The next step, of course, was to be able to enjoy her own pleasure. But before she could get there, she had to knock down a wall in her own mind. She’ll do that in chapter 7. lubrication error #1: genital response = “turned on”
I’ve noticed three errors about nonconcordance that perpetuate dangerous cultural myths about women’s sexuality. Let’s do away with them, okay?
The first way to be dangerously wrong about nonconcordance is failing to recognize that it exists in the first place. Let’s call this Lubrication Error #1.
Nonconcordance isn’t news—or it shouldn’t be. Sex researchers have had an increasingly clear idea that nonconcordance is a thing for a decade or two now. It’s been in the news, it’s been described in mainstream sex books . . . and yet my students and blog readers are routinely surprised to learn about it, and both porn and mainstream culture continue to perpetuate the myth that genital response = sexual arousal. Now that you know about nonconcordance, you’ll see people getting it wrong all over the place.
So what gives? Why does it feel so new, when every other year a book comes out that talks about it?
When I asked this question in my class, a student raised her hand and
said with comic sourness: “patriarchy.”
Totally.
For centuries, male sexuality has been the “default” sexuality, so that where women differ from men, women get labeled “broken.” Even men who differ from the standard narrative get labeled “broken.” Men have, on average, a 50 percent overlap between their genital response and their subjective arousal, and therefore, the patriarchal myth goes, everyone should have a 50 percent overlap.
But women aren’t broken versions of men; they’re women.
If it weren’t about men-as-default, then we’d all be just as likely to wonder, “What’s up with men, that they have so much overlap?” as we are to wonder, “What’s up with women, that they have so little overlap?” But no one asks about men. No student, no blog reader, no fellow sex educator, no one anywhere has ever asked me, “Why are men so concordant? Isn’t that kind of . . . ?” The only people who ask that question are the sex researchers.
So I’m going to fight patriarchy with patriarchy. Let’s make nonconcordance universally acknowledged, by understanding how it affects men.
Every guy, at some point in his life, has the experience of wanting sex, wanting an erection, and the erection just isn’t there. In that moment, the erection (or lack of erection) isn’t a measure of his interest—he might even wake up the very next morning with an erection, when it’s nothing but an inconvenience.
Guys sometimes wake up with erections, not because they’re turned on but because they’re waking up out of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and one of the things that happens during REM is “nocturnal penile tumescence.” Erections come and go throughout the sleep cycle, whether or not you’re dreaming about sex. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just an erection. It’s nonconcordant.
Most boys, around adolescence, experienced unwanted genital response —sitting at the back of the bus, noticing a teacher’s body, his own ill-fitting pants, or even just general excitement about nonsexual things (driving a car, eating a donut, really anything) can activate the relevant pathways and generate the physiological response in a teenage boy.
But genital response is not desire; response isn’t even pleasure. It is simply response. For everyone, regardless of their genitals. Just because a male body responds to a particular idea or sight or story doesn’t mean that he necessarily likes it or wants it. It just means it activated the relevant pathways—expecting. “This is a restaurant.” (Remember: Men’s 50 percent overlap between genital response and arousal is highly statistically significant . . . but it’s still just 50 percent.) Sometimes guys notice their bodies responding to something even when their brains are saying, “That’s not okay.” And they feel conflicted, because on the one hand it’s clearly sexual, but on the other hand it’s Seriously Not Okay.
I’ll give you an example (and feel free to skip the next two paragraphs if you’re triggered by sexual-assault-related things).
When I was in college, I was hanging out with a group of guy friends, and one of them—I’ll call him Paul—told a story about a buddy of his. At the end of a party, when there were people sleeping or passed out all over the house, Paul found his buddy having sex with a girl who was passed out drunk, unresponsive, and clearly unaware of what was happening. I say
“having sex with,” but the technical term is “raping.” And the buddy says, “Hey, you want to try this?” And my friend telling the story says, “Nah. We gotta go.”
The reason that’s all he said, Paul told us, rather than, “What are you doing, you douchebag? Get the hell away from her,” was that he felt torn between his gut instinct that what his friend was doing was Seriously Not Okay and the automatic reaction of his body to the sight of sexual intercourse. He got an erection. He was horrified at himself, at the idea that any part of him might interpret this Seriously Not Okay situation as erotic.
Back when I heard this story, I had no idea what was going on. Genital response was arousal, I thought. It was similar to my other friend’s story about being wet even though she was bored—though in this case, the guy
was not bored but actively horrified!
What was going on?
What was going on was expecting without either eagerness or enjoying.
His body recognized the sight before him as sexually relevant and, either because he was disinhibited by alcohol or else was just a low-brakes kind of guy, his brakes did not prevent his body from responding to the sexually relevant stimulation. “This is a restaurant,” his penis told him, even though there was a brawl happening.
Let’s imagine a different story, in a world where everyone knows about nonconcordance.
Because Paul knows that what his genitals are doing indicates only what’s sexually relevant, not what’s sexually appealing, not only does he not feel ashamed of himself or wonder if he, too, might be a rapist, but the absence of all that shame creates space in his brain for doing something more proactive to intervene! He can tell his friend to stop because what he’s doing is an act of violence, a crime. Or he can call the cops and have the friend arrested, and he can take the girl to the emergency room to have evidence collected, HIV prophylaxis administered, and emergency contraception offered. Or at the very, very least he can find a friend to help her. He can be a hero.
Genital response doesn’t mean anything but sexually relevant— expecting, essentially a conditioned reflex—not enjoying. It doesn’t indicate desire or pleasure or anything else. And by carving out space, once and for all, for nonconcordance, we’re actually making the world a better place for everyone.