Just in Time for Valentines... What Women Want

My friends and I have been passing around the recent New York Times article, "What Do Women Want?" We’ve talked about it in the pick-up line and during pilates. We’ve whispered about it on playgrounds and in our driveways. We have been thoroughly intrigued and shocked by Daniel Bergner’s article detailing the scientific community’s forays into the enigma that is feminine sexual desire. Each of us has plowed through 12 pages of scientific data and anecdotal evidence in hopes of discovering what it is that will ultimately satisfy us. And we’re so flattered to know that science is even thinking about us, trying to figure us out and more important, how to get us off. But to tell you the truth, when we reach the end of page 12, and find out that scientists still don’t really know the secret to female desire, we can’t help but feel a little bit frustrated.

The article opens with a description of one of the more recent projects attempting to discover the key to female desire. Apparently Meredith Chivers, a leading sexologist, asked subjects (men and women) to watch video clips of all sorts of sexual (and non sexual situations) involving people and even involving apes (with other apes) and measured their physical and emotional sexual responses to the clips. What Chivers discovered is that men know when they are turned on - they can feel it, they can see it, they know it. Men are simultaneously emotionally and physically aroused. Women on the other hand aren’t, the thoughts in their head and the physical cues for arousal can be absolutely not in sync. If a woman’s head isn’t in the game, it doesn’t matter what her body is telling her.

According to Chivers (and consequently Berger) this idea is somehow a really big deal in the science of sex. It’s a discovery! I’m no sexologist, but I can tell you that the idea that women’s brains are key components in their pursuit of sexual satisfaction is no breakthrough. At least it’s now a scientifically established idea.

The problem is that’s all these scientists have. After years of research they can now confirm that women and men are turned on in different ways, but they still aren’t quite sure how it actually works for women. While I can’t speak for all women, I can offer a little insight into the subset of mommies (and maybe save us all from government-funded study on the sex lives of housewives). I am willing, for the sake of science of course, to offer up my own deepest desires for review. And we can skip the plethysmographs - a seriously ineptly named vaginal sensor (can’t you just imagine a lispy perve whispering that?) - altogether.

So this is it, a short summary of what gets women (or at least 21st century mothers) off. Before we begin though, here is the definitive list of what doesn’t do it for us. First, contrary to popular belief, we don’t want to be touched. We’ve been touched, pulled on and prodded, handled in every possible way you can imagine since the moment we found out we were even entering motherhood. It’s been hands-on ever since. And all this touching has completely destroyed any nostalgia for all the touching that may have gone on to get us there. No matter how you spin it, foreplay is touching. Second, we don’t crave emotional intimacy with our husbands and partners. We absolutely don’t want to hear their deep inner secrets and fantasies, they’re probably boring and will only make us feel worse about ourselves or mad at our significant others. Besides we spend all day with secrets and fantasies, we deal in the pretend and imaginary. And third, contrary to the myths perpetuated by Hollywood, we don’t want to take up with the pool boy or the landscaper a-la Desperate Housewives. We don’t want to share these post-baby breasts with anybody, let alone with a stranger in the garden shed.

Legend has it that for many men the ultimate sexual fantasy/sexual experience is centered on oral sex. Well you know what’s on par with oral sex for a woman, what makes me feel the same sweet ecstasy men enjoy? It’s when anyone, another mother, a grandparent, anyone tells me that they’ll take my kids for a couple of hours just so I can go to the grocery store without them. That’s right, that’s my fantasy.

Here are the dirty details: I’m in the grocery store, in the produce aisle and I’m pushing a regular cart - there isn’t one of those ridiculous car carts anywhere near me (which of course means that no one can give me a dirty look for pushing the monstrosity without actually having any kids in it ). Anyway, I’m in produce and looking at tomatoes and picking out the ones I actually want, there’s no toddler throwing tomatoes willy-nilly into a produce bag while I try to keep count of each tomato out loud. Gradually, slowly, almost seductively, this fantasy will take me all the way through the grocery store. And here’s the hottest part - it will all be uninterrupted, there will be no potty stops, no screaming fits about not being able to ride in the elevator. I won’t even notice the elevator. I’ll be able to sign my own name with the magic Jeopardy pen at the check out line. Sometimes in this fantasy (and this feels really dirty even just typing it) I imagine it so that some other woman is there, maybe in front of the deli counter, standing helplessly as her preschooler flails himself onto the floor because she will not him allow another sweaty cheese sample. And the whole time the only thing on my arm is my purse, I’m not carrying a child, or a giant bag with wipes, extra underwear, a sippy cup, a potty seat, mismatched socks, a book and a crumpled up babydoll. It’s just my purse. That’s what turns me on and takes me all the way. Talk dirty to me say "I’ll watch the kids, you go to the grocery store." Shit, my heart is racing already.

Maybe one day Chivers and the rest of the sexologists will solve the mystery of female sexual desire. Maybe they’ll map the g-spot and all the other hot spots of the female anatomy and somehow link them to perfect rationality and overwhelming passions that make the female mind. Maybe if they keep working at it, keep taking surveys and showing women (and men) animal porn and tracking their heart beat and swelling and blood flow, they’ll figure the whole thing out. And then what? We’ll still be at the grocery store knee deep in toddler and selecting tomatoes against the background of a temper tantrum.