Even if the Science is True...

...msnowe thinks there's so much wrong with This.

Back in college, the poster boy for the young republicans club came out with an editorial piece in the college newspaper. In it, he argued that if we allowed same sex couples to marry and receive benefits because their love for each other was as legit as a straight couple's, then what about the case of a man he knew, who fell deeply in love with his goat? Why could that man-goat couple not be afforded the same martial privileges, he argued? This article was accompanied by a rather crude cartoon, and to this day, msnowe wonders if the college newspaper editors gave this story space for the sheer fact of it's hate-talk and the impending debate. Obviously, considering it was a liberal college, there was an uproar, followed by marches, gay-rights t-shirts worn on coordinated days and pro-gay gatherings, etc. The outcry was large, and although it didn't change the view of those few people who were ignorant enough to write such stories, it caused the campus community to be more aware and mindful and proactive. In a sense, the story was good because it backfired on the GOP blowhard and got more people angry and less people agreeing or complacent with the viewpoints of the piece.

So what does this have to do with msnowe's opinion of the Female Desire piece in the New York Times last week? Well, the outcry against the story above exemplifies what should happen when a group is subjected to such absolutely asinine, ignorant comparisons and conjecture. Instead, the NYT's piece has been one of the most widely read stories of the week, and people seem to be gobbling it up without analyzing what the journalist is saying about "female" desire. Let's first understand this: regardless of whether or not the science is unfounded or completely correct, the presentation of this piece is in poor taste at best, and ignorant and sexist at its worst. There's no excuse for the way that the writer of this piece, Daniel Bergner, ignorantly uses latent sexism to describe his findings. [msnowe would like to note that just because a man wrote this piece, that doesn't mean it couldn't be done perfectly well by one.] But Bergner, consciously or not, enforces the "elusive, undefinable" notion of a "female desire" that allows both men and women to become misinformed, puzzled, and mystified by something that is just as raw and attainable as the "male" kind. It may not be comparing female sex with sex with goats--but there are a few paragraphs devoted to monkeys and rapists.

Msnowe wants to deal with multiple topics, but let's look at Bergner's story in its essentials first.
As a scientific piece, the scientists themselves are important, but in general it should be the research that takes center stage, especially as the article is targeted to try and define "Female Desire" (or so it falsely advertises).

Here are some snippets that mSnowe found particularly disturbing, that Bergner wrote to describe some of the

*female* scientists/sexologists:

"While the subjects watched on a computer screen, Chivers, who favors high boots and fashionable rectangular glasses, measured their arousal in two ways, objectively and subjectively."

"A compact 51-year-old woman in a shirtdress, Meana explained the gender imbalance onstage in a way that complemented Chivers’s thinking."

"One morning in the fall, Chivers hunched over her laptop in her sparsely decorated office."

Let's see, shall we? Bergner has gone to describe the physical attributes and dress of the *lady* scientists, descriptions he decidedly left off when writing about the male sexologists. Somehow, their dress is connected with this study? Or is he just trying to picture them naked? What does this have to do with the task at hand? Perhaps someone should tell him that, OMG, women can totally excel in math and the sciences, and should be treated as equals?

The later part of the article focuses on the varied results of the multiple studies, some of the highlights being:

1. Women are aroused by rape/ravishing situations

2. Women are narcissistically desirous

3. Women are also aroused by all the clips presented on a screen, no matter what their apparent sexual orientation (of monkeys, hetero- and homosexual sex, etc.) as opposed to men, who are only aroused by the sex they prefer (straight guys get aroused watching lesbian sex and hetero sex; gay men are aroused when watching homosexual sex). This leads to the conclusion that women do not have a desirous gaze, the way a "male gaze" occurs (see Sontag photo criticism: the male gaze)

Okay, so this is a lot, but let's tackle it. First, an important distinction is made in the very beginning of the piece, and then summarily thrown out the journalistic window: "female" desire and female arousal have the capability to be diametrically separate from each other--they are not the same thing. But Bergner seems to forget this, and uses research solely on arousal for at least 3/4 of the piece to try and discover "female" desire. And it's really annoying that the NYTs had a piece two years ago that already made clear how shoddy the connection between the desire and arousal was, and made definite inroads into the idea that perhaps, maybe just perhaps, there was overlap between the sexes in terms of defining desire--that it was a concept that should not necessarily be broken out by sex. This is all part of the mysterious human psyche--not a choice between lavatories at the mall.

