Millennial's Monologue: Secret Dramas in Our Hearts & Souls

Question #3: What does a woman really want?

Question #3: What does a woman really want?

Sigmund Freud once lamented that female sexuality is “a dark continent for psychology.”  In fact, near the end of his career, he wrote: “The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?’” 

I have two hypotheses as to why there is so much hushed mystery surrounding female eros.  First is that women feel ashamed to admit what they really want.  In fact, women are bedeviled with both an innate and socially learned tendency to censor what they vaguely feel as immoral or sinful.  My point is not just that our true desires are never on full display, but that even the self has limited and biased understanding of what it really wants.  My second hypothesis is that female sexual psyches are never static, but extremely fluid.  What we want from men changes over time.  Yes, fortunately or unfortunately, we outgrow our desires, we outgrow ourselves.  And this is almost never a linear progress, thus adding to the confusion.   

So what do women really want?  At the center of every woman’s heart is vanity, which basically is a desire to feel good about herself.  Around age fifteen, most girls start getting conscious of where they belong in the social hierarchy, which is largely determined by their desirability.  I mean, it’s hard to ignore because social cliques in schools are organized by popularity; hot girls flock together and the nerdy stick together, too.  And here is the thing—even a pretty girl sometimes gets outshined by hotter girls.  It’s super awkward standing next to a hotter girl (especially if she is a close friend) while she gets all the attention from guys.  This memory stings, leaving behind weird marks in our subconscious.   

I think most women struggle to love themselves.  Really understanding this struggle is key to understanding female sexuality.  For example, if your girlfriend is insecure about her flabby tummy or her flat ass, it doesn’t matter how fantastic you are at making love to her, she is not likely to orgasm.  I’m sorry to tell you this, but how satisfied or unsatisfied she feels with your love sometimes has nothing to do with you and everything to do with her poor body image issues.  That’s why some scientists believe that the most sexual organ for a lot of women is their brain.  Insecurity is a problem because of the inhibitions, which get in the way of her really losing herself in the moment.  And my personal anecdotal evidence shows that the most efficient way to enter, delight and tease a woman’s brain is by affecting how she feels about herself.  So, it seems like what most women want from men is reassurance and validation—that is, until they figure out that’s not what they really want.  

I was in the middle of a K-pop dance class when I experienced a life-changing epiphany.  I was wearing tight cotton orange shorts, drenched in sweat, completely absorbed in music and the movements of my body.   Then suddenly, I experienced a total sense of freedom followed by what can only be described as some sort of spiritual frenzy/ecstasy.  It is at this moment that I realized how shackled, subdued, and repressed I’ve been feeling all along.  I realized that what I actually wanted more than anything else was to break free from everything and anything that had been holding me back.  To be completely free from the tyranny of self-consciousness and plunge into the infinite depth of all the dark, passionate, cheerful, despondent, and violent emotions trapped inside. 

Then I thought about Brian.  Because what I realized was that both sex and dance are at their core all about self-revelation and self-disclosure.  The limitless repetition of revealing and unraveling. The merging of the profane and the sacred. The complete letting go and the shameless exploration.  The giggles.  The shyness and the chaos.  The breaking of the hardshell of propriety and the discovery of a total freak inside of you.  

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Suggestions For Further Reading

Bergner, Daniel (2013-06-04). What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. Title says it all.  It’s really fascinating.  Check this out!

Fromm, Erich (2013-02-26). The Art of Loving. Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.  Amazing book on why love should be understood as art rather than a mere pleasant sensation.