100 people answer questions about sexuality
Text: Anastasia Travkina
Late May eveningStanding with a musician, linguist and programmer at the entrance to the bar, I asked what sexuality is. My interlocutors answered: youth, thin skin, beautiful lips. This answer surprised me: it turned out that sexuality is the property of an object to be sexually attractive to someone else. But I don’t like to feel like an object whose sexual energy exists only under the eye of an observer - although this is what commercial culture teaches us. According to the modern media version, sexuality can be put on yourself as it were - with the help of a dress, hairstyle, cosmetics, fragrance, and only an interested look in return can revive you.
Perhaps, I decided, between how popular culture represents sexuality, and its present nature is a serious and non-obvious gap for us. And invited her friends from social networks to participate in a survey about their sexuality. I asked the same questions to more than a hundred interested people who have reached the age of eighteen, and received a scheme of subjective sexual experiences of very different people. The ratio of women to men in the survey is 70% and 30% respectively, 70% of people aged 22 to 30 years, 17% from 18 to 21 years, the remaining 13% from 31 to 46 years. I was not interested in the aspects that are usually on the surface: attractiveness, objects of arousal and fetishes - I tried to focus on the subjective physical and mental reality of people. Based on the data, I made several conclusions, they are in front of you.
Women want sex as often as men
The perception that women want sex less often than men, is not only a legacy of the culture of the past, but also the result of works that are rather strange in methodology. For example, the classic study of gender differences at the end of the 1970s operated on three questions (“Do you want to go on a date with me?”, “Do you want to go up to my apartment?” And “Do you want to have sex with me?”), Completely ignoring for representatives of different sexes, these questions construct different sexual situations. For a man, these offers from a stranger only promise entertainment, while women directly associate such situations with possible violence - it is not surprising that 70% of men and only 6% of women gave a positive answer to the second question.
There is no conclusive research on the frequency of thoughts about sex and sexual arousal, since all of them - like my survey - rely on the self-description of the subjects. This is one of the most unreliable methods, as people are generally not very good at tracking their own inner life. But this fact did not prevent me from believing my interlocutors for the word. If we talk about physiology, in general, it seems to work quite universally: 76% of the people I surveyed have a sexual desire (or "stress") at least several times a week - while 12% are excited once a day, and 18% - several times a day. 14.5% of respondents do not have sex for the moment for various reasons, and every tenth respondent would like to have sex more often. 9% of respondents do not have sexual desire at all.
Sex appeal is only part of sexuality.
Despite the fact that advertising teaches us this topic, sexuality remains a complex behavioral complex. Its aspects go far beyond attractiveness to potential partners. The mechanism of sexual arousal is a more or less universal biological process: the impulse of reproduction, of course, is the basis of sexuality. Nevertheless, sexuality takes shape in humans under the influence of the physiological and psychological characteristics of a particular personality, its spiritual orientations, social norms, culture, political and religious situation.
When asked what their own sexuality is, only 12% of respondents answered in terms of sexual attractiveness to other people. The terms of inner life dominate in the description of their own sexuality: the manifestation of personal freedom, self-identification as a person, a way of knowing oneself and the world - this is how a third of the respondents answered. Almost as many survey participants used terms of sensuality, such as “energy,” “force of attraction,” “passion,” and “emotion.” Such a result shows that sexuality can have the same existential meaning for a person as the ability to freely create and express oneself, and imposing a certain model of sexuality - whether it is Puritan or liberal - can be another way of enslavement. In terms of power, only 6% of the respondents described their sexuality, all of them are women. This is significant: the imperious perspective of sexual relations has been actively interpreted since the days of anarcho-feminism and reappeared after the sexual revolution of the last century, when the slogan “Personal is political” capaciously described the essence of the second wave of feminism, and also brightly exploded in radical feminism with the idea of completely abandoning interdisciplinary relationships.
Being beautiful "for yourself" is not only possible but necessary
Eternal “fondant” wars: is it possible to look after yourself for yourself - or does the desire to look good expose your dependence on someone else's opinion? The survey shows that in order to feel their own sexuality, most people need to take care of their body - this was the most frequent condition mentioned by the survey participants. For 32% of respondents, the feeling of their own sexuality is directly related to taking care of themselves and wearing special clothes - and the rise of sexuality is already felt during cosmetic procedures and dressing in front of a mirror, and not at the moment when beauty is noted by other people. In most cases, men and women describe not specifically sexualizing clothes, such as cleavage, leather briefs, or tight-fitting tuxedo as a special dress. Everyone has in mind, from his point of view, stylish clothes that fit the figure, which helps to create an image that pleases the wearer.
