This Sunday’s New York Times Magazine featured a piece on recent research on female sexual desire conducted by what the Times describes as “post-feminist sexologists”. If you haven’t read the piece yet, I would suggest doing so before you read the rest of this post.

While I’m thrilled that the New York Times gave such a prominent place to the topic of female sexuality, there were several things that came to mind as I was reading the article that I would like to throw out there for general reflection and comment that I wished the article had addressed, or addressed more concretely.

First, much of this research is aimed at “fixing” female desire which is seen as being lower than it should be. Why? I think there are two main reasons. First, to what standard are we comparing female desire? Male desire. Men are the referent, the default as they have been for everything else throughout history. What if it’s actually the other way around and women have (in general) the right levels of desire while men are hyper-active? (Or what if neither is true and it’s all a big jumble?) We can’t even imagine this world where women’s desire is foremost because so many things would have to change for that world to exist. I therefore reject the idea of these researchers as “post-feminist”.  Second, these women who are less desirous than they should be constitute fully one-third of the female population. The definition of a disorder is that it is irregular. Is something a disorder if one-third of people have it? Is blond hair a disorder? How about left-handedness?

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Oh Overheard In New York, I love you.

Little girl: Daddy, what’s an orgasm?
Dad: It’s kinda like a sneeze. Now don’t ask me any more questions.

–Times Square

I predict that in 15 years this girl will come walking into Babeland and will love it.

Oh Fox News… I’m going to venture a guess that this commentator didn’t really know what she was insinuating in this clip. (I suppose she was referring to the infamous fist bump?) I’ll give Fox News credit for even having someone on the show who was talking positively about the new president, but this is quite the slip up, given the context.

I could handle having a first couple who fisted. Fisting requires trust and patience, two things that all couples need and qualities the first couple should definitely have. I’m not sure when Barack Obama would have time, given his incredibly busy schedule, but maybe they could build some time in after they put the kids to bed. They could read A Hand in the Bush together (especially because this title is hilarious when you think about where they are and who they just replaced).