by Sara Pascoe
So stripping is exploitation?
Not especially and not necessarily; but as a transactional sexual behaviour stripping can be objectifying. It’s performative fantasy created by removing the ‘real’ person and replacing them with someone who wishes to wiggle and serve. It is often an interaction without empathy, and lust without empathy can be dangerous.
I wanted to understand what men like Weinstein are getting off on. I found research about the effect of social status on the brain and learned that neurotransmitters like serotonin are released when we feel superior. This means a chemical that influences our happiness and wellbeing is boosted by dominance. Perhaps that makes complete sense to you, seems obvious? It feels good to be respected and terrible to be lowly. In the ‘Sex Power Biology’ section I’ll outline some of the hormones and chemicals involved in human mating and bonding. We’ll then get into the politically incorrect terrain of considering power and sex from an evolutionary perspective.
Gaining sexual pleasure from dominating another is known as sadism, named after a French philosopher called the Marquis de Sade. De Sade was a violent predator and has many modern apologists. I angrily wrote a lot of this book about him, then cut it all. What remained significant was something Angela Carter insisted in The Sadeian Woman: that all sex is an exchange of power. A matter-of-fact theory that does not reflect my experience. No sex that I’m having feels like a power exchange. My sex is friendly and fun and between equals. As I explore transactional sex for the ‘Sex Power Money Money Money’ chapters of this book, I realise that the power dynamic within sex is more than topping or bottoming. If people want to have sex with each other for no other reason than sex itself, where is the power being traded? To be an exchange there must be inequality to begin with. Usually economic. This is true of marriage in societies where women do not have independent income; it is true of any partnership with a financial dependant. It is explicitly demonstrated by sugar-daddying, sex-for-rent and other forms of sex work. But I’ve become more interested in the less explicit forms – a kiss-and-tell scenario for instance. Or the cultural expectations that a man should pay for a woman’s dinner, or that a woman should feel obliged to sleep with a man who’s bought a lot of drinks.
I saw a quote from the film Scarface on a men’s rights message board: ‘When you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.’ I should’ve got Tony Montana to write the foreword because that’s my basic premise. Montana is not a respected intellectual but as I researched the relationship between status and sexual access in human beings, I found evidence supporting his proclamation. There are studies that show heterosexual women prefer men with expensive cars and designer clothes; that they find the same men more attractive when adorned with symbols of wealth. This relationship between power and attraction appears gendered; the studies did NOT find that heterosexual men prefer powerful women. Beautiful porn star Stormy Daniels had an affair with unattractive tycoon Donald Trump. No porn star has been wooed by Angela Merkel.‡
To my surprise I found many straight women do believe it’s ‘fair’ and ‘right’ that a man provide for them, that gestures of generosity are expected. I battled with this because I find it such a repulsive attribute, though as we’ll discover, it reflects evolutionary logic.
I’ll be honest, a lot of evolutionary logic has made me want to puke. I’ve written this book with the knowledge that all animals, including ourselves, behave in ways which maximise our chances of reproductive success. There are no morals, there is no intellectual debate, there is only the replication of genes, the spreading of traits. But I recognise why it’s not a trendy approach for understanding modern behaviour. I understand why feminists and MRAs alike consider biological sex differences reductive and unhelpful.
Why?
Because people don’t identify as animals! People would like to believe they’re modern intellectuals making choices rather than bald apes responding to instinctual drives. We see stupid cows standing in fields without Netflix, we see dogs unashamedly sniffing each other’s butts and we think we’re something special. And we are. Giraffes have long necks, fish can breathe under water and humans have consciousness and the ability to reason. But that doesn’t make us immune to natural forces and we shouldn’t ignore our biology.
People talk about ‘rape culture’ and ‘a culture of sexism’, but I’m going to argue these things are not created by societies but remnants of forces going much further back. This book is my attempt to persuade you that an evolutionary approach can occasionally make the most baffling human behaviours less mysterious – from the popularity of pornography and our preoccupation with penis size, through to the stigma around selling sex. Biology is not a complete answer to who we are, but along with our childhood memories and Tony Montana quotes, it has the power to influence us.
