A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire (18 page)

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Authors: Ogi Ogas,Sai Gaddam

BOOK: A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire
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S
kin whitening creams are a big deal in India. They generate hundreds of millions of dollars in sales each year in a country where the average monthly income is $250. In one TV ad for Fair and Lovely (India’s best-selling cream) a father and daughter in traditional Hindu garb are looking for the temple. They accidentally walk through a modeling agency’s high-glass doors into a vaulted lobby. The duo asks the Western-suited, pale-skinned receptionist for directions to the place of prayer. The receptionist rolls her eyes and informs them they are actually in the hallowed portals of a modern beauty company. She smirks and cattily adds that this wasn’t the place for women of
her sort
who belonged in the time of the Vedas. What exactly was her sort?
Dark-skinned
.
The incensed father and his chagrined daughter head back home. He whips out an old parchment and recites an angry Vedic incantation. Through his ancient Ayurvedic sorcery, he concocts a jar of Fair and Lovely. His daughter rubs it on her skin, which quickly lightens to resemble the pale tone of the receptionist.
Obviously, if this advertisement ever aired in the United States, the NAACP would quite reasonably accuse Fair and Lovely of over-the-top racism. But the ad uses a very revealing incentive to motivate women to buy the cream, one that activates a powerful sexual cue in women.
In the ad, the newly whitened daughter reenters the modeling agency. This time, her appearance produces awestruck reactions from all the men, including the young and handsome director. The curtain drops, revealing that she has become the new face of the agency. She exits an airplane to a crowd of flashing cameras and clamoring men. The message is clear: the enchanted cream has made her
irresistible
.
“The desire of the man is for the woman,” Swiss author Madame de Staël famously penned; “The desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.” One of the most fundamental and influential psychological cues for women is
irresistibility
: the feeling that you are sexually desirable. “Being desired is very arousing to women,” agrees Marta Meana.
The Fair and Lovely ad could have promised women that lighter skin would lead to greater economic achievement, better health, or greater popularity with other women. In fact, the identical product for men, Fair and Handsome, is sometimes marketed with the promise that it will help its male customers rise the corporate ladder. Perhaps these gender-specific incentives are ultimately the result of Indian culture. But the female desire to be irresistible is also a staple of romance novels, where it’s often represented as a hero’s overwhelming sexual desire for the heroine. In fact, it’s so common that Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan have given it a name: the
Magic Hoo Hoo
.
“The Magic Hoo Hoo does it all: it heals all ills, psychic and sexual. It provides unparalleled pleasure to the hero, despite the heroine’s reluctance, inexperience, and awkwardness. It’s capable of experiencing (and inducing) earth-shattering multiple orgasms on its first outing. It also creates an instant emotional bond that’s even more irrational and persistent than a newly hatched chick imprinting on the first living thing it sees. One taste of the Magic Hoo Hoo is all it takes; the hero won’t be satisfied with anything else, physically or emotionally.”
The gaze of male desire is focused outward, narrowly, and entirely on the woman. Men do not have sexual cues relating to their self. This unidirectional desire is reflected in the typical porn scene, where the woman is the focus. Male performers are optional, and when they are present, their main contribution is their upright organ. The male viewer of porn doesn’t waste any cognitive energy considering how the actor might feel—and he certainly doesn’t consider his own emotions as he absorbs the visual cues on display. The wabbit hunter only has eyes for his quarry.
Women have a more panoramic range of considerations. Clues about the character and qualities of the romantic hero are important, of course, as are the hero’s looks. But unlike men, Miss Marple also looks inward when deciding whether to release sexual desire. “An increasing body of data is indicating that the way women feel about themselves may be very important to their experience of sexual desire and subjective arousal,” observes Marta Meana. “Possibly even outweighing the impact of their partners’ view of them.”
