She's Writing a Novel

Today I came across a man griping on a message board, complaining that women these days "give it up" too easily.

A man bitching because he gets laid all the time...that's one I never saw coming. So I read more of his post, and learned that he is upset because women are having sex when they want, with who they want, as much as they want. It's like ...it's as if women LIKE sex for its own sake sometimes, quite apart from any attachments, or games, or bribes. Indeed, this poor guy could not figure out that he was being used for sex quite happily by the women in question. He went on and on about how women were cheapening themselves by "spreading it around." Like women are cars that depreciate with mileage.

I was so irritated that I posted a long and snarling reply. Because honestly, while he might be the first man that has ever complained about getting laid too often, he is certainly not the first man to take shots at women for "giving it up" without a fight.

First of all, what on earth are men implying by the phrase "give it up"? What is a woman giving up in the coital act that a man is not giving up? Men who use this phrase demonstrate that they retain some vague idea that when women have sex, the act is somehow existentially different from men having sex. These men respect their own agency to make decisions about their sexual behavior, and then go on to deny this respect to women. They especially deny it to the women they sleep with.

Secondly, why is it taking so long for men to realize that sometimes women just want a dick? That sometimes we're looking for human dildos, not boyfriends or soulmates. And there are certain times of the month where honestly, we don't even want to be bothered with dinner or a movie or even foreplay. Are men so afraid of and disgusted by primal sexual desire in a woman that they need women to play "hard to get" in order to see her as "pure" and "demure" and --therefore--worthy of respsect?

The idiot on the message board went on to talk about his fears that one day, when he thought that the "right girl" had finally come along, she would turn out to be one of the girls who "gave it up" to guys.

The “right girl” vs. the “girl who gives it up.” The Madonna vs the Whore. Men will never complain about fucking whores, but they’ll never respect them either. They tell you they will respect their Madonna when she comes along, but that respect is contingent on a variable set of sexual expectations. They want to run around and fuck the whores and settle down with a Madonna. Women are one or the other, and the power of definition is in the man’s hands. God help you if you are a woman he thought was his Madonna, and then he decides you are a whore.

Men like this will never respect women or their sexuality, EVER. Men who separate women from their sexuality this way are morons at best, and abusers at worst. (They are also typically really bad in bed). They are incapable of viewing women as human beings like themselves, with natural sexual desires and sufficient intelligence to make their own decisions about how to express and engage in those desires. They will always hold women's sexuality against them, whether they are the Madonna or the whore.

A psychologically and sexually healthy man will see women as neither of these, and respect a woman's right to make whatever decisions about her sexuality she chooses – and he respects the women who choose to go to bed with him all the more so.

Men who call the women they sleep with "whores" are men who are not just insecure, but men who actually despise themselves. Men that resent women who leave them to go on and sleep with other men, and men that resent women who slept with other men before him - these men resent themselves and are looking to deflect their hate. It's much easier to live with hating women than to live with hating yourself, after all.

The women of the world would be much better off if men like this just stuck to self-loathing and masturbation. Unfortunately, they're out there giving it up.