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[la_flechette]

For anyone who was particularly interested in the Times' "What Women Want" article, there's an ongoing discussion at the XX factor on Slate.com

Comments

[myopian8]

Thanks! I'm kind of surprised there's been such a huge response to it- it's just a summary of some science that's being done. I guess it goes against what a lot of people expect, or people think it goes against what they think, or they think it's offensive, or something.

I read a couple community posts from Feministing on the topic and it was a really bad idea. They were misinformed and one poster admitted halfway through that she hadn't actually read the whole article. Both posters were extremely upset that a) people were analyzing women's sexuality specifically and b) the results were inconclusive. Err?

It seems like this is a topic a lot of people don't want touched, but not for any good reasons- just for fear of scientific pursuit.

[la_flechette]

Well by and large people find sex more interesting than... most other topics. Also, most of the scientific community in recent years has gotten pretty careful in its treatment of inherent gender differences - as in, seldom admitting they exist much less studying them. At points, some of the researchers come across as presumptuous or offensive, with their hypotheses; I found that impression of arrogance to fade as I got through the article though, and realized that the article didn't take a stand or support any of these theories in particular - it's just presenting a summary of current research

[myopian8]

One woman commenter was actually resenting dismissal of female sexuality- apparently the article's conclusion, because it talks about how the research is at this point really incomprehensible, and therefore that means the (male) author is trying to say that women's sexuality isn't a valid topic. Regardless of the fact that he'd just written eight pages about it.

I would agree with you that most of the people who are upset probably didn't finish it.