Contents
This is how it “affects” men that women use sex toys
Sexuality
A change is being observed in the way in which men and women look at and perceive erotic-sexual relationships
Erotic toys have been in the conversation for a few months now, and it seems that it will continue like this. A report on the global market for female sex toys, published by Technavio, concludes that growth is unstoppable, based on the success of certain products in the erotic industry, especially Satisfyer, which already accumulates more than 6,5 million entries. in Google. These figures were unimaginable just a few years ago, when publicly speaking about female sex toys was an exception. «Female sexuality was not only taboo, sometimes it did not even exist. Research on the complexity of the clitoris is recent, for example, ”recalls Begonya Enguix, professor at the UOC’s Arts and Humanities Studies and researcher at the MEDUSA group (Genders in Transition: Masculinities, Affects, Bodies and Technoscience).
Experts agree that talking openly about female pleasure and the technological tools that help achieve it is a novelty, and evidence of the change in the way men and women look at and perceive erotic-sexual relationships. This fact, according to the anthropologist and expert on masculinities Begonya Enguix, is related to the rise and social presence of feminist movements and to the greater awareness of the social need for just and egalitarian gender relations.
Toys, a competitor?
However, although this new scenario represents a further step towards equality, not everyone perceives the change in a positive way, as it can create insecurities in the more traditional sector of the male population. “In the case of traditional masculinities who consider themselves custodians of the female body and solely responsible for her pleasure, may see their virility threatened ”, says Enguix.
As Begonya Enguix explains, from a traditional perspective the man is considered to be the active member of the couple and the woman, an object waiting to be seduced and conquered, a passive element destined for male enjoyment and enjoyment. AND it is men who continue to experience sexual intercourse in this way who can find a competitor in erotic toys. However, in the opinion of experts, this percentage of the population is increasingly small. “Fortunately, there are many couples who do not function in this way nor do they consider that the responsibility for full and pleasant personal, affective and sexual relationships should fall solely on the male member”, says the UOC professor.
Goodbye to the pleasure gap
The move towards more egalitarian relationships also in the sexual field is not the only effect that the visibility of individual female pleasure. Another consequence is that it has helped to end the cliché that men have more needs for intercourse or sexual satisfaction than women. “In reality it is a myth that has long been overcome; perhaps it would be necessary to speak of an ideology put into circulation in certain historical moments “, points out the sociologist Francesc Núñez, professor of the Studies of Arts and Humanities of the UOC, who remembers that in the Decamerón it was already affirmed that” a rooster is enough to ten chickens, but not a hundred men are enough to satisfy a woman. Thus, male superiority has long been called into question.
Nor is the use of sex toys by women anything new. The study on beliefs about the use of vibrators in women already showed almost a decade ago that the use of vibrators was common for women, and that those who valued them positively enjoyed sexual relations more. However, there is a novelty regarding erotic toys, and that is that the technological means they incorporate are increasingly sophisticated. “Technology has always been applied to sexual practices (and to all human actions). But new technologies are more powerful in their ability to intervene in erogenous or sexual pleasure in this case ”, says the UOC professor.
This is one of the reasons that sexual satisfaction obtained through these products has increased in recent years. Does that mean that we will increasingly tend to live sex individually? “At the moment it does not seem that these practices are going to replace bodily relationships between people,” says Francesc Núñez. “But, without a doubt, in many cases they can supply them and reduce the search (or the need) for” physical “relationships, he affirms, since, according to the expert, our relationship with the world will increasingly pass through the technology and screens.