From the point of view of neurobiology, this is, of course, an empty subject for dispute: self-care (grooming) is characteristic of all animals, it is included in a number of needs related to maintaining homeostasis of the human body. Evolutionary hygienic cleansing of the body is directly related to biological survival, and everything that allows us to survive brings pleasure. And everything that brings pleasure, can and should be used in order to improve the quality of life. Seals have long cut through the chip and give birth to people so that we would stroke them. And we can relax even in an era of struggle against objectification, responding to all slanderers that grooming increases the level of dopamine.
Health and body contact is an important condition for sexuality.
Well-being turned out to be in second place in terms of the frequency of mention after caring for themselves: 25% of people said that without this their sexuality seemed not to exist. In another group of questions, the same number of participants confirmed that one of the serious reasons for their dissatisfaction with their sexual life is stress, fatigue and health problems.
18% of respondents maintain contact with the body helps dance to your favorite music, bringing a sense of their own sexuality, and sport, after which 12% feel an increase in sexual energy. These answers are also quite natural, since the movement is one of the innate human needs that help it develop and learn the world in childhood, for example, in active games. Not at all, but for many people, such a need remains even in adulthood: such people thrive on exercise and dance and wilt in sedentary work without dopamine intake.
There is a theory that prolonged aerobic exercise leads to the release of endorphins. If this is true, then running and aerobics increase sexuality at a physiological level, since endorphins, in addition to counteracting pain and stress, provoke a release of sex hormones - not to mention euphoria immediately after exertion and calmness and good health some time later. Cindy Maston conducted a number of studies that confirmed the increased sexual response of the body of women involved in sports, and Professor White confirmed this effect for men.
Sexuality is a communication tool
In the second place, the conditions of sensation and the manifestation of one’s own sexuality were special communicative situations. 38.5% of respondents feel sexuality in terms of communicating with people they like, interest in themselves and direct flirting from others, and 8% of respondents directly associate the increase in sexuality with an increase in social activity. At the same time, 19% noted that introversion and shyness complicate their sexual realization, and 4.5% experience persistent difficulties in communicating with other people and finding a partner due to orientation and / or gender. These data show that sexuality, like gender, political stance or spiritual values, is an important marker that helps people to establish communication, and perhaps even occupy a certain place in the informal social structure. Understanding sexuality as a language of communication is made difficult by the aggravation of ideological conflicts and the restructuring of the sexual hierarchy (to take at least a wave of discussions of harassment and violence).
Last year, at the University of Utah, a curious chamber study was done about the connection between communication and sexual satisfaction - predictable and logical: the more partners talk about sex, the more they are satisfied with their sex life. And this effect of feeling of satisfaction from sexual frankness of the partner both for women, and for men was found. Life experience tells me that wherever such a study is conducted, it will give the same result: "Without talking there is no fucking," or rather, it will be, but less satisfying. The hardest thing now can be very young people. They are faced with the task of developing their own language of sexual communication, observing the rules of a liberal rethinking of the culture of harassment and squeezing through medical Latin and the dictionary of Russian foul language — the vocabulary that Soviet sexual culture has inherited from them. The main task of sexual communication, as shown by a whole block of research, is to form a verbal message about one’s own sexual reactions and preferences and to be able to understand the sexual preferences of a partner, because, despite all the love songs, without words nothing is really incomprehensible!
Sexuality is a part of self-esteem and a tool for its improvement
17% of respondents had a direct connection between sexuality and general self-confidence, and 14.5% described sex as a tool for increasing self-esteem. As in any activity, it also manifests itself in sexual life: what do we think about our appearance and professional success, what emotions will we bring into sexual contact, how and in what way will we set up a relationship with a partner. The logical connection between the number of sexual partners and the height of self-esteem has been proven by research, especially for men, since women are still condemned for exceeding the social contact limit set by society.
There is a widespread opinion that the main lever of sexual self-esteem is a person's appearance - a number of studies have been carried out on the dependence of sexual satisfaction on relationships with body image in women. My survey showed that only 20% of the appearance of the flaws as an obstacle to a more complete sexual realization - and this prevents not only women. The body is the medium through which our sexuality manifests itself, but the source of this sexuality, of course, is the personality. When we accept standards imposed from the outside and cannot meet them, we fall into frustration because of the far-fetched impossibility of sexually being realized through the fault of an allegedly inappropriate kind.
