Yet today, the idea that men are more interested in sex than women is so pervasive that it seems almost unremarkable.The article argues that this view is relatively recent and completely unfounded in the past. I don't think I believe it.
But then I was thinking about it a little bit. Perhaps it's modern day dress and hygiene that makes all the difference. My female readers can't answer this, but for the rest of you, here's the question: which environment would make you more interested in sex? One where all the women haven't bathed in, well, ever, and are dressed in clothing from biblical through puritan times as in the images below...
... or women in more revealing modern western dress as in the examples below?
Note that I could've picked much more provocative images, but the ones above are pretty typical for what I see wandering around San Diego.
50 comments:
I won't comment on your premise as requested, but I will say I'd rather be a modern girl any day.
erp,
Sometimes the way you write about how old you are, I picture you in the biblical era dress! :-)
Well next Sunday I will be 80, but I still remember when I looked like the San Diego girls in your pictures.
We had sexy clothes in my day, maybe not showing as much skin, but we looked pretty darn good nevertheless -- never had no complaints from the boys. ;-)
I agree with Erp, take any of those movies from the 50's and 60's and there will be no lack of sensuality.
Now on your question, Bret... I don't really buy any of that too. Not even your comparative. Back in those ages, to see the ankle of a girl could be more exciting than all the skin those two modern girls are showing.
IOW we would kill for girls in every age and time of our history. The guys saying otherwise are working for the Gay Lobby. :-)
AOG,
Gosh, anyone citIng Greece on this must be kidding me. Sure they were not much into sex - with women.
They managed to have the homossexual dream society, where older men were supposed to "mentor" younger adolescent boys (in modern words, read that as "to exploit them sexually") and women had the status of "things", only for reproductive purposes.
Sure, great example of a society not much into women.
And this is still Clovis...
This would explain all those historical pamphlets and treatises that tried to get men to accept that sex is natural and urged them not to be so ashamed of their bodies. We've come a long way since then, baby, but when will women finally understand that we're not just objects for their hormonal gratification?
Clovis, try 40's and 50's. By the 60's, I had three kids.
We wore short shorts and bare midriffs, where we differed from today's girls is that we were all very satisfied with the original equipment mammary glands and didn't feel the need for enhancement.
Greece? I think, just like now, a small percentage of artsy girly-boy men lusted after boys. Regular guys weren't writing history books or carving statues, but took care of business, to wit, there are plenty of Greeks still around after thousands of years.
Men in Ancient Greece were very much into women just as every species of animal are now.
Over the years, I've watched tons of nature shows with my grandchildren and don't remember any where the female of the species changes her body and behavior to stalk the male.
The little anoles that gambol around my back porch are a case in point. Their frenzy to attract the female is no end amusing ... the squirrels as well.
Sorry guys, but that's just how it is.
erp wrote: "Men in Ancient Greece were very much into women just as every species of animal are now."
This discussion of Greeks reminds me of a passage in "Emperor: Blood of Gods":
The Greeks, according to Cassius (a Roman):
“They are an arrogant people, I’ve always found. I remember one of them telling me they had invented everything, from gods to sex. I pointed out that Romans took their ideas and improved upon them. Ares became Mars, Zeus became Jupiter. And of course, although we could not improve on sex, we are the ones who thought of trying it with women.”
Via Stephen Hicks
Erp,
Cassius knew it all. As a matter of fact, homosexuality in ancient Greece was much more widespread than you believe. Take a look here, for example.
An excerpt:
"The ancient Greeks, in the context of the pederastic city-states, were the first to describe, study, systematize, and establish pederasty as a social and educational institution. It was an important element in civil life, the military, philosophy and the arts."
The poets and artists write the history. I still think ordinary men and women weren't much different in Ancient Greece than they'd been before and after, i.e., women had an subservient role and men did pretty much what they wanted until very modern times.
Clovis;
Your response is a non-sequitor.
erp;
The best evidence for you is that there are still Greeks. I'm not sure how Clovis thinks that happened based on his claims.
But, if you want two species where the females gussy up for males, I would go with sea horses and humans. Human females seem to spend quite a bit more time on being attractive to the opposite sex than human males.
Peter;
You must be thinking of Denmark. Or perhaps Cosmo Magazine - read that for a while and you'll think most men need a lot of persuading to have sex.
aog, I've already pointed out there are still Greeks with us and I hate to break this to ya, but straight women gussie up to outdo other straight women -- not to impress men. What lesbians do is way above my pay scale.
