Natalie Angier’s article, "Birds Do It. Bees Do It. People Seek The Keys to It." and "NIKK magasin: New Perceptions of Gender and Reproduction

"Birds Do It. Bees Do It. People Seek The Keys to It."

Natalie Angier discusses the topic of desire and studies that have been conducted to examine how men and women differ in response and understanding of their sexual desire. I was particularly interested in how sexual desire is assessed in men through recording periods of penile erection, but in women, it is difficult to find a comparative bodily action that solely signifies sexual arousal. First, I was upset at how these studies focused on the erection as the signifier of male arousal, and thus, sought to define female sexual arousal through a physical response that would be equivalent to the male erection. This perpetuates the system of desire being connected to the fallice. It emphasizes the idea that the woman must have a counterpart to the male erection to define her sexual desire.

Stephanie A. Sanders from the Kinsey Institute and Indiana University described asking women about if they thought the female equivalent to the male erection was genital lubrication. The majority of women responded with a resounding “no”, claiming that “’you can get wet when you’re not aroused, it changes with the menstrual cycle, it is not a meaningful measure’” (4).

A startling finding from Dr. Chivers of the Center for Addiction and Mental Health was that “women and men show divergent patterns of genital arousal while viewing material with sexual content” (4). He observed that most heterosexual males had a personal awareness of the connection between their physical and psychological arousal when viewing sexual content. However, many women displayed disconnect between their physical arousal and psychological arousal. Their bodies responded to the sexual images but they claimed not to enjoy the visually explicit material.

This is a phenomenon we have discussed in my Human Sexuality course. The question is, why does this disconnect exists? I am apt to believe that because of our culture, women are conditioned not to be in touch with their bodies sexually. Porn is also socially construed to be a form of female subordination, and thus, many women refuse to support the consumption of porn or if they do enjoy it, feel guilty and that they must hide this socially unacceptable practice. This is something the CAKE girls are fighting against and the book “Female Chauvinist Pigs” addresses, the acceptance of women into this raunch culture and the freedom to freely express their sexual desires. However, discussing this in my Human Sexuality class, the general consensus was that porn was a male activity, and women wanted nothing to do with it.

Dr. Chivers seems to have a different hypothesis; he states that women are not aware of this physical response to the explicit material. His theory is that women are in constant fear of being raped and it is the body’s natural defense mechanism to lubricate at “any hint of sex” to protect the reproductive tract. I am skeptical of this claim. If lubrication is the signifier of whether or not a woman is aroused, the studies discussed earlier have already proven that this is not a good indicator. Women experience lubrication in many instances outside the realm of sexual arousal. Also, in our Human Sexuality textbook, the device used to tract women’s arousal recorded their muscle contractions, not just their lubrication production. If we use Chivers' argument in this circumstance, why would women contract their muscles, which is defined as the first stages of arousal, if they are merely doing this as an evolutionary defense mechanism against rape? I really think there is something else at play besides the evolutionary protection of the reproductive tract.

While it is important to look at how women and men differ in their experience of desire, we need to remember that these studies focus on heterosexual people. Therefore, these studies do not enlighten us on all people’s experiences of desire. Also, as we have emphasized over and over again, desire too, is a part of a continuum in which men and women’s experiences overlap. This article fails to mention all the similar experiences of sexual desire that men and women feel, while they may manifest themselves in different ways, not all men are carnal aggressors and all women are not passive lovers. In many ways, this article reinforces the heteronormative roles of the aggressive male and the passive female.

"NIKK magasin: New Perceptions of Gender and Reproduction"

This was one of the most amazing magazines I have ever read. Every piece was extremely provocative and hours of discussion ensued on the airplane after reading each article. I will be discussing the article by Mans Andersson called, “Gendering Animals: Representation, identification and the demise of simplicity”. As an environmental chemistry student, this article particularly spoke to me and reemphasized the need to deconstruct the strict gender binary present in our society.

First, I was fascinated by all the species discussed that defy the sex binary of men and women. There were example of inner-sexed species, sex determined by outside environments such as temperature, and characteristics that have been defined as essentially male practices found to be female characteristics. Patterns of aggression and sex selection of mates are in reality a very common female trait in many species. Andersson also points out that many of the species observed to have this gender- role reversal, are understudied and usually not given much attention in the mainstream science.

This is where the genderizing of animals comes into play. Humans study the animal kingdom through the sex binary we have established for understanding our lives. Thus, we try to fit animals within this framework of understanding, and when they do not fit, we either ignore them or try to bend the reality of the species behavior to fit within the sex-specific behaviors established in the sex binary. The most telling example of this is when Andersson refers to John Marzuluff and Russ Baldo’s study of dominance hierarchies within the bird specie called Pineon Jay. They claimed that the female’s aggression was tided to hormonal fluctuation, similar to women experiencing PMS. Later, this conclusion was dismissed, as scientists observed that females were in charge of choosing their mate and aggression was displayed in ensuring the best mate selection (15).

I was fascinated by this idea that human’s gender normative stereotypes are indirectly applied in studying other animals. I began to think about Animal Planet specials, especially on mating, that use heteronormative language to describe the animals. The males are usually the pursuers and the female flees from the males, until she is too weak to fend off the strongest male’s advances and ultimately succumbs to his will, natural selection at its finest, the strongest male wins. But why don’t we hear about the birds that store up several males sperm, and pick the best batch to fertilize their eggs, and even control the sex of their offspring? Is it because these animals trouble our definition of male and female roles, do they trouble the biology of what we believe to be essentially “woman” and “man” behaviors. If biology is closer to truth then cultural construction, why is biology still confined within this heteronormative sex binary, when so many species deviate from this rigid definition of sex? I am reminded of Butler’s discussion of biology being constrained by language, this article definitely reiterates this claim. If many of nature’s species deviate from this binary, how can we still be fighting to naturalize this binary, why should it exclude many humans’ and animals’ experiences of gender? What is more natural then nature?