The Sex Lives of New York Women

You can’t say that we are in the dark about sex. We talk about nothing else. We have suffered an increased awareness about it. We can access more pornographic images of the human genitalia and of human being engaged in every manner of sex act than any human beings at any time in the course of human history. And when that is not enough we are inclined—if we are young—to send pictures of our own genitals to whomever. We've certainly come a long way, baby!

The sexual revolution promoted a wholesome and healthy attitude toward sex. Its sacred text was called The Joy of Sex by the aptly named Alex Comfort. 

Of course, all of that is a distant memory now. As it happened, the sexual revolution did not produce a culture of wholesome, healthy decadence. It produced sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual molestation and rape. By now it seems that all we talk about is sex, but always in a sordid and criminal context.

Count the sexual revolution among the great social failures of the past five decades.

Women’s liberation was joined with the sexual revolution. It proposed liberating women’s sexuality from the shackles imposed by bras and girdles, and insisted that sexual pleasure also be freed from the inconvenience of pregnancy. In the hands of today’s feminists, pregnancy became the new curse. It was certainly a revolutionary act.

Feminists wanted women to have better and more enjoyable sex. Sexual ecstasy was women's birthright, even their constitutional right, which had been oppressed and repressed by men for lo these many millennial. Women were taught to own their sexuality, to do what they pleased when they pleased with whom they pleased. They were told to have sex like men, to ignore issues like reputation and to go for the gusto. Its sacred text was: Our Bodies; Ourselves. Note that the title makes men superfluous.

The current wave of sexual harassment accusations tells us that feminism, to the extent that it set as its goal—and a worthy goal it was—that women be respected and treated as equals in the workplace, has failed. Everyone is saying that feminism is the solution, but it’s not as though we had not been having a decades-long conversation about feminism, about women’s rights, and about sexual harassment. If anything, feminism has made it worse.

As for sexual liberation things are not looking very good. According to a digital media company called Everyday Health, New York women are not satisfied with their sex lives.

The New York Post reports:

The survey of New York City women between the ages of 25 and 65 was conducted by Everyday Health in October to shed light on women’s perception of their wellness in the current climate of near daily sexual harassment claims and high infertility rates, said Lisa Kennedy, the executive vice president of Everyday Health.

The questionnaire also found that only 22 percent of ladies are “satisfied” with their sex lives, while 16 percent reported never having satisfying sex.

About 24 percent of respondents said they have satisfying sex monthly, 29 percent have it weekly and only 4 percent daily.

I will emphasize a point that ought not to be glossed over. The amount of sexual harassment must have some effect on how much men and women enjoy sex. And yet, we are certainly interested to see that the survey authors connect the current problem to “high infertility rates.” Last I heard, sex was supposed to be a way to gain pleasure, not to procreate. To think otherwise is to violate feminist dogma.

As it happens, most of these women do not really worry about their sex lives. The Post continues:

But local ladies aren’t letting the lack of fireworks get them down, as over 50 percent say they never worry about their love or sex lives and only 16 percent think about it on a daily basis.

When it comes to explaining the problem, the sex experts are happy to inform us that women do not know very much about their sexual anatomy. Again, to repeat myself, the nation has been talking about nothing else for lo these many decades. If women are unfamiliar with their anatomy it’s not because they never heard of the clitoris before.

The Post writes:

“Only 25 percent of women have orgasms through intercourse,” said Dr. Christiane Northrup, a national wellness expert and former OB/GYN professor at Maine Medical Center. “We short change ourselves by failing to understand the true power of our pleasure.

“The extent of the clitoral anatomy — inside and out— wasn’t even known in medical circles until the last five years or so,” she added.

This is perfectly nonsensical. You might want to quibble about the meaning of “extent,” but Masters and Johnson offered research into the role of the clitoris in female sexual response in the 1960s. And let’s not forget Shere Hite’s Hite Report, dating to 1976. How many women were told that if only they learned to pleasure themselves they would find greater satisfaction having sex with men?

Since we all want to know about the sex life of liberated woman, living in New York City, the Post offers the views of a number of women. Their verdict: the great majority would prefer amazing food to amazing sex. This does not speak well of New York men. But then again, if feminism and the sexual revolution produced this problem, ought its leaders to accept some responsibility before blaming it all on men?

I am sure that you want the details. The Post happily obliges:

Even maneaters prefer eating over men.

About 74 percent of Big Apple ladies crave “amazing food” over “amazing sex,” according to a recent survey of 3,000 women.

“I’ll take buttery shrimp fajitas over a night of sex any day,” said Ari Katech. “They’re always delicious and even sexy!”

The 26-year-old Brooklynite thinks most men simply “don’t know how to please a woman.

“A lot of them don’t know up from down when they’re messing around in that area,” she said. “It’s like a free for all and it’s awkward to have to keep correcting them.”

She prefers a good meal because it’s “only about you. There’s never a part … where you have to do what someone else wants or exert effort in some way.”

We are thrilled to see the Post making subtle innuendoes about oral sex—to eat or to be eaten… as it were.

For today’s millennial women in New York  the only pleasures that matter are the ones where it’s only about you. Once they allow men into the equation, things go south, and not in the good way. Apparently, today’s millennial males, who have been exposed to more close-up images of female sexual anatomy than any comparable group at any time in human history… still get lost down there. They have all manner of road maps and they still get lost. Poor dears, their hearts are not in it. And their minds are certainly not in it. Maybe they too would prefer a really good meal.

And yet, one glaring omission pops out at us here. The survey does not seem to distinguish between single and married women, between women who are in a committed relationship and women who are hooking up or who are friends with benefits. We have no information about whether these women are on or off the pill, whether they are depressed—noted for diminishing libido and reducing access to pleasure-- whether they are on or off SSRIs— also noted for depressing libido—or whether they are looking for something more than the equivalent of a movable feast.

Are we learning that decadence is not the royal road to great sex? Or are we learning that random sexual encounters with anonymous individuals are not entirely satisfying? Are we learning that there is more to sex than anatomical responsiveness? Perhaps women really are different from men.