What Do Women Want?

I'm not sure how it was done, but this book made desire boring. Each chapter is an interview with a different researcher or scientist, and every chapter almost immediately veers off from the science to a discussion about the scientist's personal fears and interests, and a long and totally uninteresting description of a Woman Who Wishes To Have Desire But Does Not, framed in flowery language and with a totally unnecessary personal background. And he talks about the existence of female lust, simply to say that yes, it does exist. And then it goes nowhere.

The real unforgivable sin here is that the most fascinating result -- when women approached men, they felt desire more keenly -- is buried at the end, with no thought of the implications. And that the desire for women to have rape fantasies and feel desire is all about feeling the man's desire for them. And he goes to great lengths to explain how it's not "really" a rape fantasy.

So I'm going to veer off here and stop doing a review, because frankly what the trope of rape fantasy says to me is that women want agency in sex, but can't even conceive of having that agency directly. That force of desire is their own, but they don't own it -- it's a "fantasy man" that wants them and who they are helpless before. Women, in the sexual world, are at each and every point told that the man makes the first move, the man feels lust, and their role is to accept and yield. But even when writing about bonobos, rhesus monkeys and rats who clearly like and seek out sex, the massive and overwhelming role of cultural programming doesn't get center stage. Instead we get stories about unsatisfied housewives and a single couple that decides to try swinging.

And I'm not saying my theory is "right." It's a half-assed theory from reading a pop science book. The point is that there is no theory in this book -- the author has not done the work to have a point of view about what he's seen. Dan Savage may have had this guy as a guest speaker, but it's stunning just how vacuous this book is compared to Dan Savage's work, who clearly thinks and loves what he does. Reading this book, you get the feeling that the author will never return to the subject, and would be just as happy writing about income tax reform.