Against Sexual Equality

by Chris Marakovitz

Take a look at the personal ads on “Match.com” and note how many women list a preference for men who are six feet tall or better. If pressed on why they list this requirement, women will tell you that they like feeling small in proximity to the man they are with. I report this from the perspective of a six-foot-four male, not an embittered, vertically challenged one, and, believe me, I have encountered this phenomenon with surprising regularity. While we have progressed far past the point where women should have any practical need to depend on males for protection or the food they eat, these types of instincts run deep and they add considerable complication to the state of modern sexual relations between women and men.

For all of its benefits, then, the sexuality of the modern woman has confused the issue. By acting like men, having sex like men, women have tossed aside the emotional element. Thrown it out like the proverbial baby with the bathwater. Emotionally stunted as they tend to be, men find themselves backed into a corner. No longer can they depend on women to draw out their emotions and create the necessary balance between raw sexuality and some kind of deeper feeling. With women committed to having sex like men, that is, without emotion, the man’s options are limited. He can become the generator of emotion himself, which is problematic because it threatens the masculine code—which he expects of himself and believes that women expect from him. Or he can go on having meaningless sex and pretending that his deeper need for a real connection is being met. Neither option is particularly appealing.

In this sense, the argument that modern female sexuality is creating a higher degree of real happiness for men and women alike is questionable. This is not to say that we should return to the ways of the past—only that we need to get our eyes back on the prize. Sexual freedom for women is positive and healthy. That said, women must accept the reality that they are naturally wired to attach sex with emotion, that this is a good thing, and that all the gains of their newfound sexual freedom will come to naught if the end result is not a dynamic, sexually-charged, emotional bond with a man. That’s what men want. That’s what women want. And, until it becomes clear that modern female sexuality is facilitating this outcome rather than obscuring it, men will continue to react with some degree of anxiety and confusion about how to proceed.