Your Vagina Is Lying

Or is it your brain?

An article in the Jan. 25 New York Times brings to light some fascinating research about female sexuality. The article's by a man, but the research he draws on is by a sexologist named Meredith Chivers. If you're looking for a quick read that encompasses animal porn, gender politics and rape fantasies, this is the piece you need to check out. 

The article, and the research, is sure to get engines of controversy revving all over the place. For example, one subject it tackles concerns women's physiological response during rape, suggesting that the fact that women often become lubricated during an assault means that such a physical response is defensive measure against injury. Which, in turn, suggests that there may be a disconnect between women's brains and bodies when it comes to sexual arousal (the research also notes that women whose genitals were hooked up to special testing devices while they watched various kinds of sexual imagery reported different kinds of reactions verbally than their genitals themselves were reporting). Whereas men's brains and penises were more on the same wavelength.

But if there's a brain-body disconnect with women, how to explain rape fantasies. This Slate blog debates the question. And this Slate blog bats around the issues raised by the article overall (you'll have to scroll down for the relevant posts, but you'll find them).

Me, I'm caught between two kinds of skepticism here. On one hand, I reflexively cringe at the idea of men's and women's sexuality being so fundamentally different. But part of that is probably political and cultural wiring - I know what I'm supposed to think, in terms of being politically correct. On the other hand, I'm also skeptical of the idea that defined, biological, gender roles and responses exist throughout the animal world, but somehow humans are exempt, with human men and women equal in every possible way. Then again, humans aren't just like every other animal, are we, and the conditioning we get as we go through life can often trump natural or biological factors.

To find our way to the truth about sex and gender, we all have to wade through the dense forest of science, politics and culture. This piece of research might not solve all the riddles, but it's a reminder that the path is worth taking.