This gender difference in psychological cues pertaining to self is reflected in a common linguistic distinction. When referring to the self-confidence of a woman, we usually describe it as
female self-esteem
. When referring to the self-confidence of a man, we say
male ego
. “Self-esteem” has a connotation of being something subject to fluctuation, something that must be nurtured and supported. “Ego” has the slightly negative connotation of aggression and conceit, a sense that the ego might get angry or attack. In romance novels, the hero almost always has a strong ego—even to the point of rakish overconfidence and smugness. A lack of confidence, especially at the start of a romance, is a frequent characteristic of the heroine. But after the hero discovers her Magic Hoo Hoo, the heroine’s self-esteem is sure to soar.
In Lisa Kleypas’s
Only with Your Love
, Celia Vallerand is “rescued” from a gang of pirates by another pirate named Griffin. But her rescue turns dangerous when Griffin is overwhelmed with lust for her Magic Hoo Hoo.
Never in his life had he wanted anything as much as he wanted her. “But you owe me something.”
There was no mistaking his meaning. “When we r-reach New Orleans,” Celia stammered, “Monsieur Valle-rand will give you a reward for saving my life.”
“I want it now.” The bristle of his beard scratched the back of her neck, the velvet heat of his mouth rubbed over the top of her spine. “Please,” she said wildly, “don’t do this—”
She whimpered in fear, but nothing would stop the ravenous mouth that wandered over her. It didn’t matter if his desire was reciprocated or not—he had to bury himself inside her and satisfy his hunger.
“I am not yours and you have no right—”
“You are mine. Until I give you to the Vallerands.” He bent over her unwilling mouth once more, thinking that he’d never had to seduce a woman before, not when every corner of the world was filled with willing ones. For him, the act of mating had always been quick and intense. But now he wanted something different, wanted it enough to wait with unnatural patience.
“Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.” Dimly she sensed the terrible guilt that awaited her if she allowed him to take her. If she put up enough of a struggle, there was a slim chance he might let her go. But to her everlasting shame, she found she had no more will to fight . . . her body was welcoming the drugging caresses that eased away all pain, all awareness of everything but rapture.
Donald Symons and Bruce Ellis found that more than half of women’s fantasies reflect the desire to be sexually irresistible. Women frequently fantasize about being a stripper, harem girl, or Las Vegas showgirl and “delighting many men.” Sometimes a woman just imagines a stranger being so smitten with her looks that he abandons his friends—or wife—and crosses the room to meet her. In Elizabeth Boyle’s
His Mistress by Morning
, Charlotte Wilmont is in love with Sebastien, Viscount Trent, from afar. A magic ring grants her wish to capture his heart. But when she wakes, she finds she has become his mistress—the most notorious and popular mistress in all of London.
The psychological cue of irresistibility explains young women’s willingness to enter wet T-shirt contests and flash themselves at Mardi Gras. Whereas male exhibitionism is usually considered a psychiatric disorder and a crime, female exhibitionism is rarely considered a social problem. Indeed, it’s frequently exploited commercially. A journalist asked a girl at Spring Break in Miami why she had just stripped naked for the cameras of soft-core pornographers in exchange for a hat. “If a woman’s got a pretty body and she likes her body, let her show it off!” was her enthusiastic response. “The only way I could see someone not doing this is if they were planning a career in politics.”
The desire to be desired may also explain why many adolescent women participate in
sexting
—exchanging naked photos of themselves taken on a smart phone or webcam. Numerous Web sites, such as JayBee (short for Jailbait), My Ex Girlfriend, and See My Girlfriend, consist of galleries of nude photos that young women have taken of themselves in the mirror or by holding the camera at arm’s length.
Sexual irresistibility is often expressed in women’s magazines and self-help books as “empowerment.” In
Real Sex for Real Women
, Laura Berman suggests that her book will help women “feel empowered” by making their “partners cherish our bodies, crave our touch, and desire passionate, no-holds-barred sex.” In other words, to empower women to be the subject of unapologetic male lust.
