According to Bagley (1969), the scene is often set for incest in the following way. The dominant participant in incest is detached from mainstream society, either physically, as in geographical isolation or psychologically, as in alienation from the mainstream – for example, in chronic unemployment. Those who can match societies’ goals and expectations are less likely to breach society’s conventional ethics.
Incest does not only occur in situations of social disadvantage, since quite the opposite conditions can also be associated with it. For example, in the case of the Azande of Africa, a top chief is required to have sexual relations with his own daughter (Ford and Beach, 1951). This violates the otherwise most universal of all incest taboos, that between parent and offspring.
There is, of course, a fundamental difference between sibling incest and parent–child incest, as well as an asymmetry between parent and child. First, there is a rather obvious power differential. In the case of father–daughter incest (probably the most usual form), we might speculate that the fathers felt strong desire whereas the daughters found the experience of incest distasteful. Secondly, the father and mother will have imprinted negatively on characteristics of their own parents and siblings and the process will not thereby be open for imprinting negatively on their own children (though of course common genes need consideration).
Erotic plasticity
Are eroticism and its expression a fixed property of an individual? How constant is sexual desire? Does it fluctuate much over a life-time? How does it vary between cultures? The term ‘plasticity’ refers to the degree to which the brain/mind can adapt to changing circumstances, that is a point on a dimension opposite to rigidity.
The phenomena to be explained
According to Baumeister (2000), the pattern of male eroticism in terms of target and desired activity, as well as intensity, tends to be ‘set in stone’ rather early in life. Males show relative constancy in the face of varying life events. For example, following their first orgasm, males tend immediately to adopt a regular pattern of achieving sexual outlets by one means or another (Kinsey et al., 1948). Finding himself in a situation of being between relationships, a highly active male is more likely than a woman to resort to masturbation.
By contrast, female desire shows more plasticity, flexibility and variation as a function of environmental context. This is true both comparing between women and within a given woman over time. During a life-time, a woman tends to show more change in behaviour as a result of changing circumstances. Following their initiation, women can sometimes go for years before resuming any form of sexual expression. Societies can be compared across time and geography. As cultural ‘norms’ and expectations change, so women’s behaviour changes more than that of men. For example, religious institutions and prescriptions have greater influence on women. Women priests taking vows of chastity have greater success maintaining them than do males. Bisexuality is more common amongst women than men. Gay women are more likely to have experienced heterosexual activity than have gay males. Whereas educational level correlates with a broadening range of sexual activities for women, there is little effect on men. Women tend to feel that they have more choice in their sexuality than men. Indeed, women sometimes assume a gay role as a part of an expression of choice within a radical political process. Women who have a particularly high sexual attraction towards men also tend to show an attraction to women (Lippa, 2006), suggesting a more diffuse desire not so closely tied to gendered physical characteristics. By contrast, men with a particularly high attraction to women do not show a simultaneous attraction to men.
Baumeister’s argument was triggered by analyses of the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s–1970s in the USA, finding that this was more a revolution of women’s attitude and behaviour than those of men. A greater willingness of women to indulge in multiple-partner sex gave more opportunity to males to express their desires, but it didn’t change men’s fundamental motivation pattern. It simply lowered male frustration levels as compared to less liberated times.
Adult plasticity and sexual orientation
Tolman and Diamond (2001) note that changes in women’s personal circumstances and social context can lead to changes in sexual orientation. In a survey of young women’s same-sex experiences, they found (p. 61):
Many of these young women indicated that as time went by, they became increasingly aware of the way in which sexual identity categories failed to represent the vast diversity of sexual and romantic feelings they were capable of experiencing for female and male partners under different circumstances. As one woman said, ‘I’m really attracted to the person and not the gender, and there’s no category for that, not even “bisexual”.’ Such data demonstrate how much we lose by trying to fit women’s (and men’s) complex, highly contextualized experiences of same-sex and other-sex sexuality into cookie-cutter molds of ‘gay’, ‘straight’, and (only recently) ‘bisexual’.
Kitzinger and Wilkinson (1995) investigated the first steps towards experiencing lesbian sex in a sample of adult women who had previously identified as heterosexual. Various factors, such as re-establishing an old friendship, developing non-sexual intimacy or simply curiosity, seemed to be the precursors. Though not stated, presumably satiation within an established relationship would also have contributed. In some cases, a full-blown lesbian identity with rejection of previous heterosexual identity was assumed after consolidating the new relationship. In other cases, the women remained tentative and were wary of assuming a lesbian identity. The authors argue that their results emphasize the fluidity and flexibility of women’s sexual desire and they reject the notion of the innate formation of sexual orientation.