* Not all committed by Harvey Weinstein.
† Sean the lawyer has asked me to point out that Weinstein and Spacey are yet to go to trial and have both protested their innocence.
‡ I’m so aware of the months that will pass between my writing this and it being published. So many ways to be out of date, but I will be happy to be proved wrong on this point if it’s revealed that Merkel has been banging away with a multitude of young studs.
Achilles of the Groin
In the playground of primary school I learned that a kick between the legs would topple any male-bodied person. What incredible luck, I’d found boys’ Achilles heel and it was in their pants. I enjoyed a kicking spree of several days, mad on the power of it. I laughed to see the Goliaths of my year writhing on the floor. Once a boy called Wesley kicked my groin in retaliation and we stared at each other, waiting, but my legs stayed strong. I did not topple. It was only MY kick that could work this magic and crumple lads like toilet paper.
At the weekend my aunty Jools asked, ‘How’s school?’ and I bragged. I shared my secrets: the element of surprise, straight leg, run away laughing.
‘You must never ever do that.’ She was angry with me. Jools was a child-adult and never told me off. She let us eat humbugs for breakfast and pretended to believe Baileys was a milkshake. I sulked while she explained that when boys are hurt between the legs it sends shooting pains all through their body, up to their brain. The pain is so large they can’t think, they lose control of their body and emotions. She made me promise to never do it again, because it wasn’t fair. ‘Even in a fight, gentlemen don’t go for the goolies,’ Jools instructed, and I apologised. I learned something important that day, the word ‘goolies’.
Three decades later, and Donald Trump had moved into politics. Amongst the debates and speeches there was schoolyardy name-calling. Critics of Trump disagreed with his opinions, what he said and (when imitating a journalist with cerebral palsy) how he said it. But while attempting to undermine him, some dissenters aimed for his penis. Here’s an example: in 2016 Marco Rubio entertains at a rally, first by saying Donald Trump has the hands of a much shorter man, then asking suggestively, ‘You know what they say about men with small hands?’
Men’s hands (and feet) have been referenced facetiously as indicators of penis size ever since I’ve been alive. When did this start? I don’t know. Perhaps one of you can skim-read the Bible and let me know if there’s a parable about Jesus being kind to a paltry-fingered man. I do know that contemporary data suggest some correlation between digit ratio (difference in length between second and fourth finger) and penis size, but it’s not definitive ‘small hands = small willy’ evidence.
When my friend Hannah had her son the midwife complimented his willy. Do you think that’s appropriate? The baby was several seconds old when a medical professional anointed him ‘one for the ladies’. I wish I’d been there – I’d have shouted ‘Heteronormative!’ at her. Then I’d have run up and down the ward shouting at everyone. Reproduction is so heteronormative.
This happened in my family too, my uncle boasted to me about my young cousin being ‘well
hung’. What was I supposed to say? ‘Congratulations on Stefan’s todger, I’ll get him lube for his sixteenth so he doesn’t hurt anyone.’
If parents celebrate their kid’s penis size, if a midwife expects to please parents by praising a baby’s phallus, then it’s clear the male organ has significance. It represents more than its biological function, it says something about masculinity and status – which must be difficult with such a small mouth.
Marco Rubio’s question, ‘You know what they say about men with small hands?’ seemed rhetorical, but then, after pausing for laughter, he answered: ‘You can’t trust them!’ I’ve checked and there are in fact zero studies relating a man’s hand size to trustworthiness. Interestingly I did find two experiments (one from the University of California, Berkeley, and one from the University of Cologne) that found participants became less honest and reliable with an increase in status and power. That bears thinking about as regards all politicians, doesn’t it? I’ve sent Rubio a LinkedIn request with updated speech suggestions: ‘You know what they say about men with big power? Trustworthiness decreases.’ He can get that printed on a tea towel or something. A consolation for losing is that he’s probably a better man for it.