Men do stuff to impress us that doesn't involve gussying up. In fact, gussied up men are a turn off.
You know that polls show year after year that construction workers are considered the sexiest men and I
agree.
I'll leave it for you guys to figure out why.
AOG,
---
The best evidence for you is that there are still Greeks. I'm not sure how Clovis thinks that happened based on his claims.
---
I will quote to you the relevant part of my previous non-sequitur phrase:
" ... and women had the status of "things", only for reproductive purposes."
I know Erp has tired eyes by now, but you have little excuse.
The other fact you both look to ignore is that ancient Greek culture changed in time. Mainly for something based on Christian traditions.
erp;
That hurts, as I am about as non-construction-worker as is possible.
I've seen the claim that straight women dress up for other straight women, and I suppose it could be true. Certainly many of the fashion efforts are irrelevant to guys. What is the purpose of "out-doing"? Social status, or competition for males?
Clovis;
The attraction to women has to work pretty much every generation, not just recent ones. Also, I'm providing counter examples, so a one period in one region suffices.
The history of Sparta is instructive on this subject.
One might also think that if women are used only for reproduction successfully, that might well be taken to indicate women are more lustful or they wouldn't continue engaging in such activity.
AOG,
Well, if your point is that there were men enough to care about women in ancient Greece, I have not argued against that.
I've only argued that bisexuality, with use of boys, was the rule within a good number of their city-states - at least among the aristocracy (though in other classes it was common enough too).
It is an interesting demonstration of how sexuality in a society can be as much a social construct as anything else. Our times give a lot of emphasis to biological aspects, maybe not minding the social ones as much as they deserve too.
To the extent that this thread is even half-serious, you are all falling into the modern fallacy of assuming sexual desire correlates with procreation, when there is no shortage of historical and demographic evidence to the effect that it doesn't and that, in fact, there may be an inverse relationship in some cases. How does erp know that ancient Greek men weren't advised to close their eyes and think of Athens? About ten years ago, the Japanese government put a late-night porn channel on TV in the hope it would help with their disastrous birth rate. Another wise government initiative grounded in the reality of human nature. Of course it did nothing for the birth rate, although it may have helped condom sales.
AOG: You shouldn't cower like a weenie at erp's taunt about construction workers. Back atcha' is the appropriate response. You should tell her that, to a man, our favourite lustful fantasies are about blond bimbos.
aog, I guess it's just competitive, like you guys want to impress the girls with feats of derring-do, compete in sports, beat out the other guys in business, in fact, beat the other guy in anything.
A funny story:
When my husband had his hip replaced, he shared a room at the rehab center with another guy also originally from NYC who was about the same age and in the same shape who was there a couple of days ahead of him. When the therapist told my husband he needed to walk down the hall as far as he could, first thing he said was, "how far did he, pointing to the other guy in the room, go the first day?"
The two of them progressed much faster because they had a friendly competition going and behaved like a couple of junior high school kids trying to impress a girl (did I mention the therapist was a very pretty young woman).
As for us girls, I always know when I look pretty good by the dirty looks I get from other old female parties and offers to carry out my groceries from male geezers (I had to have my rings cut off due to hand surgery).
... And Peter, I was just about to get to the subject of bimbos. We girls aren't stupid (remember you guys got the muscles, we got the brains), so like most men who don't want their sons to have the brains of bimbos usually don’t marry them; we girls who don't want our daughters to have the brains of those brawny construction workers, marry guys like you.
In the end, there’s a balance.
Clovis: I don’t wear glasses either for distance or reading. Do you? I understand your links and comments; I just don’t agree with most of them. You might as well stop being insulting. I always take things from whence they come, so what you say doesn’t offend me in the least.
You have absolutely no way of knowing what life was like for the average person in Ancient Greece (or Rome or Egypt … ) since as I’ve said at least three times, they didn’t write the odes, poems, dramas, histories or carve those statues of idealized young men and the men who did were probably gay just as most creative men in the arts are today.
Yes, erp, men are competitve, from a very early age. But we know it and build our personal relationships around a code that assumes it. Women, on the other hand, pretend they are at one with "their sisters' and try to share the endless depths of all their inner emotions (which they find endlessly facinating) until they feel impelled to slash the other's throat for making eyes at a boyfriend or even wearing the same dress. Or beating out another to get their child into pre-school.
