Do you think this is the only thing men have historically been wrong about on women? Until very recently, especially in Western civilization, women have been treated as second class citizens, incapable of doing much of anything except be sexual temptresses. St Jerome was heavily influenced by St Augustine who believed that women were tools of the devil used to distract men with sex from their devotion to God ( I may be a little off on this, it’s been a minute since I read up on it).

[removed]

Well, otherwise men cause their own problems. It must be their lack of agency.

My man idk if you’ve noticed, but most history has been written by men. Do you think maybe they might have got a few things wrong about womens sexuality? I’d say the notion that women are “less sexual” than men is an equally false idea rooted in sexism as the notion that they are “more sexual”. Women were portrayed as more sexual than men because their sexuality was viewed as dangerous in the context of a strictly patriarchal society in which paternity and property were of extreme importance and inextricably bound up with notions of family honor. In more modern times we’ve switched to a view of womens sexuality that emphasizes their passivity in contrast to a supposedly uncontrollable male libido. This both justifies a paternalistic kind of protection of “weak” women against rapacious men and also serves as a backhanded rationalization of rape (because men are simply uncontrollable, “boys will be boys” etc). These are all socially constructed ideas that reflect the gender ideology of the society they come from. Nothing about our own ideas on gender or sexuality are necessarily objectively true or more valid than previous societies. They just arise from different material and ideological conditions.

Well, when it comes to beastial lechery and untamed lust and such, while men and women tend to like sex within relationships about the same, and men's high sex drive/women's low sex drive is a bit overstated in public discourse, in terms of pursuing exclusively sexual relationships, these tend to be of interest primarily to men, with women usually (but certainly not always) having very little interest in that kind of thing. We can assume in times prior to condoms, the pill, and vasectomies, this discrepancy would have been even more stark. So the question is less "why did this belief change?" so much as "why were they so wrong about this?"

It may be an oversimplification, but it seems pretty intuitive that in societies like the Roman Empire and Europe of the middle ages and early modern period, sexual desire was seen as a bad thing generally, and women were very much marginalized. As is generally the case, marginalized groups get blamed for all of the woes of society. This isn't anything groundbreaking. The number of people I've heard blame overdose deaths Kentucky, where I live, on Latin American immigrants, is astonishing.

P.S. Dracula is my favorite book of all time!! What are you writing about?

[deleted]

Radical historical shift? Look around you. Women are still villified, to this day, for daring to enjoy sex. And as equally villified if we don't have sex with a man who feels entitled to our bodies. We're still either "temptresses with supernatural powers out to ruin men with their devil's pocket" or "prude femoids who only put out for alpha chads", depending on who you talk to.

So yeah, history hasn't changed. Still men trying to push the natrrative surounding women's libido and women's bodily autonomy (not to mention mens' often disgustingly-incorrect knowledge of the female anatomy).

My point is, throughout history, men have been wrong in their assumptions about the female libido, whether they thought it was higher or lower. And even to this day, men will still swear up and down one way or the other. It's an individual thing.

[removed]

[removed]

Modern science can show us that at least in our current societies women masturbate less, initiate sex less, etc. in general

The question is whether this is actually true cross culturally. While I think the ideological analysis is valid (if rather one-note in its cynicism), it’s critical to investigate if possible the actual empirical reality to see what underlying human nature is actually like (either uniform or culturally contingent)

I am also intrigued by this reversal and its ideological naturalization in both cases.

I think it is one of those questions which is too intersting to ever be answered satisfactorily, unfortunately

I am studying the fear that male characters nurtured over female characters, in the novel: Mina, Lucy, and the three vampires.

While I agree that the societal issues you’re calling attention to are important and need addressing, it has to be noted that your answer is speculation.

[removed]

If you ask any expert in behavioral endocrinology, they will inform you that men indeed have more voracious libidos than women on average and that this is in part explained by the stark difference in testosterone levels (the male vs female distributions are so different they don't even overlap). One of the obvious ways to see this is the stark difference in sexual promiscuity between homosexual males and females, where the former have exponentially more partners and more sex.

