“We can’t blame men for wanting sex, it’s in their DNA!” “Men are just horny, that’s how it is!” “You can’t blue-ball him, that’s cruel!” We’ve all heard these things and chances are we’ve probably said one or more of these things too. In my personal experience, women and mine alike, have been taught, nearly programmed, to believe that male sexuality was an inevitable curse. Men are supposedly supercharged with hormones that give them a raging hunger for all things sex. That is why, we as women, simply cannot dangle the idea of sex over a man, unless we have every intention of following through and getting him off. Any woman that has the audacity to blue-ball a poor, helpless man might as well be Satan himself.
My whole life, I have been surrounded by a culture that portrayed men as completely helpless to their sexual urges. Because of this, I was taught that it is our duty as women to help reign in this sexual angst that men face every day. You should never be a tease and if you go home with a man, you should have known you were going to have sex. It’s your own fault. But why do we portray men as if they are nothing more than hungry lions trapped in a cage with a juicy slice of meat dangling in front of them? When we talk about men and sex, we often describe them as if they are nothing more than sexual animals rather than actual people with self-control and human decency.
As a result of these distorted beliefs, we ask women what they were wearing the night they were raped, because if they were wearing something “slutty,” they were asking for it. We tell girls that if we make any sort of sexual advance, then a man has every right to expect sex. It would be foolish to expect that we might be able to allow a man to slide into second, or third base, but say no to the home run. If we say ‘yes’ to foreplay and ‘no’ to sex, we are being the deceiving, sexual, temptresses women will always be. Not only are we causing confusion and being nothing more than “teases,” but also we are putting men in actual physical pain.
While I am not suggesting that this “blue-ball phenomenon” is a myth, I am only suggesting that it is ridiculous that we excuse men’s bad behavior simply because of their hormones. If a pre-menstruating woman were to punch a man in the face, we would not excuse such unacceptable behavior simply because she was experiencing the hormonal surge that comes with menstruation. Though we can acknowledge, that of course, there is an irrefutable physiological effect that comes with a woman’s monthly period, this still would not be a valid excuse for any emotional or physical damage they cause. Why then is it any different for men and their own hormonal experience? Sure, men experience stronger hormonal surges in situations of sexual arousal, but it does not make them helpless creatures. It does not make any case of sexual harassment permissible. We cannot brush off cases of rape simply because the woman spurred on a man’s sexual desires.
All I have to say is that women are not cookies in the cookie jar. We are not temptations. We are people. People who are not responsible for taming the sexual hulk in every man’s penis. We should not have to fear that we might tempt the sexual monster in a male with our clothing, with our words, or with our actions. If you are adult enough to partake in the act of sex, you, in turn, should be adult enough to control your sexual urges. Men are humans, not animals, just as women are humans and not sexual play toys.