Face it, erp, you are completely outmatched.
My answer to that the first time I heard it and now, "Why would we want to be?" and you misunderstand me. We want you guys to be competitive so you can invent stuff, like for instance, the automatic garage door opener and do all the nasty stuff around the house like killing spiders.
I have no truck with competitive women – the pre-school my kids go to ipso facto becomes the one most desired, likewise all other of life’s little trials. Wearing the same dress? Surely, you jest. Stealing the boy friend? Likewise.
Men don’t even know there is a “game afoot” nevermind how to play it -- and girl talk is just intel. You know like knowing the rules so you can follow the action in football.
I'm disappointed in you, erp. I left myself wide open for the perfect riposte and you wasted it to mumble on about automatic garage door openers.
Oh, Peter. Perfect for whom? As I said, you guys not only don't know how to play the game, you don't even know there IS a game.
We love you anyway.
I must agree with Erp here, for I don't know what game she is talking about. There is probably such a game only in women's mind, and that is utterly beyond my understandment indeed.
Quite.
Anybody believe this?
[AOG:] The best evidence for you is that there are still Greeks. I'm not sure how Clovis thinks that happened based on his claims.
You are assuming a fact not in evidence: an exclusive or.
What is the purpose of "out-doing"? Social status, or competition for males?
Read Mother Nature.
It is an excellent book, shedding light on, among other things, feminine forms of competition.
[Peter:] About ten years ago, the Japanese government put a late-night porn channel on TV in the hope it would help with their disastrous birth rate.
Never mind ten years ago.
The British newspaper The Observer recently caused an international stir by reporting that Japanese youth have lost interest in sex. The sensationalist conclusion was mostly based on a single statistic: a survey that found that 45 percent of women and 25 percent of men ages 16 to 24 said they were not looking to have sex. The article also cited the phrase sekkusu shinai shokogun, or "celibacy syndrome," as if it were a major trend. In reality, more Japanese singles are having sex than in past decades. In 1990, 65 percent of unmarried women and 45 percent of unmarried men had never had sex; today, the figures are 50 percent and 40 percent, respectively.
The Observer's conclusion was sensationalist? YGBSM (You Gotta Be Kidding Me).
—
My advice to my son? When it comes to sex, assume all women are Machiavellian.
Of course, that isn't true. But he will save himself a lot of trouble in life if he acts like it is.
The part about widespread abuse by female guards. A few perverts maybe, but these aren't children in a Dickensian orphanage at the mercy of sadistic matrons, but boys who are in a juvenile detention facility for very bad behavior.
Skipper, to whom are you addressing the question of "out doing"? I am comparing women's competing with each other to a game, like you guys play in sports, business, in fact, everything. That's why I gave the example of two guys in hospital rehab competing for the "prize" of a smile from the pretty therapist. We do the same kind of thing, but it's more subtle and the prize isn't always obvious even to most women
In nature and until relatively modern times, the female of the human species nurtured the offspring since fathers, having accomplished their main objection, took off to play with their buddies until it was time for the next round -- had we not been programmed to do that, humans would have ceased to exist before it got a chance to invent the internet.
Then some bright guy, figured out how and why offspring came about, and started herding their females just like some animals do, and presto change-o, marriage, etc. came into being to protect male rights to their progeny and in the bargain protect pregnant women and their youngsters.
Skipper, I have no patience reading books that explain it all. Can you give us a short synopsis on of Hrdy's (wonder what she has against vowels) theory.
[erp:] Skipper, to whom are you addressing the question of "out doing"? I am comparing women's competing with each other to a game, like you guys play in sports, business, in fact, everything.
To some extent, women compete against each other in ways that are invisible to men. Ear treatments, for instance.
The mistake is to assume the women know, in detail, what appeals to men. You don't.
Rather, women are relentlessly alert to the defector payoff. Heels, accessories, skirts, blouses, colors, hair, nails, dangly neck wear, foundation garments, ad infinitum — all of them to a greater or lesser degree, signal, in an ensemble of passive aggressiveness, availability, desire and its potential gratification.
Women compete against each other for men in the ways that women perceive men perceive as desirable. The problem is that as simple as men are, viewed through a woman's eyes, men are far more complex than they actually are. Just as my ability to perceive women as they are is corrupted by my being male, women's ability to understand male motivations is undermined by femininity.
