Men Watch Porn, Women Read Romance. Why?
Years ago I met a man who intrigued me. He was my first real love.
But I didn’t go headlong into a relationship, I wanted to get to know
him, understand him.
I became the detective, trying to determine whether he was right for
me. Was he devoted, caring? Empathetic? Did he appreciate me? Was
he in love with me or was I just a passing fancy?
He thought understanding each other was overrated.
My sleuthing confirmed my initial attraction – that he was deep.
Unless the subject was sex and relationship, which he thought were
the same thing. Big problem!
I eventually learned that this dynamic – men seeking sex and women
seeking answers – is not unusual. It is even reflected in the erotica
we seek.
A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal by Ogi Ogas says that men
search the internet for two-minute clips that are all about skin and
explicit sex. Women’s erotica is more like detective novel meets
romance, and takes hours to read and digest. (The number of women
romance readers and male online porn viewers are about the same.
And keep in mind that one in 10 men are into romance while one in
10 women check out porn clips.)
The men’s interest is simple, uncomplicated. But women more likely
want character-driven stories that reveal the lover’s nature. Sex is not
for its own sake, and not with impersonal strangers.
As Ogas notes, the female cortex is highly developed and skillfully
scrutinizes all available evidence – social, emotional and physical,
somewhat consciously but largely not. All this leads to a general
feeling of favorability or suspicion: Is he committed and kind? Is he a
rouge? A player? Only if the detective work leads to a stamp of
approval will physical and psychological arousal unite.
Men’s desire has been likened to an on/off switch, while women’s to
a complex circuit board.
Why? Who knows? Some will point to evolutionary psychology: To
best reproduce themselves women need a man who will stick around
and support their children with resources. So women must be careful,
picky. But men (having a great deal of sperm) best reproduce
themselves by willy-nilly spreading their seed. It’s a popular theory,
but I have my doubts since women in some cultures behave a lot like
our sexual stereotype of men. American Indians prior to European
contact, for instance.
Others say that in a world where women have less power, women’s
lives are more affected by men than vice-versa, so they need to be
more careful, even if their sleuthing isn’t very conscious. Women are
more likely to follow husbands who are transferred in their careers
than vice-versa, for instance. Also, men’s social status affects
women more than women’s status affects men’s. When a waitress
marries a dentist, her social status immediately rises to his. Not so
much for the trucker who marries a female business executive.
And since men are typically bigger and stronger, abused women
suffer greater injuries and have more difficultly defending
themselves.
Women are also more likely to depend on men, financially, because
they are more likely to stay home full-time with kids. Is he
dependable? Can he keep a job? If men leave, women in our society
bear all the responsibility for children (versus Ancient American
Indians who parented communally).
Also, women’s sex drive is typically lower in our culture (largely due
to repression), perhaps leaving women wanting emotionally
connected sex more than variety and experimentation.
And of course, women were raised on a diet of Disney princesses living happily ever after with their one and only true love. Could have
an effect.
Meanwhile, because men are bombarded with sexually objectified
women, they come to see women’s bodies as objects that are all
about sex, with women’s body parts as sex-signals. Hence the simple
look-arousal response. (Surprisingly, the breast fetish seems to be
learned, not natural .)
When women and men so often have contradictory ways of seeing
and being, you have to wonder why (for about 95% of the population)
women and men are thrown together in the first place.
That said, guys are getting more romantic. So while there are reasons
why women are more likely to read romance novels and men are
more likely to look at two-minute porn clips, in real life there is a bit
more coming together.
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