Whatever the answer is, we must always remember that women have all the power, and men have none. You can tell, because guys who cultivate ascientific evo psych theories can't get laid, because women have the only power they acknowledge as real: the power to say no.

Interesting discussion here. The notion that female sexuality is "muted" is of course as silly as any of a half dozen other gender myths that you folks have brought up here.

Much of this discussion however brings up at least the suggestion of a false dichotomy: women's sexuality is bracketed & controlled within various taboos & practices like the cult of virginity, whereas men almost by default enjoy complete autonomy, power & freedom in their sexuality.

The truth, of course, is that gender rules, roles, and neuroses constrain everyone. The typical man in a highly "patriarchal" environment like, say, the Swat Valley in Pakistan is hardly someone you would consider sexually liberated. Existing on the verge of sexual panic would seem far more apt as a description, if still not entirely accurate. And then you find that men in vastly more permissive environments (Paris, New York, LA) tend to be crippled by a different but not entirely different set of sexual neuroses based on cultural expectations.

Few individuals in any culture manage to free themselves from the oppressive, twisted weirdness that human beings have made out of their own sexuality.

The man with an overwhelming need to dominate & rationalize women's sexuality is also, obviously (to my mind) a prisoner of a suffocating emotional dwarfism. I'd also contend that this type of man may be more common but also not "typical" -- perhaps unduly influential?

Anyhow, imagining that men in general are somehow entirely in control of the entire process, as the Barbara Smuts quote does, can't do this debate much justice.

This is very sad to me. I remember when the feminist movement was all about sexual liberation for all. Then came the anti-sex clique of the 80's who claimed women were being exploited by men. Well, yes, sexual liberation, for some men, meant women gave up the right to say no, and too many women bought into that. But it did not mean going back to the notion that sex, for women, is evil. Sex is a good thing. It's fun--even more fun if you don't have to worry about getting knocked up. Nothing wrong with fun.

I'm struck by the male prudes.

Abortion, in a medical setting, is safe. It does not impair a woman's ability to have a child. It is an option. I strongly believe that it should be an option of last resort. And if there was a meaningful sex education curriculum in the schools, that would be the case.

I resent that my daughter's have to carry condoms with them at all times because being responsible for sexual activity is still not pounded into the boys.

It's a screwed up messed up world.

And i am very dismayed that, after 40 years, we are having the same conversations.

No matter what kind of power structure exists in a society, those in power are likely to put a lot of effort into regulating sexual behavior. Sexual desire and erotic bonding are extremely powerful forces. They tend to break frequently through all of the tirelessly maintained levees that channel human energy and effort into established social projects in accordance with well-constructed power relations. They lead people to form relationships and deep attachments after their own liking, contrary to the relationships that have been prescribed for them by elders and authoritative systems of social norms.

Sex is also the means of reproduction, and the sexual ordering of reproduction is one of society's most important functions. So of course that is an area of human activity that a society's established powers are going to seek to control.

One thing that shouldn't be missed here is that men seek to control women as a means of controlling themselves and each other. Disconcerted by the foolish things that sexual desire makes them do, but clueless as to how to master their own desires, they take out their self-condemnation on women and blame the latter for "making" them do the stupid things they did themselves. This leads to the notion of women as "seductress", or "temptress".

I don't know how frequently in history women have been seen as having subdued sexuality. For example, Shakespeare's plays are filled with charters expressing obsessive concerns about the supposed infidelity and lustfulness of women.

If female sexuality is muted compared to that of men, then why must men the world over go to extreme lengths to control and contain it?

Men -- or the patriarchy or the society -- don't seek to control "female sexuality." They seek to control its public expression and specifically, its expression in the presence of bachelor males. And most women agree.

How much "female sexuality" do we want to see in a roadhouse at 1:00 AM on a Saturday night.

Expressed female sexuality weakens the ligatures binding human communities.

If women are today viewed as having merely "muted" sexuality, I guess things really have changed, since according to the medieval handbook on witchcraft Malleus Maleficarum: “All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable.”

The medieval attitude would certainly explain men's need to control female sexuality, but I would really think rather than one or the other, it's probably more the case that female sexuality has historically been constructed as "mysterious," ambiguous, or equivocal. As a result, women end up being viewed as both the eternal virgin and the eternal whore, entirely liminal creatures representing danger--which also obviously requires "control."

This whole subject is just more flotsam among an endless sea of North American man-hating (misandry). It's one reason why men who leave the continent often don't move back; it's an emotionally hostile environment, unique in the world.

Oddly, I think it's somehow related to the bible-thumpers: sex is bad, men are somehow responsible for sex, and therefore they are bad. (The pigs.)

When men meet foreign women who are not afflicted with these twisted deformations, they never look back.