The essential question, when it come so female competition, is this: why are trees so tall?
Skipper, I have no patience reading books that explain it all. Can you give us a short synopsis on of Hrdy's (wonder what she has against vowels) theory.
Near as I can tell, blame it on her husband, who is probably Welsh, with a suspiciously short last name.
Her book doesn't 'splain it all. Rather, she arrived at anthropological explanations from a woman's point of view. In the book, you will read explanations of female competition, the derivation of the surname "Esposito", and how there is absolutely no understanding of women without taking on board the affects babies have on women's brains.
In other words, Hrdy is a feminist who hasn't drawn an evolutionary red-line just below the ears.
erp wrote: "The part about widespread abuse by female guards."
I'm skeptical. Depends on what definition of "abuse" you use I suppose.
From the article: "Consider, nearly one in five of the victimized youth reported that they “always” made the first move, while an additional 46 percent said they “sometimes” did."
So I'm a boy, I make a pass at a woman, she agrees, we engage in some sort of sexual activity, and then that's considered abuse by the woman? Well, okay, that's a definitional sort of thing in my book, not something I can take too seriously and not something I'd call abuse.
Skipper as I pointed out in painful detail, women don't dress, etc. to attract men, they do so to score hits, make points (trying to use words men understand) and make other women green envy because as you pointed out, these machinations we do, don't attract you guys, so why do you (plural) in your boyishly charming way want to take the credit/blame for it.
We don’t have to do anything except be young and beautiful in your eyes to make the magic happen and if we play our cards right, you keep on thinking we look like we did at 19 right into our dotage. Those hormones are wonderful things.
I doubt many straight guys even know what kind of clothes and shoes the women in their lives prefer except in the most vague way just like you don’t know what size socks, shirts, unmentionables, etc. you wear and would be gobsmacked to know what to do if said items weren’t in their assigned places neatly folded for you to grab every morning.
OTOH, you guys, as is obvious even with the most cursory observation of animal behavior, literally and figuratively knock yourselves out to attract us. Peter, that's the allusion to my pathetic mumble about automatic garage door openers. Some guy probably devised that simple mechanism so his wife wouldn't have to get out of the car to open the garage door. Full disclaimer: it’s almost at the top of my must-have list and I silently thank whoever invented it every time I hit the button on the clicker.
Bret;
That's statutory rape. If you want to argue that boys and girls are different and our laws about sex with minors should reflect that, take it up with the feminists. Or you could argue with them about having sex with people under your control.
That's a simple reason why not only the imprisoned should always be separated by sex, but the guards too, with exception to the ones not in routinely and direct contact with the inmates.
Clovis, that won't work unless homosexuals are excluded too and that couldn't happen in today's world when gays are at the top of the protected classes and when even the boys and girls scouts are forced to accept gays as scout leaders working directly with the kids.
Erp,
Good point. Still, my solution gets 90% of the cases. And maybe there will be a greater chance of the other guards to report the one still making abuses.
Anyway, I guess prisons selecting guards solely on the basis of sex would probably be sued.
The problem of male inmates relating to female guards in a prison is bigger than juvenile prisons. The inmates may be soon running the prison and their outside mafias counting with all the protection the prison (and their girlfriends) can give to them.
Clovis, almost all public sector workers belong to unions which run the show. No action will be taken against a union worker no matter what they do as long as they stay on target and not upset the narrative.
Google up all the teachers just in NYC who are on paid leave (with union raises) for years, if not decades, even those in jail for other crimes, who are convicted of sexually abusing their students.
There's a whole building where they are warehoused funded by the beleaguered tax payers.
Even Kafka couldn't have conceived of what we have become.
Aren't many of your prisons run by private enterprises, Erp?
Yes, I tried to find some numbers, but the articles are so slanted towards blacks and Hispanics being imprisoned unfairly, I don't believe much of anything in them and I doubt very much that the unions would have permitted privatization that excluded them.
You may not believe me, but the unions really do run everything in the public sector now.
The heads of the major unions had more face time with Obama than world leaders and his cabinet.
Erp,
Did you know your country is one of the least unionized among developed nations?
I read that you have 11% of workes in unions.
Of that 11%, a little over half is in the public sector, where roughly 1/3 of employees are in unions.
Doesn't look like dominating numbers to me. But before you accuse me of pretending to know better about your own country, I am just spelling out the stats, nothing more.
