Women’s attitudes to their physical sexuality
Women are sometimes not very familiar or comfortable with their physical sexuality. Cultural ignorance and myths about sex and women’s sexuality are part of the double standards that have throughout history granted greater sexual freedom to men than women. In our society sexuality has been particularly problematic for women, and Vance has identified how the socialization of women influences their ability to be sexual beings:
Women - socialized by mothers to keep their dresses down, their pants up, and their bodies away from strangers - come to experience their own sexual impulses as dangerous. Self control and watchfulness become major and necessary female virtues. As a result, female desire is suspect from its first tingle . . . questionable until proven safe, and frequently too expensive when evaluated within the larger cultural framework . . . which poses the question: is it really worth it?
(Vance 1984: 232-3)
However, during the last thirty years, perspectives on women’s sexuality and sexual needs have undergone considerable change, as part of a more general process of a transformation in attitudes towards women. As a result, women have been able to begin to think differently about their sexuality. The advent of the freely available contraceptive pill, together with the notion that reproduction to some extent can be controlled, has freed sexual needs from such an intrinsic connection to childbearing.
In addition, during the 1970s the women’s movement began to challenge and re-evaluate long-held beliefs about what sex means for women. This included demystifying women’s bodies by encouraging women to talk together, to share experiences, and to gain wider access to information. This process has revealed that feelings about sex are often part of a complex and uneasy relationship that women can have with their bodies. In turn this generates in women fear and ignorance about the bodily changes and developments that occur throughout their life cycle. This has made it difficult for some women to express their sexuality and sexual needs in a non-stereotypical way.
Over time in Western societies information about sex and sexual practices has become more freely available and has helped to create a climate where discussion about sex and sexuality is more permissible. Women have in this context been able to challenge formulaic notions about their sexuality and to become more aware of their sexual needs. However, it has not all been gain, as the focus of the mass media on sexual issues has tended to create another set of stereotypes, which have created new pressures on women. One of these is an image of a heterosexual woman who has a perfect body, achieves orgasm easily, is successful in both her family and her career, and is able to juggle deftly the demands of home and work. Another more negative image is of the unfeminine woman who is gay because she is not attractive enough to lure a man. Her sexual attachment to other women is thereby portrayed as a second-best choice. Such stereotypes promote particular kinds of sexuality and pressurize women generally into aiming for unrealistic sexual goals. Such undermining of the ability of women to define their own sexuality leaves women feeling inadequate, whatever their sexual orientation, and also fails to recognize the kind of support that women need to define themselves (Kitzinger 1983: 76-7).
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