If you think of sex as a drive, like hunger or thirst, that has to be fed for survival, if you think that men in particular—with their 75 percent spontaneous desire—need to relieve their pent-up sexual energy, then you can invent justifications for any strategy a man might use to relieve himself.
Because if sex is a drive, like hunger, then potential partners are like food.
Or like animals to be hunted for food.
And that’s both factually incorrect and just wrong.
This matters. If we think sex is a drive, like hunger, then we might start giving it privilege it doesn’t deserve. But if, on the other hand, we treat it like the incentive motivation system it is, might not the culture change?
Might the culture be less tolerant of the suffering of girls, if that suffering isn’t to feed boys’ hunger but only feeds their interest? Maybe not, I don’t know. But I do know that men’s sexual entitlement is a primary reason they 12 sexually assault women.It seems to me that if you believe your erection means you have a “basic survival need,” then the sex-as-drive myth— combined with long-standing cultural attitudes that women aren’t allowed the same sexual agency as men—turns toxic, fast.
I know everyone has told you that sex is a drive. I know that even the newest sex research sometimes holds fast to the idea of spontaneous desire 13 as a drive.And to make it even more confusing, sometimes sex researchers who know better say, “sex drive,” in the same way atheists say, “Thank God.” The language is so embedded in the culture that even people whose entire knowledge system is contrary to the fact still use the words.
But sex isn’t a drive.
Please tell everyone you know.
“but emily, sometimes it feels like a drive!”
Some of you will be wondering, “So how come there are times when sexual desire feels like an unpleasant internal state? How come it feels like a drive?”
And the answer is: The same thing that makes Groundhog Day a funny movie.
In the movie, Bill Murray’s character wakes up each morning in the same hotel, to the same radio show on his alarm, on the same despairingly familiar day: February 2, Groundhog Day. He is forced to live the day over and over and over again.
After asking for help, to no avail, from his producer, from a doctor, from a psychiatrist, and finally, while drunk at a bowling alley, from two
random guys in flannel shirts, he concludes that he can do whatever he wants because there are no consequences. Hijinks ensue. And eventually he decides to seduce his producer, played by Andie MacDowell. Groundhog Day after Groundhog Day, he woos her and courts her and memorizes French poetry, trying to get her into bed and gradually falling in love with her . . . and Groundhog Day after Groundhog Day, he ends up getting slapped in the face. Over. And over. Again. He keeps failing at his goal, a goal that is becoming increasingly important to him, until at last he gives up in despair.
And so he kills himself. Over. And over. Again. He can’t even die.
A bunch of other stuff happens and I don’t think I’m spoiling anything if I say it has a happy ending. It’s a good movie, I recommend it, but what does it have to do with sexual desire?
The brain mechanism firing Bill Murray’s efforts to find his way out of Groundhog Day, to win Andie MacDowell, and to die is the same brain mechanism that makes sexual desire feel like a drive. Here’s how it works.
Imagine a little monitor, like a referee, sitting next to your brain’s 14 emotional One Ring.She’s got two jobs, this monitor: 1. She watches to make sure the world is behaving according to her expectations (expectations set by all her previous experience with the world).
2. She directs the investigation when there is any discrepancy between the world and her expectations.
When the world is meeting her expectations, the monitor feels satisfied.
Nothing is lacking. But sometimes there is a gap between the world and the expectations—some ambiguity needs to be resolved, some novelty needs to be explored to see where it fits in the expected order of things, or some very 15 appealing stimulus needs to be approached and obtained.When this happens, she goes into command mode. She makes reducing the discrepancy her purpose in life. Her entire world is made up of these three things: • The goal state of closing the gap—which might mean resolve the ambiguity, explore the new thing, approach the incentive, or simply complete the task • The effort you’re investing in the pursuit of that goal state—the attention, resources, and time you’re allocating to it • The progress you’re making toward that goal state In Bill Murray’s case, the goal state is, among other things, Andie MacDowell; the efforts he invests are all the hilarious things he tries, like memorizing her favorite drink and toast (“To world peace”); and the progress he makes is absolutely nil—until the very end, of course.
When sex feels like a drive, the goal state is the sexually appealing incentive—usually a partner, but if you have a very sensitive accelerator, the world might just be a turn-on all the time. The efforts you invest are all the pitching woo and initiating and seduction you can muster. Exactly what this is varies from culture to culture and from person to person. (There’s the old joke: What’s foreplay to an Irishman? “Brace yourself, Bridget.”) And your progress is how much closer you get to engaging sexually with the appealing incentive.
So the little monitor keeps track of how much progress you’re making in relation to how much effort you’re investing. She tallies your effort-to- progress ratio, and she has a strong opinion about what that ratio should be.
16 This opinion is called “criterion velocity.”And this is where it gets really interesting.
When the monitor feels that you’re making good progress—when you’re matching or exceeding the criterion velocity—she is satisfied, motivated, eager. But when the monitor feels that you’re not making enough progress, she begins to become frustrated, and she prompts you to increase your efforts to get closer to your goal. If you still aren’t making enough progress to satisfy the little monitor, she begins to get angry . . . and then enraged! And eventually, if you continue to fall short, at a certain point the little monitor gives up and pushes you off an emotional cliff into the “pit of despair,” as the monitor becomes convinced that the goal is unattainable.
You give up in hopeless desolation.
Bill Murray’s little monitor goes berserk. Boy howdy, is the world not following the rules, and nothing—not even dying!—is effective in reaching the goal. What the hell?!
When you’re continually failing to reach a sexual incentive, your little monitor grows frustrated and then angered and eventually despairing. And that’s why it sometimes feels like an unpleasant internal experience. It’s not the desire itself that feels unpleasant, it’s your criterion velocity being unsatisfied. In other words, it’s not how you feel . . . it’s how you feel about
how you feel. • • • When I teach about the little monitor, my students’ eyes widen and their jaws drop. The little monitor is a crucial part of your sexual wellbeing, but she shows up in nearly every domain of life. If you’ve felt the thrill of winning a race or a game, that’s your little monitor having her criterion