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I'm a fan of "lean in" etc., but sometimes dudes should probably go the other direction. This post brought to you by a perfectly pleasantly phrased request from a guy I don't know to give him free legal advice. And I'm conditioned enough that I feel bad about telling him I won't, because he was nice. My head knows that being nice doesn't entitle him to anything but a nice no, but my gut does not.
Interesting essay by Amanda Hess: “I was cut off from those male networks of sexual imagery; my female friends and I spent our free time having destructive conversations with each other about our own bodies, and what they meant for our potential as sex objects. … [W]hen it comes to penis appreciation, I feel like I was never really given a fair shake. I grew up in a world where I was repeatedly told that those types of images were not for me, and where male nudity was framed in the context of male assault as much as it was female desire.” Note that the general question for discussion, whether women are turned on by pictures of naked men, could of course be answered, “some are,” and it’s not clear that the overall discussion has any more insight to add than that. Here’s an example of someone who has found porn that she likes on Tumblr, but thinks that therefore it’s the only porn that “works” for women.
Fertility doesn’t drop sharply after age 30 or 35:
Interesting essay by Amanda Hess: “I was cut off from those male networks of sexual imagery; my female friends and I spent our free time having destructive conversations with each other about our own bodies, and what they meant for our potential as sex objects. … [W]hen it comes to penis appreciation, I feel like I was never really given a fair shake. I grew up in a world where I was repeatedly told that those types of images were not for me, and where male nudity was framed in the context of male assault as much as it was female desire.” Note that the general question for discussion, whether women are turned on by pictures of naked men, could of course be answered, “some are,” and it’s not clear that the overall discussion has any more insight to add than that. Here’s an example of someone who has found porn that she likes on Tumblr, but thinks that therefore it’s the only porn that “works” for women.
Fertility doesn’t drop sharply after age 30 or 35:
Surprisingly few well-designed studies of female age and natural fertility include women born in the 20th century—but those that do tend to paint a more optimistic picture. One study, published in Obstetrics & Gynecology in 2004 and headed by David Dunson (now of Duke University), examined the chances of pregnancy among 770 European women. It found that with sex at least twice a week, 82 percent of 35-to-39-year-old women conceive within a year, compared with 86 percent of 27-to-34-year-olds. (The fertility of women in their late 20s and early 30s was almost identical—news in and of itself.) Another study, released this March in Fertility and Sterility and led by Kenneth Rothman of Boston University, followed 2,820 Danish women as they tried to get pregnant. Among women having sex during their fertile times, 78 percent of 35-to-40-year-olds got pregnant within a year, compared with 84 percent of 20-to-34-year-olds. A study headed by Anne Steiner, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, the results of which were presented in June, found that among 38- and 39-year-olds who had been pregnant before, 80 percent of white women of normal weight got pregnant naturally within six months (although that percentage was lower among other races and among the overweight). “In our data, we’re not seeing huge drops until age 40,” she told me.(However, the article makes clear that the dropoff is likely to be greater when IVF is involved, perhaps mostly because of the selection pressures that lead some women to use IVF.)
. . . In short, the “baby panic”—which has by no means abated since it hit me personally—is based largely on questionable data. We’ve rearranged our lives, worried endlessly, and forgone countless career opportunities based on a few statistics about women who resided in thatched-roof huts and never saw a lightbulb.
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I have a very vivid memory of the scene in The Fugitive where Harrison Ford strips to treat his own injury and we see his pelvic cut. This was before today's lowslung jeans and Teen Wolf torsos, and I found it so profoundly sexy to see a part of a man you didn't usually see, it really is a foundational moment for me.
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I know that's not every woman's experience. Some ladies really dig it! But I still feel like I could like porn, if it were done right.
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