Meana, one of the scientists in this current piece even proclaims: “the variability within genders may be greater than the differences between genders.”

And the whole "women are narcissistic" argument? According to one scientist, female desire is essentially a "wanting to be desired"--a self-fulfillment from an external source, or something. To be fair to Bergner, the scientist introduces the term "narcissistic." But msnowe finds that term jarring, especially when applied only to her sex. Of course we want to be wanted--and that would probably be a universal assumption, unless, perhaps, you're a date rapist (or maybe not even). Does the woman always have to see herself as "the object?" Have we suddenly gone back to the Middle Ages, and the notions of courtly love?

And don't get msnowe started about this line of Bergner's:

"Had Freud’s question gone unanswered for nearly a century not because science had taken so long to address it but because it is unanswerable?"

One can only assume "Freud's question" has something to do with penis envy. Well, by all accounts, the studies prove it false. Also, how typical is it for some to throw up their hands in defeat when trying to solve an issue that is a) different from the determinations of the past (i.e. they FINALLY start studying female sex drive) or b) it might be more intricate of a topic than they'd like to delve into. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time a male started to try to find out the mysteries of woman's pleasure, and then just settled on discovering (or reaching the climax of) their own instead(or first, shall we say). Msnowe can tell you from experience--although she'd love the societal power that unfairly comes with that southern piece of outer equipment all you guys have, she really doesn't envy it physically.

Part two: Should desire be seen as gendered? And the "male" gaze--is that all there is? (to come...)

Aristophanes' Story (As told by Socrates), while reading Bellow

Back in political philosophy class, M.Snowe read Plato's Symposium. Thinking it was fairly good, we remembered most of the lessons taught along with it. This weekend, we were forced to begin reading Ravelstein (and when we say "forced" it's implied that it's required reading, not that M.Snowe would ever pass up an opportunity to at least start reading something new). Ravelstein, published in 2000, is a novel centered around a political philosophy professor of much renown who's best-selling book propels him to wealth and fame. So naturally, the Symposium must be cited somewhere in the book--it was only a matter of time. The narrator, a friend of Ravelstein, talks about perhaps the most hilarious, serious, and memorable part of Plato's discourse on the nature of the human condition in the Symposium. It is Aristophanes' myth on the nature of desire.
Note: This is not actually Aristophanes, but Plato writing about the character of Aristophanes within the Socratic story. Aristophanes' actual writings, such as his play, Clouds, are wonderfully funny, satiric, and worthy of a read--but this story is meant to be something that Aristophanes might say--not what he actually did.
So here's the brief synopsis:

Aristophanes, when it is his turn at the symposium to explain his beliefs on the nature of the human condition with special emphasis on desire, tells a story of the gods and the original state of humans. He claims that people once possessed two pairs of legs, arms, and two heads, etc. They were "rollie-pollie" people--they rolled around, and also possessed two sex organs--some with a male and female, some with a pair of the same organs. They were intelligent and happy, and completely whole. They required nothing, and therefore set their sights on the one thing they did not have: god-like status and power, unlike their rulers on Mount Olympus. Their ambition was fierce, and the people began to try and roll up and overthrow the gods. Seeing this, Zeus threw down his lightning bolts upon the people. It did not kill them, but it split them all into two--making them beings exactly as we are today, with two legs, two arms, walking upright, and with one sexual organ. It is because we as humans remember our previous state as "whole beings"--perfectly joined to one another--that we cannot be satisfied, and seek out our other "half." The gods then threatened all people that should they seek to overthrow again, we would be split again, and continue to be less whole and more desirous of completion than we even are now.

Of course, Aristophanes' story is flawed in that it does not explain the origins of desire--if the "whole" people weren't pushed by desire to overtake the gods, then we would still all (according to fictional Aristophanes) have four arms and legs each. But the story does try and explain the desire of us two-legged, single-sexed people. The most tragic part of Aristophanes' story, and Plato's Symposium is the irretrievable completion and simultaneous human striving for wholeness, for any scrap of it that we can grasp, knowing full-well that the possibility of fulfillment is a momentary hold at best. But that is the nature of desire--without the absence of something, there is no desire for it. And without an absence to strive for, our condition would be more tragic than our current reality. And that's why M.Snowe doesn't understand some people's hopes for a heaven (usually religious people).