Three Hundred Ways It Can Hurt to Be a Man — Category 7.5
CATEGORY 7.5: Ways in which men’s ways of relating to their own sexuality and their expression thereof, can be hurtful. [35 items]
[This post is part of a longer series; see the Index for an overview.]
CATEGORY 7.5: Ways in which men’s ways of relating to their own sexuality and their expression thereof, can be hurtful. [35 items]
Men are given less freedom to explore non-straight sexualities than women are. Women can make out with women but retain deniability around their sexuality; they are believed when they insist they’re straight (which in many such cases is perfectly true). Meanwhile, when a man makes out with a guy, he’ll have a much harder time being accepted by the people around him as straight, afterwards.
Women’s typical attraction style (more focused on ‘what men do’: their ambitions, their achievements, their skills and capabilities, etc.) are very legible as being respectful to men; men’s typical attraction style (more focused on ‘who women are’: their emotional makeup, their bodies, their mannerisms and features, their expressiveness, etc.) are much less legible as such. Despite both forms of attraction being equally natural for the respective genders, men have the tougher job in defending theirs, and the demand for such defenses has been increasing greatly.
Women are shamed for having sexual desires; men are shamed for expressing them. The role of accepting being ‘dirty’ seems easier than the role of accepting risking harming other people.
Sex is often framed as something that wins a man value while robbing a woman of hers. It is in many ways easier to feel as the robbed than as the robber.
Women can much more easily experience multiple orgasms. We really fucked the dog on this one, guys.
In general, men have to worry about upsetting women with their sexual interest whereas women have to worry about upsetting men with their lack of sexual interest. It is in nearly every social context considered appropriate to express lack of sexual interest, whereas the reverse is not the case; in particular it is the case that the person expressing sexual interest is the person who creates a new context, which is risky and vulnerable, whereas the person rejecting someone else’s sexual interest is merely taking an option that was often already implicit in the context which expressing sexual interest creates. Moreover, it is often more difficult and vulnerable for people (and this has in my broad experience been true for both men and women, though admittedly this is still anecdotal) to own and express their own desires than it is to own and express their own boundaries, since boundaries, which symbolize or express needs, intrinsically have a stronger force and validity attached to them than mere wants. Finally, the person expressing sexual interest has to deal with putting the other person in the position of potentially having to reject them, which the person doing the rejecting might find very awkward and/or very difficult. There is often much less of a sense that the person receiving sexual interest consented to being put into the position of potentially rejecting, than that the person expressing sexual interest consented to being put into the position of potentially getting rejected.
When one hasn’t had sex in a long time and really wants some, it’s far easier to get it when you’re a woman than when you’re a man.
Oversexualization in women is a generally accepted problem. Desexualization in men, where many men get viewed as being in no way potential objects of anyone’s sexual desires and as having no sexuality that could possibly be desired or liked upon receiving, is very much not a generally accepted problem.
When women have daddy issues, it’s hot. When men have mommy issues, it’s not.
In many cultures nowadays, when a high-libido woman pursues men for superficial reasons, she will often be viewed as empowered (and the men, as lucky). Meanwhile, when a high-libido man pursues women for superficial reasons, he will often be viewed as callous and perhaps even predatory.
Bisexuality in men is far less accepted, by men but also very much so by women, than bisexuality in women is.
Similarly, it is less accepted for men to be gay than it is for women.
It is moreover less accepted for men to be polyamourous than it is for women.
Though I have little doubt that society is still in a place where on average women enjoy their sex lives less than men, I do think many narratives around this are unfairly adversarial against men. For example, we’ve all heard the statistic that women orgasm less in sex than men do, with the obvious implication being that men are worse in bed than women, aren’t taking sufficient responsibility for their partners’ experience, and so forth. This notion however ignores a lot of factors, such as: orgasms are often more intense and pleasurable for women, so fewer orgasms need not correspond to less pleasure; many women would rather not orgasm themselves than fail to make their partner orgasm (suggesting both genders in general get what they wish for; though this is likely far less true the less WEIRD your culture is); many men need less effort from their partner to orgasm; and so forth. Of course, to begin with, orgasms shouldn’t be the goal of sex (a framing which would otherwise benefit women), and sex shouldn’t be measured in terms of who put in the most effort (a framing which would otherwise benefit men); pleasure, intimacy, play, and passion, are much more valuable; yet even many women who otherwise accept and themselves espouse this, will often still revert to using statistics like the one around orgasm frequency whenever this suits them.
