game girl advance: Women Like to Talk About Sex More Than Men

Women Like to Talk About Sex More Than Men

The popular belief is that men think about sex once every seven seconds, but when you look at who actually talks publicly about sex, women are overrepresented. Women are the ones who write the sex columns in magazines, the ones who study pornography academically (the leading researchers of which are women), the ones who spearhead discussion on sex in videogames - which brings me to the conference on the subject that is starting tomorrow in San Francisco.

The truth is, women are just as obsessed with sex as men, and may be more willing to admit it!

Perhaps men find it a wee bit embarrassing to spend so much time discussing sex because for them it's so obvious - boom, it's right there, no mystery about it. Or perhaps they feel there shouldn't be a mystery, and when there is, it feels like a lack of manliness. Thus we have tons of articles in popular press about how women can and should reach orgasm, but if you're a dude and can't get it up, you confide in no one but your doctor.

Women also seem more willing to investigate the effect sex has on other aspects of life, and from an early age. Popular reading material for young girls almost always deal with a sexual coming of age; boys seem to be more into books and comics full of superpowerful men who band together to overcome adversity, sometimes gorily. So maybe it's not too surprising that the keynote speakers for the Sex in Videogames conference are women: Sheri Graner Ray and Regina Lynn. Looking over the list of speakers, also, I see that this the most gender balanced videogame conference I've ever attended: a third of the invited speakers and panelists are female (compare that to less than a quarter for the Game Developer's Conference).

In any case, I'll be going to hear Sheri and Regina and Brenda Brathwaite and many others talk on Thursday and Friday, and it should be very interesting.

Posted by jane at June 07, 2006 10:00 AM

If men thought about sex once every seven seconds, we'd never reach a Brain Age of 20.

To be fair, women may feel more comfortable discussing orgasm (or lack thereof) because there is less shame associated with it than impotence. Men might be inclined to discuss impotence if 1) it were more common, and 2) the average man had something constructive to say on how to correct it.

Do let us know how that conference goes, Jane.

Posted by: T. Holbrook Walker on June 8, 2006 06:37 AM

Well, there's really no mystery there. It's the same reason porno's have more women in them then men. Guy's get off on it and girls don't mind watching... I mean listening... either.

But when guys talk about sex, you get the man show. No one wants that.

-woo

Posted by: Andrew Douglas on June 8, 2006 10:14 AM

I've always thought that women were lightyears ahead of us men on the issue of discussing sex.

The thing is, it's not acceptable in Western society for a man to actually discuss sex in depth. Alot of feelings are involved in it and men are not suppose to have feelings. On the other hand, it's acceptable in Western society for women to discuss feelings and thus, acceptable for them to discuss in depth sexual matters.

If I were to discuss sexual issues with my fellow man, I'd be humiliated by him and later by whoever else he told. Man to man discussion of sex is limited to "I had sex with *insert name here* last night!" and is followed with high fives.

By the way, that "Seven Seconds" rule... is that on average or something? I think about sex often, but not THAT often. However, if it's essentially saying the one seventh of a guys time per day is spent thinking about sex, I could believe that a little be more. I just don't buy the male brain's thought train taking a one second stop at the Red Light District every seven seconds.

Posted by: the7k on June 11, 2006 01:19 AM