Don't know where you get those numbers? Do they include the military as public sector workers? Which public sector workers are excluded from unions?
Sorry, makes no sense.
Private sector unions have diminished greatly as they have been the cause of industries moving out of the country or to right to work states.
The rest of the world has already gone to h*ll in a handbasket, I'm hoping we can avoid joining them.
Erp,
Stats are here and here.
I could not locate if military is included or not.
[Clovis:] Doesn't look like dominating numbers to me.
You are correct. Private sector trade unionism has been on a greasy slope to oblivion over the last 40 or so years, due both to the disastrous results of their policies in the face of competition, and the spread of right-to-work laws.
Public sector unions don't face any competition, so instead we have had to wait for reality to bite. They are a complete travesty and a grotesque conflict of interest.
As with most labor stats, the military isn't included.
Public sector unions aren't going anywhere and federal policies forcing jobs which accept any federal money to use only union shops is making them stronger and more insidious.
If the military isn't included who and where are the 2/3rds of federal employees not in unions?
If the military isn't included who and where are the 2/3rds of federal employees not in unions?
Excluding the military is the only way to get to 2/3.
From the first link I gave:
"While manufacturing and farming steadily declined, state- and local-government employment quadrupled from 4 million workers in 1950 to 12 million in 1976 and 16.6 million in 2009.[18] Adding in the 3.7 million federal civilian employees there were 20 million government employees. In 2010 8.4 million government workers were represented by unions,[19] including 31% of federal workers, 35% of state workers and 46% of local workers."
The number of employees in the public sector is below 10% of the population, which is a standard number if I well remember.
I keep thinking there is nothing outstanding in your public sector picture, and even less in your union numbers. I wonder if anyone else thinks the country is run by unions, or if that's an opinion I'll only find among conservative bloggers.
Skipper, please explain. I'm not getting this at all.
1/3 of federal employees are in unions. 2/3 aren't.
Where do they work that they aren't required to be in unions?
Clovis;
Why compare the number of union worker to the total population? It would seem better to compare to all employed workers, about 120M, so we have about 1/6 of all workers in public employee unions. However, their influence is much larger because they run the government. The IRS scandal was created by unionized public employees, and one can look at the disruptions in Wisconsin for another example. No private sector faction could do either of those.
1/3 of federal employees are in unions. 2/3 aren't.
Where do they work that they aren't required to be in unions?
I don't really know. As a guess, any federal employee with a rating meeting or exceeding the equivalent of a military officer (military O-1, Civil Service GS-7, and up) is never in a union.
As a further guess: PATCO.
Otherwise, we would be like France.
[Clovis:] I keep thinking there is nothing outstanding in your public sector picture, and even less in your union numbers. I wonder if anyone else thinks the country is run by unions, or if that's an opinion I'll only find among conservative bloggers.
Our public service employee unions are a travesty. But their predations have become so obvious, and painful, that they are losing traction.
In contrast, private sector unions are in a precipitous slide (Full disclosure: I am a union member). Days lost to strikes are almost invisible, and the portion of the private sector workforce in unions is almost negligible -- that is striking, compared to, say, European economies.
The union I am in is getting thuggish -- granted, in modern terms -- about our contract.
Which is already the best in the world in my occupation.
Stupid, economically ignorant, [long string of obscenities redacted on account of Great Guys' editorial standards].
AOG,
The number you mention would be more like 1/15, not 1/6.
The comparison I mentioned (ratio of public sector workers to total population) is a standard number around to judge govt budgets.
Skipper,
I'd say there are worse things to be other than France. I'd be happy if we down here were at least that.
I am not a union member, and most unions I know are thugs, stupid, economically ignorant and all the other obscenities you did not mention.
Yet, I am not naipe enough to blame all our woes on them.
I'd say there are worse things to be other than France.
Hmmm. I didn't make that very clear, did I?
By that I meant that the government and the economy are hostage to the unions. For just one example, air traffic controllers can, and do, go on strike. Whenever there is a monopoly provider and a monopoly consumer, the people for whom both presumably exist are instead hostages.
Pres. Reagan's showdown with PATCO put paid to that kind of nonsense.
But the toxic results of monopoly providers giving campaign contributions to monopoly consumers should be by now so obvious that not even progressives could still defend them.
Oh. Wait.
Nope.
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