“If you engage in an act of sex with another person, without any regard to their experience, you just had a wank,” bluntly stated Madeline Argy. In episode 78, “thoughts on sex”, of her podcast series Pretty Lonesome, of which this quote is drawn from, the British influencer candidly details her lived experiences, that of her friends, and universal stories known all too well of varied intimacies.
Argy, in her analogies and anecdotes, explores the concept of intercourse and what actually defines it. She concludes it to be indefinable by one universal action and fiercely advocates for women and all people alike to define what sex means for them within the boundaries and context of their own desires.
She addresses an interesting topic in the midst of this: she has recently felt compelled to take a vow of celibacy. She admits it is not for any grand reason or betrayal, but rather out of becoming frustrated by the defaults society places on women’s experiences with intimacy. She is simply at a point in her life where she does not desire it much, and instead desires to create this boundary until she feels that want again, if ever.
I realize I hear this more and more often within the scope of the media. Women begin to define turning points in their sex lives as they grow sick of the way men are permitted to interact with society, act towards women and disproportionate consequences they face for equidistant actions, and displace their violence and cruelty onto the opposite sex. Female voices claim vows of celibacy, not out of any artificial purity culture reason, but rather for the reason to no longer define themselves by a limited version of intimacy pushed by a barring society.
This reveals a much larger image of recent developments in society, directly connected to the concept of hookup culture, or casual intimacy with no feelings or attachment. Inherently, there is nothing wrong with this concept. People owning the choice over their bodily autonomy and choosing to express that in however way they desire without artificial limitations of systems and society is admirable. Especially because there truly should be less stigma encompassing intimacy, as it is meant to be good and rejuvenating, not shameful and suppressible.Â
More often than not, the experiences women have under this umbrella of casual intimacy is not such. The very root of casual intimacy is androcentric, or in other words, places a masculine lens at the center of society, culture, and history, thereby marginalizing the feminine lens.Â
Intimacy in the form of casual whim rarely seems to have the benefit for women that it does for men. If a woman does not partake, she is classified as boring and conservative. Yet, if she does, she becomes used, slutty, and ran-through. She spends her whole life attempting to find that intangible balance between doing enough and not doing too much for any sort of acceptable measure of who she is.
Let us assess what this concept of casual intimacy actually is. Often, it is highly focused on male biology and defined by the male experience. Intimacy, sex, whatever intonation you may prefer, has never truly held a dominant female-centric bias. Women are sick of hearing the stories and the brokenness and the lack of agency. These women consider celibacy now, not because of some skewed purity culture reason, but because of a need to ground themselves deeper to their own self and happiness. Desire comes from clear and safe boundaries. So, in a society where reproduction rights are being ripped out from under us, horrific sexual violence committed against women somehow stands for a topic of debate, and a slew of histories tethered in our genetics yearning for protection against this, it is no wonder women begin to feel that desire less and less.Â
Because women, no matter what, face risk with sexual intimacy. Whether internal or external, psychological or physical, or opinion or fact-based, there is always a cost to consider. It is etched into our histories, bloodlines, and nervous systems; coded into the books we read, the movies we watch, and the media we consume.Â
Women’s sexual choices have grown into grounds of much more agency than what it has historically been. This is what represents a choice, one that our mothers and if not, our grandmothers, and still if not, our great-grandmothers, did not have the agency to make. A choice that many girls still do not have the agency to make. We have all heard the stories, have we not? The loud, seasoned voices say it is “not all men,” but every woman has a story, does she not?
A story of being pressured into a sexual act because her alleged behavior constitutes owing someone something. A story of being looked at and touched in ways she does not want to be by random people at concerts, friends that probably just had too much to drink, or a figure of authority that was simply being nice.Â
A story of being intimate with someone who betrays, cheats, lies, and abuses, leaving her bereft and reeling. A story of shame, isolation, frustration, confusion, fawning, anger, trauma. Stories that change her neural understanding of intimacy. Stories that change her.
Though history permits otherwise, women did not simply awaken one day and begin having thoughts, agency, and intelligence in all regards. Women have always been there, haunting the narrative through every piece of history and innovation and greatness of which they have been burrowed out.Â
Far too recently, I learned that Socrates, the alleged grand philosopher and father of Western morality, touched on in every high school English class, was taught by a woman named Aspasia of Miletus. But this is not the part of the story we are allotted, is it? That is not the part of history that is required, or remembered, or taught. It seems every day I learn of another story hidden away, sheltered, and unlearned; I learn of every perspective we do not see, the intelligence we do not witness, and the experiences we cannot feel a relation to, simply because it is a woman’s voice behind them.Â
Everything in the world exists with conceptual framing. The way history, the media, and art has been framed for centuries has been by a predominantly male presence and voice. And sex, how it is defined, what constitutes it, and what justifies it, exhibits no difference.
As a man, how could you possibly think, whatever the situation may be, that your experience comes so far before hers? These men who claimed to be attracted to women, yet do not care to see her having a good experience. Where she is consistently relearning to undermine her pleasure and body, thinking her compliance and its subsequent acceptance is indicative of love or care. That it is indicative of normality.Â
The progression of time has slowly been accounting back the dues taken from women. In a society where more voices may be heard and more connections may be formed than ever before, women must take back the agency of their own biology and stop living within the scope of the bounds of male biology, and more critically, a patriarchal society.