I have come to the conclusion that many men don’t understand much on the topic of women sexuality. I am aware that people arrive at various “pill-spaces” to find answers to their questions. However, if we are being truly truthful, these spaces, largely speaking, rarely provide those in-dept answers people are searching for. While these spaces are popular, they are popular because they sell people a small set of beliefs regarding dating, sex, and gender (etc) that give people some form of comfort. I mean they are referred as various pill-”ideologies” for a reason. They give people shallow yet highly polarising explanations that can easily destroy or invalidate some other point of view but rarely are deep and rich enough to help those struggling. That is not to say, NO person has been helped, I am sure some have, however, many people are left unsatisfied and their problems left unresolved. They destroy curiosity completely. And I am saying this as someone who went to those spaces.

Now, some may argue that their particular form of pill is rooted in science, particularly evolutionary science. They may say the reason why we repeatedly bring up height, physical attractiveness, and status and whatever other factors that are commonly heard is because they are studies that show them to be significantly related to females’s rating of perceived attractiveness. And I would agree, however, what I am trying to point out is they are not being interpreted as science. They are treated as gospel truths rather than tentative facts. For instance, height is clearly a major predictor of high ratings on perceived female attractiveness. Replicated across many cultures, replicated over and over again, robust sample size and study design and blah blah blah. I get it!!! You have identified WHAT factors play a role in perceived female attractiveness but have not explained HOW and WHY and WHEN they do. How does height cause women to go moist downstairs? The effect of height, is it “in effect” all of the time? So, whenever a tall guy enters a room he always cause feelings of sexual arousal? If not, when is height “in effect”? It is in effect when he is making tea? Is it in effect when he is playing the guitar? What about when he is sleeping? What about when he is picking his nose? Is it still “in effect”? Also, is every women in every situation going be effected by height? Probably not. What I am saying is getting someone to be sexually attracted in deeper than a “in X then Y” explanation. A more broader perspective is needed.

Lastly, I wanted to point out that “female perceived attractiveness” is not the same as “female sexuality”. The research employing rating scales are asking of self-report measures. It is not clear that those participants filling the questionnaire are turned on by the pictures that see. They perceive them to be sexually attractive, but not in the moment be sexually attracted. What gets women turned on? This question is not the interest of evolutionary science, that is a interest of different field of research: sexology.

My brief scanning of literature suggest women sexuality (sexuality in general in fact) is a lot more complex and varied. Simple “if X then Y” type of explanations, in my opinion, fails to give a comprehensive account. For instance, men tend to experience spontaneous, out of the blue desire for sex (which is a curse when it gets in the way of a productive day), while this is the experience of some women, there are also some that never experience spontaneous sexual desires. Instead they may experience “responsive” desire, in which the desire emerges only in highly erotic context. Also, that sexual desire is influenced by learning. For example, studies have shown that male rats who have been trained to associated a stimuli (as bizarre as smell of lemon, wearing a jacket) with sexual activity, will influence their preference. When they are presented with a receptive female rat, the female rat that smells of lemon is preferred significantly more often than those that don’t. Also, about the rat wearing a jacket, the study found that if the rat was wearing a jacket the first time he copulated, the next he is with a receptive female but not wearing that jacket, he is more likely to self-inhibit. Which sounds eerily close to “I learned that having “this face structure, or this height or this whatever” means possible interest in sex, but I don’t have those, so no possible interest in sex”-self-inhibit. It is not out of the realm of possibility that this maybe training you to become blind to other cue of sexual interest. Obviously the raw desire of sexual reproduction remains. The rats in the wild figure it out themselves. But the point the studies showed was the perception of sexual desire and preference can be tampered by what we learn and how we learn about it.

I don’t know, I haven’t properly studied it to make my final judgment, but it’s interesting to say the least. What do you guys think? Should we include discussion of “sexuality” alongside “sex”. Also, if any gals here read this, share your story and experiences. Is this true? False? Complicated?