It’s more accepted for women to have shallow taste when it comes to men, than for men to have shallow taste when it comes to women.
Due to the way cocks generally work, men cannot fake either arousal or lack thereof, even when they would like to.
Even within long-term relationships, men are often put in the role of needing to take responsibility for sex in order for much sex to happen at all. Women have much more freedom not to claim responsibility for the sex they have.
Within most contexts, men tend to have naturally higher sex drives than women. Since nonconsensual sex is of course not OK, a very common equilibrium for even relatively healthy monogamous relationships tends to be one in which women get as much sex with their partner as they want, and men get much too little.
When men, for whatever reason, are not currently open to friendships with women they meet, but are open to having sex with them, and pursue them in this capacity without any dishonesty about this, women will often feel offended, as though these men are trying to harm them, or as though they’re disrespecting women when men are interested in them as potential sexual partners rather than as potential friends. This feels extremely adversarial; women can literally just say “not interested, thanks” and it’d be all OK. (Of course it’s not always ‘all OK’ when women set their own boundaries, but the dual default assumption that, firstly, it won’t be OK, and secondly, that it’s not at all women’s responsibility to increase the chance of it being OK, feels very adversarial towards men.)
Female sexual frustration is of the men around oneself (both in the real world and online) not being attractive enough to want to fuck; male sexual frustration is of the women around oneself (both in the real world and online) being plenty attractive, but being not attractive enough oneself to fuck them. The pain of loneliness is still better than the pain of being unworthy.
Women suffer from slut-shaming, men suffer from virgin-shaming. It is easier for slutty people to stop having sex, than it is for virgins to start having sex. Slutty people have more freedom to be too busy enjoying the sex they have, to care much about other people’s opinions; virgins have no such option. I would much rather be shamed for something that is under my control and which would make people view me as dirty or having low standards, than to be shamed for something that is much less under my control and which would make people view me as incapable.
In our modern, exceedingly non-physical world, many men suffer from a great skill and experience gap between their relationship with their own bodies as physical agents as well as sources of valuable felt information, and the (physical as well as psychological) body-related experiences and skills that are often needed in order to have sex, and in particular to lead sex, in an authentic, reactive, positive way.
Male objectification of women is clear and legible; women’s objectification is much less legible, but no less real. It often takes the form of men who are never weak, never indecisive, never insecure, never afraid. Men who always know what to do, who take all decisions (in ways that rarely go wrong, so as to make them seem extra capable), who always take responsibility, so that the female protagonists never have to step up themselves. The few times there’s a hint of weakness or vulnerability or hurt, it rarely gets into the kind of territory where the woman has to actually support him, or where the problem remains for very long, or where the hurt is deep enough that it cannot soon be crossed over; these moments are there solely for a touch of realism, to give these otherwise perfect men some believability so as to better allow women to accept the fiction. (This is similar to how pornstars might give themselves bedhair so as to seem more realistic than their otherwise perfectly-designed behaviours and perfectly-maintained bodies would suggest. Such marginal realism does not obstruct but indeed strengthens the objectification.) Male objectification primarily governs women’s bodies; female objectification primarily governs men’s personalities. The former is much despised nowadays; the latter has simply not received anywhere near as much blowback at all, since it is less obvious (yet for this, of course, it is often all the more powerful).
