I recently got into a heated debate with an old (cis het male) colleague over his belief that ‘women can get sex when they want, men get sex when they can’ and that women ‘biologically’ need an emotional connection to enjoy sex. Let me make this very clear…plenty of women want casual sex and trust me, we don’t need to have feelings for you to enjoy it.
The problem is that women can’t get the casual sex we want from cisgender heterosexual dynamics. My friends and I often lament that we can’t find one decent cis man to shag. I have about 80k likes across the dating apps…I. Have. Looked (remember The Swipe Experiment?!). Flakiness, ghosting, poor hygiene and general disrespect aside, most men just don’t give a shit about our sexual pleasure.
The orgasm gap is real…women are climaxing far less with men than with women or during masturbation. I crunched the numbers…only a third of men have brought me to orgasm in the last three years. So yeah…I can get sex, but I can’t necessarily get pleasure. An orgasm isn’t the only measure of success…but women deserve sex with men who are at least trying to meet our needs.
Nothing makes me roll my eyes more than the gender stereotype that women need an emotional connection to enjoy sex. We don’t. Women just need the person we are having sex with to treat us like a human being, respect us and care about our needs…it’s that simple. The sad reality is that we usually only get that from men who are emotionally invested in us (yes, yes, I know…not all men).
Casual sex isn’t a free pass to treat someone like a sex toy to selfishly use on demand. Unless that’s your particular kink, why would a woman want that?! If casual sex comes at the price of us lowering our standards, being disrespected and not getting our sexual needs met, can you blame us for not being enthusiastic about it?
Women don’t need to have an emotional connection to have sex with men, however we do expect men to be kind, respectful and care about our pleasure (it’s not simping to treat a woman like a human being). Women can absolutely do casual…I can do casual. But until I meet a man capable of communicating well, being consistent, respectful and invested in my sexual needs, I’ll be sticking to my toys thanks.
Madam Mayhem 
If you’ll excuse me quoting, nothing makes me roll my eyes more than an assertions about [insert demigraphic] without prefixing it with “some”. Some women need an emotional connection, some don’t. As evidence, I offer the Sex thread on Mumsnet where there are regular claims, apparently by women, that women do need an emotional connection. (Some women disagree with some women.) Presumably those women’s opinions are informed by their personal experience, so it’s reasonable to assume they, as women, do need an emotional connection. Its possible they are wrongly interpreting their own neurological and emotional responses, but surely that can be said of any of us.
As for the orgasm gap being men’s responsibility, unfortunately all men benefit from the ‘bad’ ones because it lowers the bar on expectation. Not giving another human the best orgasm they’ve ever had doesn’t make you a ‘bad shag’, it just makes you normal.
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I believe I said ‘plenty’ of women…I agree, I would never say ‘all’ anyone…we are all individuals with different needs. I was pointing out that saying ‘all women need an emotional connection’ isn’t true. I dare say a lot of women think they need an emotional connection for sex, but actually what they have noticed is that men are only invested in their pleasure if there is that emotional connection.
Again, I said an orgasm isn’t the only measure of good sex, but women deserve men to be invested in their pleasure. I don’t expect men to give me the best orgasm of my life every time…I just want them to care about my pleasure.
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Re “plenty – my bad, I missed that. It’s all to easy to get caught up in other people’s anger and miss their nuance when the zeitgeist of sexual politics is as febrile. I apologise.
When you say “men are only invested in their pleasure”, would it not be more representative to say “plenty of men”? (Even if the word “pleanty” is somewhat subjective.)
Are you saying that a lot of women think they need an emotional connection for sex are wrong?
And are you suggesting that plenty of men are only invested in women’s pleasure if there is an emotional connection (which could suggest it’s men that have the over-riding need for emotional connection if they are to invest in someone else), or plenty of women only notice men being invested in women’s pleasure if there is an emotional connection (which could imply that an emotional connection is needed by plenty of women in order for them to notice the investment of others)?
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