Evidence from swinging
A good arena for examining differences in sexual desire is the swinging scene of group sex, described earlier. Bisexual behaviour amongst women is extremely high at swinger gatherings, even defining the norm, whereas amongst men it is very rare (Dixon, 1984; Stephenson, 1973; Symonds, 1971), even being banned at some swinger clubs (Weinberg et al., 1994).
It is more often men who initiate group sex but women discover their bisexuality as a result. Sometimes this discovery comes as a surprise to them, since they have felt no same-sex attraction prior to this (Diamond, 2007). However, it is not always at the swingers’ club itself that women first discover their bisexuality. A glance at a British, French or German swingers’ contact magazine or web-site reveals the common description ‘she bi-curious’ but rarely the corresponding description for the male. This difference is also reflected in nominally heterosexual group-sex pornography, in which depictions of woman–woman sex are very common but male–male sex non-existent. Although this is directed mainly at a male audience, it may also say something relevant about female sexual desire.
Woman–woman contact in this context reminds us that a particular incentive can be attractive as a result of more than one underlying motivation. It has been suggested that the links between affectional bonding and sexual desire (Chapter 15) are stronger in women than in men (Diamond, 2003) and this might explain why women are inclined to manifest bisexual attraction.
Dixon (1984) studied the emergence of bisexuality in a population of married American women. All had considered themselves heterosexual prior to the discovery of their bisexuality in the context of swinging. As a group, they appeared to show a relatively high sensitivity to sexual stimulation (high ‘erotophilia’). A large percentage started masturbating before the age of 12 and continued masturbation ever since. The sample started heterosexual activity at a relatively young age and continued at a relatively high frequency with their current husbands.
The bases of plasticity
Baumeister (2000) accepts that sexual desire invariably develops from a complex interaction between biology and social context. Also, once matured and expressed, desire is maintained as a result of such interdependence. Of course, he also accepts that behaviour can be a less than ideal correlate of desire. Someone might lack
an outlet for their desires or they might comply with sexual wishes in the face of little desire (this usually being a woman). However, even allowing for such factors, he suggested that there are differences between men and women in the way that biology and culture influence desire.
From a functional perspective, how might it have been to women’s advantage in evolution to show such flexibility? Firstly, Baumeister considers power, arguing that, in general, men exert more power and are more aggressive than women. In the face of bonding with a partner who is in a stronger position, flexibility could be a distinct advantage to survival and reproduction. Secondly, he notes that, in most societies, women have traditionally been in a situation of saying ‘no’ to many sexual advances. Sexual behaviour usually proceeds when ‘no’ transforms to ‘yes’, a clear requirement for flexibility according to changing circumstances. The capacity to fine-tune desire and behaviour so as to match an estimate of a male’s reproductive viability could be a means of maximizing chances of genetic perpetuation. Women have more to lose than men do by getting it wrong. It could be that plasticity is a means of allowing female desire to track assessments of reproductive viability. These would be partly economic and might vary from period to period and culture to culture.
What might we say about causal explanations? Baumeister suggests that women might have a weaker sex drive than men. This raises the problems noted earlier in the use of the term ‘sex drive’. Reflecting the confusion endemic in this area, in the same paragraph Baumeister uses ‘drive’, ‘motivation’ and ‘desire’ apparently as synonyms.
Baumeister notes that women have lower levels of testosterone than men. He also suggests that differences in sexual desire might reflect a more general difference between men and women in terms of the sources of emotional information. He calls on research by Pennebaker and Roberts (1992), pointing to men being more sensitive to their physiological responses than females when in an impoverished social environment. This superiority vanishes when there is a context providing cues.
In keeping with Baumeister’s interpretation, boys might show rather rapid imprinting on the first sexually appropriate images they experience. There is a ‘window of opportunity’ in the formation of the target of desire. Once imprinting is done, it is difficult, if not impossible, to substantially rewrite the script. For girls, the motivation system remains relatively open for various scripts to be written, according to experience within a broader culture. Finally, Baumeister suggested that a strong early imprinting process could explain homosexual or heterosexual orientation. Males might strongly imprint on certain characteristics of their same sex. This could also explain the greater incidence of paraphilias amongst men.
Baumeister suggests (2000, p. 369):
The importance of social, situational, and cultural influences on women suggests that sex depends very prominently on the meanings and interpretations that a given sex act may have. The relative inflexibility of males with regard to sociocultural factors suggests that meanings matter less than simpler, physical aspects of sex.
Chapter 5 suggested that women are more ‘meaning driven’ and men are more ‘stimulus driven’. One might expect meaning to fluctuate rather widely with fluctuations in social context, for example acquisition of a new faith, marital breakdown and divorce. By contrast, basic sexual stimulus cues are more likely to be ever-present in reality and imagination.