If you don't trust me, read up from the bonafide experts. Carole Hooven's book T: The Story of Testosterone is a good option.

That's true, but in our modern society sex is also skewed to be more satisfying for men than women.

Alone or with a female partner, women orgasm 80 to 95% of the time, whereas with a male partner it drops to 64% of the time. Masturbation for men is also less stigmatized than for women.

So it's not surprising that some women tend to avoid sex altogether.

Not sure how masturbation is less stigmatized for men than women when womens sex toys are ubiquitous and on billboards. I’d hazard to guess most women in their 20s own a masturbation toy while I’d say an extreme minority of men own a masturbation toy.

I feel like framing it in terms of orgasm is inherently masculine though. It’s more about the journey than the destination, isn’t it? Aren’t men the ones who are obsessed with numbers and stuff? What about personal emotional connection?

>The question is whether this is actually true cross culturally.

It's a fairly established finding in the field of human evolutionary psychology that they do. And numerous biological explanations for that have been articulated; the long and short of it is that women are more biologically invested in their sexuality than men are because they carry and give birth. Biologically speaking it carries more risk for them. Hence the behavior pattern whereby men initiate courtship.

So from a biology perspective it's fairly accepted that yes, much of the generalities you speak of are indeed cross-cultural phenomena. Though the specifics of sexual norms may vary widely by culture.

sigh idk, when you are called "dirty", "slutty", "careful, you will give boys the wrong idea" etc on the regular, even for non-sexual things one tends to be wary in discussing/exploring our sexual lives. Not too mention the role of religion in blaming women for "getting kicked out of paradise", "dishonoring the family" etc.

Oh yes, in some middle age societies of Europe, if a woman was raped she "dishonor the family", and often would be married off to her rapist. I can't remember the era, but in ancient Roman societies the Paterfamilia decided if a baby lived or died, and often if it was a girl she would be abandoned to the streets. Not too mention the women in these [wealthy] families had loads of restrictions even to leave the house.

This has nothing to do with the fact that many women seem content to have satisfying masturbation lives aided by toys. Potentially a majority of young single women who live alone probably own a masturbation toy I would guess. So yes many women do feel comfortable with that even if some don’t explore sexuality in other ways on the masturbation side women seem to have gotten rid of most hangups.

If you take a college course on Women’s History and Sociology, this topic is mentioned a bit. First of all, proportionally speaking, there are a very few source materials written by and for women, which gets even more accentuated the further you go back in time. Which means us today are left to try to make a complete picture with very few pieces and loads of bias towards "The Male" side of societies. Additionally, the sexual repression in society of Victorian times is exactly what lead to an increase interest in all kinds of ideas around human sexuality, including the work of Sigmund Freud (eventually). Why? Because people often times are attracted or curious to the forbidden, to the taboo topics.

Not to mention, the expansion of European colonization mean an imposition by force of a very specific brand of ideology with certain concepts of Christianity interwoven. We are still living the after effects. There was an active extermination campaign of other cultures, hence we have incomplete pictures of the mindsets for these topics.

[removed]

The key is the word "majority", which is actually untrue.

Maybe the "majority" of the very few women you have interacted and are willing to discuss this with you. But not necessarily the 51% of the population at large.

[removed]

Sadly, stories like this can be found in much more modern settings as well.

> Modern science can show us that at least in our current societies women masturbate less, initiate sex less, etc

Can I get some sauce on that?

I think it has to do with women pre and post birth.

From a post-birth point of view, once a child has developed the point that they can go to school or do equivalent things where the mother is left home or in the dwelling while the child develops, she gets the same lonely feelings that a modern woman gets when her hubby is at work and she feels ignored.

I think women also feel certain power when they know that they can attract men as they develop into being women.

Let's face it, it's much easier for a woman to get a man and a man to get a woman, and knowing that they can attract many men and, if necessary, can control them through sex, adds a lot to the idea of female sexual power

Power of course being key to the Victorian ideals that probably gave birth to the modern idea that women are less sexual because men wanted to control women the same way that England or the West wanted to control the world.