So Stephen Fry did an interview for UK gay men's mag Attitude and made some rather contentious comments. As has already been lamented, the comments are reported in snippets which I've put together below in hopefully the right order.
“I think most straight men feel they disgust women. They find it difficult to believe that women are as interested in sex as they are. For good reason. If women liked sex as much as men there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking, 'God, I’ve got to get my fucking rocks off”, or they’d go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn’t happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it. I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want. They want a boyfriend and then they want commitment. Of course a lot of women will deny this and say, ‘Oh, no, but I love sex, I love it!’ But do they go around having it the way that gay men do? Gay men are the perfect acid test. If they want to get their rocks off, they go into a park where they know they can do it.”
A predictable feminist furor greeted the comments, these being the most bandied about quotes:
Feminist journalist Boycott said the claims were "rubbish", adding: "Women are just as capable as men are of enjoying sex. We don’t go cruising or cottaging on Hampstead Heath because we don’t need to. Women have other ways to get our thrills, and we can go and get them in bars or clubs."
Germaine Greer said: "Stephen Fry is clearly under a delusion that he is an authority on female sexuality. Well, if he thinks that women are not interested in genital encounters with total strangers, he is absolutely right. But to conclude that we are therefore uninterested in sex is madness."
Fry insists his comments were humorous and have been taken out of context. As I don't have £3 for an online copy of Attitude, I guess I'll have to be content with never knowing the full context. In the same interview he speaks candidly about his experiencing with Cottaging (look it up if you don't know what cottaging is - it's quite important to what he was saying).
Various journalists have taken the time to research the issue and/or opine and are coming up with some interesting articles, such as this one about evolution and sexual selection and this one positing that because females are weaker they need to feel safe to enjoy sex. But the overwhelming majority of comment is from angry women and angry-on-womens-behalf men.
I'll admit two important things before commenting on this issue:
1. I am a big Stephen Fry fan
2. I seem to be much harder to offend than most people, especially by comments made in the media.
Stephen says a number of things here. Firstly, that "I think most straight men feel they disgust women." I'm not a straight man either, so I'm no definitive guide, but I don't THINK this is true. I haven't seen any evidence of this with any of my partners. I'm sure many straight men have been made to feel this way at some point in their lives, but as a generalisation I can't agree.
Next he says "They find it difficult to believe that women are as interested in sex as they are." Now that I can agree with. Despite thinking of myself as reasonably sexual person, most if not all of my partners have wanted more sex than I do. Perhaps its the response to visual stimulus, perhaps its evolutionary, perhaps it's the fact that mens arousal is more physical - I don't know. I do know that no matter how attracted I am to my partner, he's always desired more sex than I do.
He continues: "For good reason. If women liked sex as much as men there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking, 'God, I’ve got to get my fucking rocks off”, or they’d go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn’t happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it." There are a couple of things to address here. I can see Stephen's point and I have to agree - men have a much greater physical desire (need?) for regular sexual release. As he is speaking in the interview from his experiences of cottaging as a young man, Fry is presumably quoting his own thoughts when he says "God, I've got to get my fucking rocks off". We've all heard of "blue balls" - correct me if I'm wrong, guys, but isn't this referring to discomfort felt when release is denied for too long?
However I feel he extrapolates too much out of the lack of "straight cruising areas", or rather, extrapolates too much about womens role in this. My first thought was that this says more about the nature of being a gay male in today's world than about womens desire for sex. After all, plenty (can I say most?) straight men don't go and hire a prostitute to get their jollies off when they can't find a partner on their own - so do gay men want sex more than straight ones, or does the phenomenon of anonymous gay sex speak of the shame and desire for secrecy many gay men still (unfortunately) feel about their sexuality?
He certainly is right that, aside from sex addicts and fetishists, women don't want anonymous sex a la cottagers. It's true that the only women a man can have sex with by simply turning up and requesting it are prostitutes. I find it pretty funny that, as a defence of womens sexuality, Rosie Boycott said "We don’t go cruising or cottaging on Hampstead Heath because we don’t need to. Women have other ways to get our thrills, and we can go and get them in bars or clubs." Is she forgetting that there are PLENTY of gay bars and just plain bars where gay men can go to meet sexual partners? The inference from her comments actually agrees with Fry's view - that men want sex more than women, since she is saying that any time a woman wants sex she can go to a bar or club and take someone home, just like that. A man certainly can't do that (I don't believe her that women necessarily can either), presumably because there aren't enough/any women doing what he is doing - cruising for sex.
"I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want. They want a boyfriend and then they want commitment. Of course a lot of women will deny this and say, ‘Oh, no, but I love sex, I love it!’ But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?" I think he goes a bit too far here but, unfortunately, I don't know the context and, as this is the written word and Stephen is one of the funniest men on the planet, I suspect that his delivery mitigated much of the sting. I feel sorry for straight men too, so there's no disagreement there. If he was indeed being serious then of course I must disagree with the sentiment that sex is the price women pay for a relationship. It is true that women generally want a relationship more than men, but there are a million and one reasons for that. And, as discussed before, I do believe that it's true that men want more sex than women, but that certainly doesn't men women don't want it at all.
When I think of the dreary old Britain that Fry grew up in, I can see why he'd have the view that many women end up only having sex to satisfy their partner's needs. I'm of no doubt that there are indeed plenty of women today in that unfortunate situation - we must remember that the world isn't all smiles and sunshine.
What the comments really come down to is one of the undisputable differences betweeen ("normal") womens sexuality and mens - that men crave the physical act in a way that women don't. Whether that means that men necessarily ENJOY sex more than women, I can't say. I sure enjoy sex, boy howdy! But that doesn't stop my boyfriend from wanting more of it than I do. So I'm not offended but, Stephen, it was a bit silly to make such inflammatory remarks in this day and age where the media love nothing so much as a controversy, remarks causing offence and easy to swallow sound bites.
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