Abstract
AbstractThe past 20–30 years have provided plenty of new empirical data on women’s sexuality, a topic often theorised as puzzling and unexplainable. In recent discussions, a controversial issue has been the phenomenon of sexual concordance, i.e. the correlation between the self-reported, subjective assessment of one’s sexual arousal and the simultaneous bodily response measured directly on the genitals. In laboratory-based assessments, sexual concordance has been observed to be on average substantially lower in women than in men, although the reasons for the considerable gender difference are still open to debate. Drawing on a phenomenological approach to culture-dependent meaning-formation and on feminist social theory of everyday sexuality, I argue that the reasons behind women’s low sexual concordance can be found neither in their minds nor their bodies but in the way meaning-making processes function in human sexual experiences. Women’s first-person perspectives on their own sexuality have historically played only a marginal role in the creation of socially endorsed sexual meanings, yet these shared meanings have a profound influence on how individuals make sense of their bodily experiences in sexual situations.
Highlights
A controversial issue has been the phenomenon of sexual concordance, i.e. the correlation between the self-reported, subjective assessment of one’s sexual arousal and the simultaneous bodily response measured directly on the genitals
In philosophical debates on women’s lived experiences, reference is often made to a certain feeling or condition of homelessness that results from a historical lack of cultural representation of women’s thoughts, experiences and practices as seen from their own perspective.[1]
In order to better understand the specific character of the culture-dependent meaning-making that is relevant from the point of view of sexual experiences, it is important to recognise the role of intersubjectivity in meaning formation processes
Summary
In philosophical debates on women’s lived experiences, reference is often made to a certain feeling or condition of homelessness that results from a historical lack of cultural representation of women’s thoughts, experiences and practices as seen from their own perspective.[1]. The adaptationist perspective suggests that for men both psychological and genital arousal is necessary for sexual intercourse, whereas for women strictly speaking neither is needed, and in many cases not present, either There are those who find that low concordance is instrumental for maintaining more conservative sexual practices when selecting possible partners, and there are others who venture that with regard to sexual experiences, women’s minds seem to be disconnected from their bodies.[9]. As can already be expected, I do not share this view and I think it is much more likely that the opposite is the case: the share of women who are confused about their sexual feelings is so high exactly because women’s firstperson perspectives have been largely missing from historical, cultural and theoretical representations that are exactly the ones that they necessarily use to make sense of their experiences. Think this discrepancy is created, why it most strongly affects heterosexual women, and why men seem largely untouched by it
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