Women, sexual submissiveness, and implicit associations

Okay, so you knew who started this thread before you clicked on it, I bet...Anyways...

A study has found that women, but not men, unconsciously associate sex with submission.

Thoughts? Is the association due to nature, nurture, or both?

"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice." — Joseph De Maistre.

Sexist bastards.

There's no space in the name.

Nurture. There are a few prime differences between men and women. Women (on average) tend to be weaker, they have a bleeding vagina every month, and their useless for 9 months in our early hunting societies in which all societal ticks you know evolved from. From this, grew all that submissive women/dominate man, sexism, etc. Remove these things and we would probably have a gender neutral society.

It sucks, I know, but we'll probably get over this shit with advances in technology, so I'm not to worried.

And that Sub. F./Mal. D. thing is bullshit. Everyone with a libido wants to be used like a cheap whore for the thrill on some days, and also want to use others like they're a cheap whore. That's probably what most of us can agree on. At least from what I've gleamed from the Fetish Fuel pages.

Yes.

edited 28th Feb '11 8:46:28 PM by Ekuran

Can't it be fun and love-related and not involve any cheap whores?

At first I didn't realize I needed all this stuff...

[citation needed], and I think you meant nature.

I'm gonna go with nurture because good luck controlling for culture.

Not exactly; there's still a lot of work a woman can do while pregnant.

Dominance vs. submission is more like a Sliding Scale than a clear-cut binary. Hell, even I've had my share of dominant fantasies. That said, some people certainly are more dominant than others.

"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice." — Joseph De Maistre.

The report answers that question. If sexual submission was a default operating parameter it would have resulted in increased arousal. Instead the study showed a decreased level of arousal in the submissive associating population.

Of course that does beg the question, did they get lucky and get no subs in the sample or did they edit those entries as outliers.

Nature was the source, nurture fucked it Up To Eleven.

Studies are shit in an existence of infinite variability, but at least they try.

edited 28th Feb '11 8:51:07 PM by Ekuran

A lot of times sex studies will turn down kinky people as not being normal enough to match their parameters. The things you learn doing college psych classes. We had to do mandatory research studies and they did screening. I got passed over a few of them because I'm not mainstream enough.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Something that I always found odd is when some female authors like to express their sexual independence, they write stories about sexually submissive women. Which feels counter productive to the whole independence thing. Kinda hard to be independent when you're relinquishing that very freedom.

♥♥II'GSJQGDvhhMKOmXunSrogZliLHGKVMhGVmNhBzGUPiXLYki'GRQhBITqQrrOIJKNWiXKO♥♥

Pursuing what turns you on even if society sees it as non-mainstream is sexual independence.

edited 28th Feb '11 8:56:24 PM by LeighSabio

"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice." — Joseph De Maistre.

The difference is simply that what turns you on in fantasy doesn't always reflect reality. People often explore the forbidden and the ugly in their porn for reasons as mundane as boredom. Your average bodice ripper also isn't nearly as tied to submission as say some shit like Hot Gimmick. But even in that kinda work there is a power exchange going on. The leading motivation of bodice rippers is the idea that Square Jawed Rogue #265 is so overwhelmed by his passionate desire for Spunky Heroine #905 that he just can't control himself.

The dynamics of power in sex have as much to do with who is desired as they do who is on the top or the bottom.

Note the study citing that women who linked submissiveness in sex reported less arousal due to an increased emphasis on their partners. That is a one way power transfer with no corresponding payment.

Nurture, as usual.

Society has unfortunately helped ingrain the message of such in many humans. Many men and women sadly associate sex with this. I think it could also explain many sex negative attitudes in women. Society has for so long acted like a game where the woman loses and the man wins. We need to move away from this, finally.

Genkidama for Japan, even if you don't have money, you can help![1]

I feel this opinion piece relevant.

Especially this quote:

A woman can be sexually fulfilled, sexually liberated, and sexually submissive if she's being submissive because she knows that it appeals to her and that she's safe. But when she starts thinking along the lines of "I can't have any say in what I do sexually" or "Sex is something I do for my man, not me," she's liable to be unfulfilled.

"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice." — Joseph De Maistre.

In psychology, I always assume a combination of variables unless there's a really damn good reason to think that only one variable is responsible.

edited 28th Feb '11 10:21:23 PM by Tongpu

I'm curious if they've discovered anything new in the five and a half years since they published it?

 ^TMI

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

It's called the Factor Fulana in Spanish PUA parlance. It's the biologically (an unselective woman is a genetic disgrace) and socially enforced tendency for women to feel bad about themsleves when they think they aren't being selective enough. Hence a man must never make them actually outright find themselves in a situation where they feel they are saying "yes" to a new partner. They have to preserve both their reputation towards their friends and their self-image. Create excuses for them, make them able to say that "one thing led to the other", make the events flow naturally. This means applying a lot of perceptiveness, since you have to pay a lot of attention to cues and body language.

"Sweets are good. Sweets are justice."

What? Also, what does that have to do with submissiveness?

"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice." — Joseph De Maistre.

It has to do with Ukons post and it has to do with an overall idea that a woman is "losing" when she "gives it up" and a man is winning. Thus there is an implicit surrender in the act of sex.

My bet is that it has it's roots in nature and is brought Up To Eleven (to an unhealthy levels) by nurture. And ironically, one of the cultural factors that plays into it is the demand of chastity for women. I remember seeing a great explanation in another thread how sex is viewed as something that woman should not ever want, and if guy "gets it" from her, he "wins".

edited 1st Mar '11 9:15:51 AM by Beholderess

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

Agreed, but what do "unhealthy levels" entail?

edited 1st Mar '11 11:55:56 AM by LeighSabio

"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice." — Joseph De Maistre.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why people hate the PUA community.

^^^ (I'm so tempted to pothole Lie Back and Think of England). OK, perhaps a naive question, but are we talking about modern Western culture?

edited 1st Mar '11 12:29:33 PM by StrangeDwarf

"Why don't you write books people can read?"-Nora Joyce, to her husband James

Well, the study was conducted 5 years ago at University of Michigan. So, yeah, I'd consider that pretty modern and western.

"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice." — Joseph De Maistre.

No, I was referring to Beholderness's post (hence the ^^^) about the "demand for chastity and sex is something women should never want" thing.

edited 1st Mar '11 1:52:36 PM by StrangeDwarf

"Why don't you write books people can read?"-Nora Joyce, to her husband James