all the same parts, organized in different ways: “this
is a restaurant”
Nonconcordance is about the relationship between the peripheral system —the genitals—and the central system—the brain: two separate but interconnected systems. And the relationship between these systems is different for women and men.
Imagine that the brain and the genitals are a couple of friends on vacation together, wandering down the street trying to decide where to have dinner.
If they’re women, it goes like this: The genitals notice any restaurant they pass, whether it’s Thai food or pub grub, fast food or gourmet (while ignoring all the museums and shops), and say, “This is a restaurant. We could eat here.” She has no strong opinion, she’s just good at spotting restaurants. Meanwhile, the brain is assessing all the contextual factors I described in chapters 4 and 5 to decide whether she wants to try a place.
“This place isn’t delicious smelling enough,” or “This place isn’t clean enough,” or “I’m not in the mood for pizza.” The genitals might even notice a pet store and say, “There’s pet food in here, I guess . . .” and the brain rolls her eyes and keeps walking.
They pass a museum, and the brain says, “I heard about a great café in this museum,” and the genitals respond, “This isn’t a restaurant.” But the brain has way more information than the genitals. So suppose the two friends go into the museum, and the genitals see the little café next to the gift shop. Then she says, “Oh, I see, this is a restaurant. We could eat here,” and the brain says, “Yeah, this looks great.” Both relevant and appealing!
Now, if the friends are men, it goes like this: The genitals notice only specific restaurants—diners, say—and don’t notice any restaurants that aren’t diners. Once they find a diner, the brain says, “A diner! I love diners,” and the genitals agree, “This is a restaurant, we could eat here,” unless there’s some pretty compelling reason not to, like a bunch of drunks brawling outside.
You should be able to chant this in your sleep by now: We’re all made of the same parts, just organized in different ways. The relationship between the brain and genitals follows the same principle. The male genital system has strong, quite specific opinions about what counts as sexually relevant, while the female genital system is good at recognizing a broad