Why Feminism Is the Anti-Viagra | Psychology Today

Wired! WIRED! Leave it to Psychology Today to make an outlandish claim, eh?

There is more in the article (though I must warn you, a lot of it reads like a rational apologia of rape culture). Stuff like this:

“I think this is one of the problems we’re having in romance in general right now: our heroes have gotten a little too PC. We’re portraying men the way feminist ideals say they should be-respectful and consensus-building,” muses erotic romance (EroRom) author Angela Knight. “Yet women like bad boys. I suspect that’s because our inner cavewoman knows Doormat Man would become Sabertooth Tiger Lunch in short order. In fact, this may be one reason why EroRom is gaining popularity so fast–writers feel free to write dominant heroes with more of an edge.”

On the other hand, most men are aroused by being dominant, as evidenced by the massive cross-cultural popularity of dominance-themed adult Web sites for men. These include some of the most inventive and varied genres of male erotica, such as hypnotism porn (where Svengalis hypnotize woman into having sex), drunk porn (where men trick inebriated women into having sex), sleep porn (where men take advantage of sleeping women), and a wide diversity of exploitation porn (where women exchange sexual favors for school books, a ride, or a rent-free apartment).

Naturally, a reader sent them a letter calling the piece out for what it is, a glorification of violence. Do men want to rape? Do women want to be raped? and how do they get themselves out of the hole? By digging deeper, of course!:

There are more ingenious variations of both dominance and submission porn for men than any other genre. A man’s dominance cue might be satisfied by Mike’s Apartment, a website where women (actually paid actresses) trade sex for free rent; by Hypno King, a website where women are hypnotized into performing sex acts; or by Spanked Cutie (just like it sounds). A man’s submission cue might be satisfied by CFNM porn (clothed female naked male); by Strap On Power, a forced feminization site; or even the castration porn on DeviantClip (eek!). All of these are highly imaginative erotic concoctions designed to activate men’s domination and submission cues. (I’ll also note that since somewhere between 20 and 40% of men are aroused by submission cues, if it was the case that “women unconsciously want to be raped” then logically this fairly sizable set of submissive men would also want to be raped. But we don’t believe that.) 

In women’s erotica, there is similar ingenuity in the portrayal of dominance and submission–arguably even more than in men’s, though it’s a bit like comparing apples and oranges since men like images and women like stories.

If I was ever asked to compile a list of phrases that have caused the most damage to humanity, in my hypothetical top 10, I would reserve a special place for “Men like X; Women like Y”.