I’ve wondered whether I would care if someone said I had small hands, and I wouldn’t. This is absolutely a masculine vs feminine thing. Men want big hands and women want small hands, even though we use them for all the same stuff: petting cats, masturbating, keying our enemy’s car.
Oddly Donald Trump was more offended at being called small-handed than untrustworthy. At his next public address he asked everyone to look at his titchy, pussy-grabbing hands and declared, ‘If they’re small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee you.’ It’s so surreal. A man reassuring American voters that, if elected, he will provide an unproblematic presidential penis.
Trump’s defensiveness reminded me that one of the many euphemisms for male genitalia is ‘manhood’. That word can be used in an absolutely literal way about the male anatomy: ‘Sara was running towards me and I grabbed a bin lid to protect my manhood’; or it can be metaphorical: ‘After Rubio’s comments Donald Trump used a public address to defend his manhood.’ This word reveals the unsubtle connection between perceived masculinity and penis size. If you want even less subtlety, there’s another presidential example. Lyndon B. Johnson named his penis ‘Jumbo’ and there are numerous reports of him waggling it in the men’s toilets and asking people, ‘Have you ever seen anything as big as this?’ More perplexingly, there’s a famous story of Johnson being grilled by journalists about the Vietnam war. Someone asked why US troops were even there. ‘This is why,’ Johnson exclaimed, freeing Jumbo from his zipped prison and presenting him like an answer.
Male genitals are symbolic. We say that people have balls, big balls, balls of steel if they are brave and great. We describe striving, go-getting people as ballsy. ‘Big Dick Energy’ fell onto the internet one day and we all instantly knew what it referred to – confidence, assurance, strength. I wonder what would happen if a presidential candidate shrugged off an attempt to belittle him via penis size? ‘Sure, I’ve got a tiny wang,’ he says in my imagination, ‘but I’ve got big ideas about how to prevent homelessness and improve education/free the market and lower tax.’* Would people find it impossible to respect this man, and if so, why?
Is a man’s whole being underwritten by his genitals? Do men consider their penises as representations of ‘self’? ‘My penis … why, I’ve never really thought about it,’ said no man ever. You’re all preoccupied or proud, AND WE’RE GOING TO FIND OUT WHY.
The first instance of our genitals dictating who—
Dick-tating?
No thank you, dictating who we are is when they’re used to identify our biological sex at birth or even earlier. All of us were assigned a gender in utero or shortly afterwards, based on our genital formation. If you had a penis you were considered male. Someone wrote that in a file about you, told your mother. At birth, a doctor looked between your legs in the earliest moments of your life and announced you: ‘boy’.
I used to believe the only difference between boys and girls was what we had in our underwear. When I was referred to as ‘a girl’ I understood that as ‘a child without a willy’. By the time I started secondary school I’d also heard some confusing stuff about ‘penis envy’, because my dad was studying Freud, and ‘bleeding from the site of a torn-off organ’, because my mum liked quoting Germaine Greer. I was informed, explicitly and implicitly, that there were two kinds of human: the haves and have-nots. And unless you’re reading this in a distant genderless future, so were you.
In the broadest sense Homo sapiens is composed of two phenotypes, two biological sexes. There are arguably many more sexes: people with extra chromosomes, solo chromosomes, intersex genitalia, etc. But for most intents and purposes humans are divided in two, and this is due to how we reproduce. We’re split into As and Bs because that’s how Cs are made.
A + B = C. Reproduction. Or in Ikea terms, plank + legs = table.
In our species the two types are referred to as ‘man’ and ‘woman’, and together they make ‘babies’, which are a great drain on the resources of our planet lovely. But reproduction doesn’t need two types – there are plenty of hermaphrodite species like snails, slugs and some insects and fish that can make Cs by themselves if they want. My fantasy is to be like one of those self-fertilising frogs in Jurassic Park. I’d have daughters that were all the same as me, with exactly my genes. Then I could show them to my parents and say, ‘See, it was my childhood, they’re fine.’ I’d prove nurture over nature – a perfect experiment. I realise that being genetically identical to your mother would come with its own set of issues. My daughters would look at me and see their aged future. I’d be a decaying premonition. When they grew old themselves they’d see MY FACE in the mirror, the horror! It’d be like a very long, very creepy episode of Quantum Leap, which is why I’ve decided against having kids via hermaphrodite gene replication.
