Anthony Weiner and the Mystery of Female Sexual Arousal

How old does a man have to be before he understands that women are not aroused by the sight of the male member in its erect glory?

If Anthony Weiner is an indication, 46 is not quite old enough. Since Weiner did admit yesterday that he has such pictures, one must assume that he is not just keeping them around so that he can look at them himself and remember past glories.

Nor is he alone in this camp. Brett Favre and Kanye West have done as much, apparently because they believe that women find such images irresistible. I have it on good authority that they are not alone.

I am happy to report on Monica Hesse’s story about research into female sexual arousal, but really, you do not need a laboratory filled with coed research subjects. All you need do is figure out how many women buy how much porn featuring erect male members.

The market does exist, but it is not a very large market at all. Men get addicted to porn; women become addicted to Harlequin romances.

Or, look at it in another way. More than a few women have offered public commentaries about Anthony Weiner’s now-famous bulge.

Whether in newspapers or on television or in the blogosphere, their remarkss have always been punctuated by giggles and snickers. To normal women Weiner's attempt at seduction elicits nothing more than ridicule.

We also know, or, at least we should, that when a man flashes his erect organ at a woman he does not know, she will, if she is within proximity of it, take it as a threatening gesture.

How could any man be so dense that he would believe that a woman would find such a vision attractive.

If you wanted to put a positive spin on the Weiner exhibitionism, it might be that some young men might learn from it that flashing such images does not make them look like dudes.

Naturally, we always prefer to have our intuitions confirmed by research. Monica Hesse explains: “Women, research increasingly shows, are nuanced sexual beings whose arousal depends on context, mood and a whole bunch of things they aren’t even aware of. Men are different. Men do tend to find the equivalent naked pictures of women titillating.”

She also offers the conclusions reached by Cindy Meston of the University of Texas at Austin: “Of the 237 reasons why women have sex, not one was looking at a man’s genitals.”

I hope you do not find it to be a absurd question, but how could men so completely misread women?

The real answer is simple: they’re men. Being men they’re in the business of misunderstanding women.

On that score the constant drumbeat of new information about female desire has not helped matters.

Some women have added to the confusion by insisting that, sexually speaking, they are just like men. You cannot hold it against a man for thinking that if he finds pictures of naked women alluring, then, naturally, a woman would find pictures of a naked man alluring.

Nor should you hold it against the male of the species for thinking that if men have an ever-so-slight tendency to fetishize parts of the female body, then women must, by the illogic that infests feminist thought, be equally prone to fetishize parts of the male body.

So says our gender-bent culture. Pity the man who thinks that feminists speak for women.

Of course, it’s also possible that these men have been watching too much porn. Women who star in porn are very likely to treat the male sexual organ as something of a fetish object.

And, given the free open discussion of female sexuality that is all over the media, most men have learned that women have a special attraction to certain kinds of toys. Compared to these toys, I am told that the famed Weiner member pales into insignificance. Perhaps some men are trying to compete.

Generally, speaking the erect male organ is the last taboo in Hollywood. I am not sure what this means and I am not even going to speculate.

If we do a little cross cultural research we will discover that Hindus worship something called a lingam, that being a sculpture shaped like a phallus. The lingam is ultimately a symbol of fertility.

I am guessing that Anthony Weiner was not taking pictures of his organ-- the one that he does not know when he sees it-- because he wanted to enhance its powers of fertilization.

And let us not forget the venerable Japanese ceremony called Kanamara Matsuri, or Phallus festival, where local villagers parade around town with gigantic sculpted versions of the offending organ. NSFW link here.

Reports have it that this is not a fertility ceremony; it was invented hundreds of years ago, before condoms were available in high schools, in order to prevent the transmission of STDs.

As it happens, and if this is your ultimate goal, the truth is, the modern invention of sexting has rendered this Phallus ceremony more or less superfluous. You cannot contract any STDs by sexting. It’s the ultimate in safe sex.

Of course, I am saving the best for last. Clearly, Weiner and his fellow exhibitionists are trying to say something to the young women who are the objects of their ardor.

If we are to believe the musings of feminist philosopher professor, Nancy Bauer, they do it to empower women.

Bauer famously wrote the following in the New York Times. Doing her best to encourage young coeds to hook up, Bauer pretends that a certain sexual experience empowers them: “When they’re on their knees in front of a worked-up guy they just met at a party, they genuinely do feel powerful.” I think this is one of those-- Speak for yourself, Nancy- moments.

Now we know that when a man flashes a feminist he is encouraging her to perform a certain unnamed sexual act-- you know, the one that resembles prayer. As it happens, such acts might be more enjoyable for the men than for women, but, that just shows that if women believe that feminists speak for them, they should think again.