Not only appearance enhances self-esteem, but also professional realization. 12% of respondents called the main indicator of sexuality is success in work, dedication and professionalism (mainly representatives of this group were people of creative professions). Many stressed that professionalism is sexy in principle, and 11% said they can successfully replace sex life with creativity. Judging by the study of the University of Newcastle, famous British poets, writers, artists and musicians had twice as many sexual partners as compared with the average man: an average of seven muses for each artist versus three for the representative of non-creative professions. Probably, the opinion about the sexuality of professional realization is unconsciously shared by many more people.
Sexuality as a way to establish intimacy
Self-esteem is formed on the basis of the subjective experience of interacting with others: do we have experience in building communication with others, as we understand them, can we communicate our feelings and be correctly understood. Most often, survey participants admitted that fears prevent them from manifesting themselves: 58% said that they were deterred from fulfilling their sexual desires because of failure, failure, or the risk of being misunderstood by a partner, 20% are afraid of condemnation and feel guilt or sin, and 10% of respondents stressed that they do not trust the partners and do not understand themselves. At the same time, answering the question about the necessary conditions for the manifestation of sexuality, 14% of respondents indicated the opportunity to relax and trust a partner.
These answers are indicative not only for the sexual field of activity - only 7% of people associate sexuality with communication, - the same difficulties in establishing intimacy and mutual understanding haunt us in family, friendship, at work and when trying to take our place in the social structure. It is not surprising that for 10% of respondents alcohol plays a crucial role in the emancipation of sexuality, because it contributes to relaxation and a temporary decrease in the critical attitude towards oneself.
Monogamy and polygamy compete as alternatives.
20% believe that the lack of a permanent partner is the main problem on the way to realizing sexual potential, since permanent relationships allow you to have sex more often, more regularly, to experiment more and trust each other. This position is not very popular today, which may possibly exacerbate difficulties in establishing intimacy: under pressure from the idea of emancipation, the desire for permanent relationships can be viewed as excessive sentimentality or old-fashionedness. However, the main condition for the awakening of sexuality for 20% of respondents was the excitation of a partner, and 16.5% do not feel any sexuality at all, if they do not have a permanent relationship with a loved one.
Of all those surveyed, 14% of people are currently in a formal monogamous marriage. At the same time, 16.5% admit that the need to be faithful to a partner, having a family or children limits their sexual realization, and the women who have a regular partner in this survey talked about the closeness of monogamy and the attractiveness of open relationships more often and in more detail than married men - does this is the real state of things or the degree of openness of women to the discussion of hidden thoughts, remains unknown.
Perhaps such a dynamic is the result of a rethinking of gender stereotypes about sex aspirations of the sexes. On the other hand, this may be a consequence of insufficient sex education: many studies show that a woman’s satisfaction with marriage is closely related to the quantity of sex and the quality of orgasms — and the women’s habit of pretending to orgasm and being shy to discuss their needs can only aggravate the situation.
14% of survey participants admit that they have a relationship with a partner that is not satisfying. Most often the reasons are in the discrepancy between sexual temperaments, closeness to experimentation and unwillingness to work on a partner's orgasm. 10% do not have sex in a permanent relationship due to illness or depression. A small group of 3.5% admitted that their reluctance to be dragged into a costly emotional relationship outweighed the desire for sexual connection. As a rule, so answered people aged about thirty years and more.
Obstacles
29% of respondents are acutely aware of the irrelevance of the situation for the manifestation of sexuality. In most cases, referring to the relationship of subordination at work or children's activities. Lack of time and lack of space is the main cause of lack of sexual activity for 13% of respondents. 5% of women stop themselves, rationally fearing pregnancy and disease, another 5% experience a persistent aversion (there are even studies of aversion as a factor of protection against sexually transmitted infections). As many as 3% say that the reason for their closure was sexual or emotional abuse in childhood. Some men consider the lack of finances to be the cause of their sexual problems, 5% of those surveyed said this.
What is sex?
The two most common answers to a question about the meaning of sex are intimacy with a partner and bodily pleasure. С тем, что секс - это способ выразить чувства к партнёру, сделать ему приятное и пережить близость, согласна половина опрошенных. Источником расслабления и удовольствия видят секс 46 %. 14,5 % понимают секс в терминах самооценки, 12 % считают его способом познания себя и других, а 10 % сравнивают его с изменёнными состояниями сознания. И только 3 % вспомнило про зачатие как цель секса.
The survey shows that we are making a liberal transition in relation to sex: we began to accept different types of sexual needs and consider them in a wider context of social relations - but the pressure of moral and social norms, communication and gender problems is still great. First of all, we have to learn how to manage our self-esteem, build more reliable communication and achieve intimacy with our partners, and also find a compromise between the desire for sexual diversity and love for a permanent partner.