Also, did you know mushrooms have thirty-six thousand sexes? It’s incredible but, as this book isn’t about the interrelation of economics, autonomy and sex in mushrooms, not especially relevant.
The reason most animals are As and Bs is because having two phenotypes ensures the jumbling of DNA with each coupling. Asexual reproduction makes evolution much, much slower. In Ikea terms, dual-sexed breeding gives the possibility of moving around the bits and pieces; you can make mutant tables with legs on the top or with doors and drawers attached to them. Being asexual means following the instructions very closely every time. If my clone children had clone children who had clone children who had clone children† and so on for thousands of years, then yes, planet Earth would be populated entirely with good-looking cool people, but we’d also be less healthy. With a lesser spread of genes, we’d be more vulnerable to viruses, unable to adapt to difficult terrains, new food sources, etc. There is resilience in variation.
The two biological types of human begin their lives looking the same. At a genetic and chromosomal level we differ, but we’re all samey little bean people in the womb until around nine weeks old. What happens next is really fun. Foetuses with Y chromosomes begin to develop differently to those without. The female body is the default setting, but where there’s a Y chromosome, increased testosterone causes the sex organs to unravel externally. I shall now describe this process in the most poetic way I can …
We all begin our lives with gonads in our abdomen. If you’re thinking, ‘Wow, that’s so gross, imagine having goolies inside you,’ spare some sympathy for us double Xs whose gonads stay right there and become ovaries. At eight weeks old everyone’s external genitals look like this:
Anus
Labioscrotal folds
Legs
Genital tuber
Urogenital folds
Urethral groove
I know 4 looks pretty penisy but the correct term is ‘genital tub
er’. The urogenital folds surround it, there’s a urethral groove in the middle and some labioscrotal folds on either side. Spoiler alert: they’re called labioscrotal because they can become labia or scrotum. Told you this was fun.
At eleven weeks the testes of the male foetus should be creating dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which causes the genital tuber to elongate and form the phallus, with the urogenital folds fusing underneath to enclose an area called ‘the spongy urethra’. The urethral groove becomes the urethra, which you’d probably guessed. The labioscrotal folds drop the ‘labio’, stop folding and start bagging into scrotal sacks. Anti-Mullerian hormone is released and prevents the growth of the Mullerian duct system that would otherwise form an internal genital tract (vagina and friends). At around eight months’ gestation the testes descend to the scrotum and congratulations, it’s biologically male. In Ikea terms, the table has a penis and testicles.
Without the flush of DHT, spurred instead by oestrogen, the urogenital folds of a female foetus will develop into labia minora. The genital tuber becomes the clitoris,‡ while the labioscrotal folds forget ‘scrotal’ and flower into labia majora bracketing the vagina. Congratulations, it might one day present Loose Women.
Anyone who hears a baby has arrived asks, ‘What is it?’ And everyone knows what the ‘it’ refers to. No one is asking about race or star sign, no one is checking, ‘Is it the son of God again?’ The first thing we want to know about a baby is its sex. From the first breath it’s the most significant, most defining feature of a person. And unavoidably, biology is considered conclusive of gender. There’s a brilliant bit in Juno Dawson’s book where she admits to asking people the sex of their baby, even though she knows from personal experience (she’s trans) that what a baby ‘is’ cannot always be ascertained by its sexual anatomy. But it’s super hard not to ask – try it next time someone announces they’ve had a kid, deliberately don’t ask, ‘Boy or girl?’ Feel the pull of wanting to, feel their needing to tell you. If you REALLY want the details, try asking the physiologically truthful, ‘Does it have a penis?’ Now lecture the people backing away from you about how gender is a construct and mushrooms have thirty-six thousand sexes and all babies look alike with their nappies on.