In women, the urge to feel irresistible may not be part of the conscious, cognitive software of the Detective Agency. It appears to be a primal component of female sexuality, as basic as a man’s urge to chase and seduce. Marta Meana believes that there may even be a parallel between female irresistibility and a sexual cue in the female rat. When female rats are in the “proceptive phase”—a period of fertility when they’re seeking males for sex—they are in control of the sexual interactions, darting and hopping around the interested male in a process called
pacing
. The female rat wants the male to pursue her. If the male shows sufficient interest and chases her at the pace she sets, then she permits him to mount her and copulate. It’s clear that female rats find pacing to be rewarding. Both pacing and the reward for pacing are controlled by software in the rat subcortex.
But the powerful subcortical cue of irresistibility can also cause trouble for the female brain. Women of all ages report dissatisfaction with their body far more often than men do. Anorexia and bulimia are about seven times more likely to occur in women than in men. Women express much greater body image self-consciousness during physical intimacy than men and frequently cite body dissatisfaction as one of the primary impediments to satisfying sex. On the other hand, when a woman does feel empowered by her appearance, she is much more likely to report sexual satisfaction.
The irresistibility cue is so potent and fundamental that it fuels a female fantasy that is very common—and very controversial.
THE CONCUPISCENCE OF COERCION
 
I blame my recurring rape fantasy on the fact that I’m a feminist. I’ve never made any bones about getting boned in exactly the fashion that I want. But as a girl, my equipment can be trickier to manage, therefore I need to be a boss in the bedroom to ensure I get worked the right way. It gets really tiresome always being the one in charge, and don’t shrinks say that people usually fantasize about the opposite of their reality? I guess that’s why I find myself wishing that my typically sugary-sweet sexual encounters were sometimes peppered with assault.
So opens the essay entitled “
One Rape, Please (to go
)” authored by Ms. Tracie Egan Morrissey in the online magazine
Vice
. Egan describes her botched attempt at indulging her coercion fantasy. She hires a male escort: a young, handsome gigolo in New York City. She wants him to wear a ski mask because “it would also be extra scary and thrilling and hot.” Unfortunately for Egan, the fantasy peters out prematurely as the hired ruffian ends up falling for her. Instead of violating her resisting body, he begs to see her again.
For both ordinary women and female scientists, the widespread prevalence of female coercive fantasies is an understandable source of discomfort and hand-wringing. The subject frequently leads to defensiveness: getting excited by a fantasy is not the same thing as wanting it in real life. “Arousal is not consent,” asserts psychologist Meredith Chivers. In fact, many women emphasize that rape fantasies involve a meaningful level of consent in that the woman consents to having the fantasy. “Perhaps this is why some women can still enjoy rape scenes in romance novels or e-rom,” ponders one woman, “they have consented to participate in the mental experience and thus have control over the situation.”
In romance novels from the 1970s and ’80s, the heroine was frequently raped. And not a verbal seduction followed by gentle coercion, either. Heroines were sometimes violated by a gang of pirates, sold into sexual slavery, or smacked around until their mouths bled. The hero himself often forced himself on the heroine, such as the pirate Griffin raping Celia Vallerand or Wood-iwiss’s Flame raping the Flower.
Rape romances reached their pinnacle in the classic 1980s “bodice rippers,” with feisty heroines and very-bad-boy heroes set on revenge. Here is a sample from Christine Monson’s 1984
Stormfire
. Irish rebel Sean Culhane has abducted Catherine Enderley, an English countess and daughter to the English aristrocrat who arranged the massacre that killed Sean’s mother.
He climbed atop her, caught her hands and pinned them above her head, then threw a leg over her lower body. When she felt the pressure of his sex against her bare thigh, she suddenly went berserk and fought him in dumb, choking terror. Clamping her wrists with one hand, he methodically ripped the camisole and petticoat from her straining body, then lay full length upon her, forcing her to submit to his nakedness until she lay exhausted, heart thudding against his ribs. Sensing the trigger to her fear, he deliberately smeared her breasts with his blood so that her body was slippery under him. Relentlessly, he pursued her into the void.

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