his. To rise to her partner’s level of excitement and compensate for her lack thereof, the woman must find a supplement of sexual tension; she must search her partner’s eyes for the desire that seeing her breasts has provoked.

I use the breasts as an example here, but the same goes for the entire female body, which is culturally over-eroticized.

The woman’s autophilia is dependent on the desire the man feels for her. This contrasts with her partner’s desire, which functions autonomously the moment he has access to her body.

The result of this objectification is that women are just as, if not more, aroused by the female body than by the male body — even if straight women have little interest in sex with other women. This probably explains why women tend to be more “bi-curious” than men. Straight women watch lesbian porn and are more comfortable with inviting a partner of the same sex into a threesome. One study even reported that 82 percent of women react to sexual stimuli from both sexes.⁷

Practically every media outlet that mentions this oft-cited study interprets it as a sign of women’s bisexuality. Incidentally, the study’s lead researcher, Dr. Gerulf Rieger, has a similar interpretation. Rieger concluded that most women are either lesbian or bisexual, “even when they identified as heterosexual.”⁸ I feel this interpretation goes too far. The fact that our body reacts to stimuli does not mean we are necessarily attracted to the source (otherwise this would also mean that women are zoophiles, since studies have shown women become sexually aroused at the sight of other animals mating). Rieger’s conclusion doesn’t take into account the fact that women live in a society where the female body embodies sex — for both genders.

Still, it’s interesting to consider that myriad sources of stimuli are able to arouse women. When I spoke with Meredith Chivers — one of the study’s researchers and a woman whose work I greatly esteem (I met Chivers as part of my work on Sexplora) — she confirmed that women’s response to stimuli does not mean they are bisexual. She pointed out that the discrepancy between stimuli that aroused participants based on their sexual orientation only pertained to straight women, not gay men. If we believe women respond with arousal to other women’s bodies because the feminine form is highly sexualized in our culture, why wouldn’t homosexual men respond similarly?

Why does the sexual orientation of straight women seem more malleable than that of other groups? Why are gay men indifferent to sexualized representations of the female body? My hypothesis is that the homosexual sex drive — for men or women — develops on the fringes of the dominant sexual culture, and this is obviously not the case for heterosexual women. A gay man doesn’t respond to women’s bodies, even if the equation “woman = sex” shapes our customs, since he actively rejects this idea by virtue of his sexual orientation. But heterosexual women do not reject the dominant sexual model. They adhere to it psychologically, because they have a social role to play in it. The result is that the “man = sex” equation operates on them, as per their sexual orientation, but the “woman = sex” equation also operates on them, as per the propaganda that encourages them to take part in the dominant sexual model.

There is one final negative consequence of gendered fashion that can be particularly damaging: women’s ongoing efforts to care for their body and face distance them from their true appearance. High heels add height, belts flatter the figure, makeup camouflages blotchy skin, straighteners tame unruly hair, bras make breasts appear fuller and larger. It all widens the gap between a woman’s self-image and what she really looks like. Even though on some level she is aware of the reality, it can be difficult not to believe that other women come closer to the sublime image they project.

A woman knows that she doesn’t get up in the morning wearing the face she presents to the world. And this truth may cause her to feel like a fraud. For men, it is a non-issue: their private and public appearance does not vary greatly. With men, what you see is what you get.

Women may come to fear having men they have seduced see them as they are naturally. After sleeping together for the first time, a woman might feel anxious about the following morning, when her partner will see her unvarnished image. Will he still find her sexy? This additional pressure that is thrust onto women can affect their relationship to sex and intimacy.

When we look closely at the sex drives of men and women, it is impossible to ignore how we grossly objectify women and place men’s desire at the centre of the social world. From birth, gender division assigns women a decorative role, which they must assume in order to stimulate men. And this expectation is a one-way street; no such demand is made of men.

We like to think that men are naturally driven to find women’s bodies desirable. But if this is the case, why do women have to work so hard to please? Why should the “desirable” body type be so rare? And if, as we also believe, women’s sexual appetite is not as instinctive as men’s, wouldn’t it make sense that men — like male peacocks displaying their colourful tail — should have to work harder to attract their attention?

In reality, men’s libido is not so instinctive. On the contrary: it is thoroughly and continuously nurtured by our culture. The female sex drive, on the other hand, is neglected. It must be self-generated and self-perpetuating. Men, after all, are far too important to be sexualized for female desire.

4

Sex Segregation: From Objectification to Autophilia

Sex Segregation:
From Objectification to Autophilia