Fifty Shades of Female Sexuality

Venus vs. Mars

It will probably shock no one to learn that there are significant differences in the ways women and men think, act, and react. For starters, women are more empathetic, and men are more analytic. When a friend presents a personal problem, men typically jump straight to a solution while women will like to discuss and try to understand how the other person is feeling, deferring suggestions until a later time.

Essentially, women tend to view people, problems, and the world in general in a holistic way, whereas men tend to be focused on something specific. In the female world, emotions and interconnectivity are valued; in the male world, feelings and connections are seen as potential roadblocks. Women are from Venus; Men are from Mars, etc.

Unsurprisingly, this emotional dichotomy extends to the bedroom, with women and men experiencing sexual activity, and even sexual attraction, in very different ways. For instance, women are typically most interested in their connection to the other person—the relationship—whereas men tend to be more visually oriented. When a heterosexual man admires a woman, he is probably looking at her body and considering her potential use to him as a sexual partner.

A heterosexual woman, on the other hand, is more likely to admire the tenor of a man’s voice, the fact that he pays attention to what she’s saying, and to think about his potential as a life-partner. In other words, when it comes to sexual or romantic attraction, men tend to objectify body parts, and women tend to objectify (for lack of a better term) relationships.

Even physiological arousal is different for women than men. In one study, men and women were shown films of two men having sex, and two women having sex. Their responses were measured both subjectively (by what they said they felt) and objectively (by a plethysmograph, an instrument used to register changes in the blood flow to an organ, in this case, the subject’s penis or clitoris). And yes, people do volunteer for these studies.

The men’s responses were highly gender-specific. Heterosexual men both reported and physically displayed higher levels of arousal toward women, and vice versa for homosexual men. The women’s responses were significantly less category-specific. In fact, two-thirds of the women experienced strong subjective and objective arousal to both male and female stimuli, regardless of the subject’s self-reported sexual orientation.[i]

Other studies have also shown that female sexual attraction is more elastic than male sexual attraction. In general, men are influenced by the sexual body parts of the other person, while women are influenced more by the context of what they are seeing (i.e., the relationship).[ii] Thus we see that men and women are aroused in very different ways by very different things. Men are more likely to objectify sexual body parts, and women are more likely to objectify what they perceive as a romantic connection.

Chick-Lit

Pornographers are growing increasingly aware of these differences in male and female arousal patterns. And in response, they are actively generating new forms of relationship-oriented erotica. And their efforts are meeting with great success.

Consider, for instance, British writer E.L. James’s horribly written but nonetheless wildly popular Fifty Shades of Grey, which has dominated bestseller lists for nearly a year. As of mid-April 2013, more than a year after its softcover release date, the book still ranks in the top 25 of the New York Times combined print and eBook bestseller list, with the two sequels, Fifty Shades Freed and Fifty Shades Darker, checking in at number 32 and 35, respectively.[iii] All told, the trilogy has sold more than 70 million copies worldwide,[iv] mostly to women.

In case you’ve been living under a rock and are somehow not familiar with the Fifty Shades phenomenon, the trilogy traces the sometimes rocky relationship of beautiful, young Anastasia Steele and super-sexy but emotionally troubled billionaire, Christian Grey. In this respect, the books fall squarely into the long chick-lit tradition of stories about naïve young women (usually virgins) being seduced by hunky bad boys, then somehow managing to change the rapscallion in question into a devoted husband or lover. The difference here, of course, is that in traditional romance novels, the sex scenes fade to black at the ripping of the bodice, while Fifty Shades tracks the BDSM-infused action in Christian’s “Red Room of Pain” all the way to its multi-orgasmic conclusion.

Interestingly, both reader reviews and anecdotal evidence suggest the vast majority of the trilogy’s mostly female fan base is enthralled not so much with the books’ graphic depictions of sexual domination as by the development of the emotional relationship between the two main characters, in particular, Christian’s transition from cold, unemotional “master” to caring lover and husband. So we see that the success of the Fifty Shades books is driven not by the pornographic content, but by the bond that Anastasia feels toward Christian.

A similar and equally popular phenomenon is the Twilight book and film series, exploring the relationship between a naïve young girl and several beautifully sculpted but emotionally flawed male figures—presented here as vampires and werewolves. (The Fifty Shades books actually started as “fan fiction” for the Twilight series.) A similar dynamic can be seen in the HBO series, True Blood.

Of course, “Mommy Porn,” as Fifty Shades and its many copycats have been dubbed, doesn’t do it for all women. In fact, some females enjoy highly objectified, “hardcore” pornography just as much as most men do. These women are perfectly comfortable focusing on men’s (or women’s) body parts, and they are very clear in the idea that when they are online looking at pornography, they are seeking a purely sexual experience and not any type of temporary or lasting intimate connection.

And there are more of these women than one might initially suspect. In fact, studies show that today, one-third of Internet porn users are women,[v] a drastic increase from the 14 percent figure a decade ago.[vi] So it seems that females are taking advantage of the Internet’s easy, anonymous access to porn, viewing and enjoying things in the privacy of their home or on a portable device that just a few years ago they couldn’t have accessed without experiencing a great deal of cultural shaming.

Honey, Pack the Handcuffs...

So, has digital technology turned American women into a pack of voracious she-wolves who can’t (or won’t) get off without a blindfold and a French tickler? Not so much. But women’s increasing interest in porn is nevertheless opening up a much needed and very healthy dialogue about female sexuality—not just in the therapeutic community and among gal-pals on their coffee breaks, but between women and their significant others.

What we are finding is that healthy women are profoundly sexual beings—as much as men, albeit in different ways. Women being able to read about and/or watch sexual activity and then express their thoughts and desires related to that activity to their romantic partner is spicing up a lot of sex lives. More importantly, many women are finding that such discussions are a great way to enhance relationship trust and build emotional intimacy.

Is there a downside? One might argue that women’s interest in Fifty Shades and other forms of pornography is creating unrealistic expectations that sex should always involve multiple orgasms and fireworks. But this is no more unrealistic than the lofty expectations men develop courtesy of the porn they enjoy.

The more concerning issue is that some women may start to abuse sexual fantasy as a way to escape reality and avoid uncomfortable emotions—to self-medicate anxiety, depression, stress, low self-esteem, and the like. In this way, the intensity of fantasy-based sexuality can become a dissociative “drug of choice,” used like alcohol or other drugs as a way to self-regulate and tolerate uncomfortable emotions and life-stressors. Such behavior can, over time, escalate to the level of sex or porn addiction, resulting, as all addictions eventually do, in serious consequences. In this way, porn presents the same concerns for women as for men.

What women’s digitally-driven, increasing interest in sexuality means for human relationships in the long term is, as yet, unknown. What is clear is that human relations are changing—thanks to the ever-growing technological onslaught—in ways that were undreamed of just a few years ago.

We are already seeing some positive outcomes, with females becoming more aware of and more willing to express their needs and desires. And we are also seeing some negative outcomes, with a growing superficiality in intimate human connections and an increasing number of people using “sexnology” in addictive ways. In many respects, human relationships are evolving in conjunction with technology. It seems likely that, as is always the case with evolution, those who successfully adapt will thrive, and those who don’t, won’t.