In the same way that many feminine roles in sex are both vulnerable and pleasurable for women, many masculine roles (which put men in the position of being demeaning, or of wholly owning their sexuality, etc.) are not only pleasurable but, since they put men in the position of risking harm to their partners, of having to fully own their own sexuality and desires, and of having to take responsibility for whatever happens, they are vulnerable for men, too; but men’s masculine roles and desires are often viewed as simply demeaning, wholly denying the very real ways in which they relate to them in a human way. When they hold these desires and fulfill these roles, they are often viewed not as real people holding real sexual desires with worries, insecurities, anxieties, and doubts, but are instead genuinely dehumanized; rendered, in people’s perceptions, as not featuring all of the complexity and depth of emotions and interiority which they as people are capable of; and indeed, many men are strongly taught to keep these ‘weaker’ sides of themselves private, often even to themselves, which frequently causes them to dehumanize themselves in these ways, too. Men’s sexualities are in truth every bit as complex and multifaceted as women’s; men’s kinks are as diverse as women’s; men’s roles in sex are as deep and multifarious and often as vulnerable and as powerful as women’s; but where women are culturally granted an understanding that in their sexuality they remain profoundly human, men are very often, and to an extreme degree, represented as mere animalistic, non-human creatures whose sexuality may be nearly fully understood as “sees tits wants to bang.” In this, men are done a profound disservice, both in understanding their own sexuality, and in being understood, and with this, accepted, in their sexuality.
It’s common for men not to notice when they’re not physically (in an embodied, felt way) consenting with their own actions. One example of how this expresses itself relates to how a man’s masculinity is measured by his achievements. In sex, the vast majority of women will not fail to please their partner, but for many women, their own pleasure can often not be relied on to come about without directed action from their partner. This creates yet another measurement for men’s masculinity: to be the guy who can make her come more than other guys do, or indeed at all; to be the capable lover who never disappoints, who always delivers. It is sadly common for men to have these kinds of insecurities around sex. Moreover, these insecurities can cause real emotional damage to men, in causing them to ignore their own bodies’ lack of desire and instead prioritize always giving pleasure to their partner the way they (and many women, for that matter) think a real man should always be wholly capable and willing to do. With culture’s stories around men’s arousal being easy and quick to cause (especially relative to women’s), it is much more perceived as an insult to the other party if a man, in some sexually charged context, admits to not being turned on; in this, men face greater pressure to ignore their own boundaries.
On a related note: it’s uncannily common for men to relate to masturbation in a psychologically negative way, using it as a mechanism not for pleasure but for strong disassociation, where they are less enjoying their own body than they are escaping it.
Female orgasms seem much more intense and pleasurable than male orgasms.
Men’s sexual enjoyment of women (both in terms of attraction and in terms of pleasure) is in public almost never celebrated, and often denigrated. Nobody seems pleased that men are frequently attracted to women; nobody seems pleased when men enjoy porn; nobody seems pleased that men are often relatively easy to get off; and so forth.
Men are told it’s dehumanizing to be into someone primarily when they give them sex. This works for men who aren’t particularly into people, but it communicates wrong and harmful ideas to men who are plenty into people, but who are also extremely into sex.
Male attractiveness being action-based can often make men feel like they’re having to convince women to be into them as opposed to these women being naturally into them; this can make men feel that the only successful way in which they can express their sexuality, is sourced in coercion.
Broadly speaking, women are turned on by being wanted and are primarily attracted to someone when this person clearly desires them. Thus it is worse for men to get their sexual desires and indeed their sexual desiring criticized, than it would be for women, since men frequently rely on their sexual desire as a primary source of attractiveness, moreso than women do.
Men are often told that feeling like one deserves intimacy and sex (not from any particular person, but in the abstract), is ‘entitled’, as though intimacy and sex are not deeply human needs that we all share, indeed a core part of what it means to be human.
In many modern communities it’s viewed as high-status for a woman to be very into sex; this is viewed as her reclaiming her inner sexuality, reclaiming the notion of sluttiness, fighting against the patriarchy, and so forth. Meanwhile, it is still everywhere low-status for a man to be very into sex.
There is much more judgement against men who are attracted to archetypically feminine behaviour in women, than there is against women who are attracted to archetypically masculine behaviour in men, even though both are equally natural. For example, a man who talks about how he’d love to find a hot submissive girlfriend will be judged far more harshly for this than a woman who talks about how she’d love to find a hot dominant boyfriend.
There is much more judgment against men who are attracted to archetypically feminine looks in women, than there is against women who are attracted to archetypically masculine looks in men, even though both are equally natural. For example, a man who talks about how he loves big boobs and round butts will be judged far more harshly for this than a woman who talks about how she loves strong, hairy arms and chests.