On Desire

Blogger Remittance Girl recently posed a question to her readers asking what one does when writing erotic fiction aimed towards males. Or, more succinctly, "The essence of male arousal is pretty well documented, but what is the essence of male desire?"

Being a male, one would assume that I'd have a rough idea. However, this is much easier said than done. So we look to the experts. Unfortunately, science has been more interested in the somewhat more elusive problem of female desire. I think one can help shed light on the other, though, so I'll speak to that first.

There is a book that I am convinced was written specifically for me, and is one I will probably reference many times in the future. I am speaking, of course, of Mary Roach's Bonk. This book is teeming with interesting experiments and facts, but there's an especially pertinent one. An experiment was done with both men and women wearing glasses that tracked their eye movements while watching porn. This led to a revealing, though possibly not surprising result.

First, the no-brainer: straight men watching straight sex watch the women. They watch their faces, and they watch their naughty bits.

Interestingly, however: straight women watching straight sex watch the women, too. They watch the men too, but for the most part, only their faces. It is perhaps not surprising that women don't want to stare at dick the entire time, but that women chiefly watch women's bodies and men's faces may give one insight into how the female sense of desire works. The main theory for this is that women are aroused more than anything by being attractive and being wanted. They look at the women, thinking "look how seductive and attractive she's being", and at the men's faces, thinking "look how much he wants her". As a feminist, the latter of these poses a bit of a conundrum. I don't like the idea that women (or men, for that matter) have to base their feelings of arousal on how much the other person wants them. This, to me, creates a sense of women only being able to be sexually aroused if she's doing what her man wants. That sounds awful. For me, I'm not even convinced that another person should even have to enter into the equation. I like the thought of a woman, upon passing herself in the mirror before getting dressed in the morning, gets turned on enough that she tends to her desire then, making her late for some assignation.

At the same time, though, if this holds true for both partners, it is a slightly different story. I think there's something beautiful about two people enjoying sex mainly because they know how much their partner enjoys it.

This brings us back to the original question: what is the essence of male desire?

And that, dear readers, I'll have to save for next time. In the meantime, what do YOU think?