However, Baumeister’s argument is not without its problems. Evidence suggests a considerable degree of male plasticity in certain cultural contexts (Abramson and Pinkerton, 1995). For example, in the Sambia of New Guinea, boys go through a homosexual phase early in life, which is followed by heterosexual attraction. In ancient Greece, a homosexual role for boys in relation to older men was not uncommon.
Diamond (2007) argues that the idiosyncratic changes often seen in women’s same-sex sexuality require a new explanatory framework and suggests that ‘dynamic systems theory’ could provide the answer. This theory points to how complex systems can reorganize themselves over time, with novel properties suddenly emerging. This is manifest as new behaviours and desires. Seemingly small changes in input, for example encountering new sexual opportunities, can cause dramatic changes in the properties of the system. By analogy, certain professional career trajectories can show sudden switches, rather than linear changes. As adults, some women report the sudden and surprising appearance of same-sex desire, experienced not as an orientation that was intentionally sought. The context might typically be, for example, engagement in feminist politics and finding lesbian/bisexual friends. It commonly builds upon an affectional relationship to one particular female. This model stands in contrast to the idea that the ‘coming-out’ of same-sex sexuality represents a gradual and predictable emergence starting with fantasy and culminating in same-sex behaviour and identity. Some women switch equally suddenly from same-sex to opposite-sex orientation, occasionally being, as they express it, ‘straightened-out’ against their wishes. Others find themselves to be of bisexual orientation.
So far, the discussion has mainly looked at sexual desire in relative isolation. It is now time to see it in interaction.
In summary
Differences in the experience and expression of sexual desire between males and females arise from a complex interweaving of genetic and environmental factors.
Theories on the development of sexual orientation attribute roles to early development of brain mechanisms and to later experience with same- and opposite-sex children.
Women appear to show more erotic plasticity than males.
Fifteen Sexual desire in interaction
Then the lusts of the flesh, the longing for money, and the melancholy of passion all blended themselves into one suffering, and instead of turning her thoughts from it, she clave to it the more, urging herself to pain, and seeking everywhere occasion for it. She was irritated by an ill-served dish or by a half-open door.1
(Gustave Flaubert, 1856/2010, p. 187)
Sexual desire probably does not usually exist in isolation, though for some people it might best be understood in these simplified terms. As a more general principle, sexual desire locks into interaction with other processes and only by looking at its interactions can it be understood. This chapter describes three such interactions.
Attachment, care-giving, love and romance
Sexual desire interacts with a motivation that is variously described as seeking ‘companionship’, ‘love’, ‘attachment’ or ‘romance’. Attachment is essential for some to express sexual desire, in which case sexual desire needs to be understood in terms of its links with this primary motivation. This is illustrated by a number of personal accounts, such as the following: The pop singer Madonna wrote (Madonna, 1992, p. 3): ‘Sex is not love. Love is not sex. But the best of both worlds is created when they come together.’ Meston and Buss (2009, p. 30) give the witness of a 25-year-old woman: ‘We were both sixteen-year-old virgins and had been dating for three months. I pushed for us to have sex because I wanted to show him that I loved him. I wanted to give him something that no one else could have.…I probably lost my virginity out of a need to be loved’, and ‘Sex to express love is about being able to put feelings into actions. With different kinds of love there are different ways to express that love through action. When I physically and/or mentally desire someone I may choose to show that desire through sexual actions.’
A particular emotional attachment to another person, romantic love, is found across all cultures (Buss, 2005) and something having features in common with this occurs in a number of non-human species (Fisher, 2004). Fisher (p. 22) argues that, even in the face of rational considerations, romantic love is very frequently: ‘unplanned, involuntary, and seemingly uncontrollable’. It appears to be the most obvious, universal and potent of the possible interactions with sexual desire and takes the features of a motivational system in its own right (Fisher, 2004). Indeed, the motivation to obtain a feeling of love and commitment commonly combines wit
h sexual desire, particularly in women (Stephenson et al., 2011). When it is triggered by this combined desire, sexual behaviour yields relatively high levels of satisfaction. The relationship is a reciprocal one: sexual contact can promote bonding, while bonding is a trigger to sexual desire (Dewitte, 2012).
For men, one might have thought that making visits to sex workers would exemplify pure lust in the absence of complications. Unsurprisingly, satisfying lust is invariably high on their list of motives. Again pointing to the role of arousal, uncertainty and novelty, the factors of thrill, excitement and the illicit nature of this activity were also found to be attractive to some. However, for a number of clients, lust seems to lock into interaction with a rather different motive. Qualities that can also be valued and sought include companionship, the woman’s conversational abilities and her skill at making the man feel special, and ‘personal warmth and friendliness’, ‘emotional intimacy’ or to obtain a ‘girl-friend feeling’ (Pruitt and Krull, 2011).
How Sexual Desire Works- The Enigmatic Urge Page 31
