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+ Sex acts or sexual relationships that aren't reproductive are devalued, are seen as weird,
or aren't even defined as sex (for example: stigma against gay sex, lesbian sex, many
fetishes, etc)
4) Women are expected to trade sex to men in exchange for support or romance.
Women who don't get a "good trade" (e.g. women who don't receive a certain level of
financial support or romance "in exchange for" sex) are seen as sluts. Men who don't get
a "good trade" (e.g. men who don't receive a certain amount of sex "in exchange for" a
relationship) are seen as pussies. (Yes, "pussies"... don't you just love that a word for
female genitalia is a commonly used insult against so-called "weak" men?)
What this also means is that many people have trouble examining motivations outside
this framework: women are always expected to be looking for more emotional or
financial investment from a guy, whereas men are always expected to be looking for
more (or more so-called "extreme") sex. Women who actively seek sex, or men who
actively seek intimacy, are shamed and hurt and confused for it -- often even within their
own heads.
5) Since stereotypical men have historically been much freer to explore their
sexuality than people of other genders, the desires of stereotypical men have formed
the pattern for "liberated sexuality." As women have won freedom to act, work and
explore outside the home more, we've been following patterns created mostly by men,
and those patterns might look extremely different if women had created them.
When we talk about sexuality, I think that leads us to examine what "liberated sexuality"
looks like. "Liberated sexuality" is often stereotyped as promiscuous, for example.
"Liberated sexuality" is also stereotyped as being unromantic, never involving any of
those pesky pesky feelings, etc. I write about this cautiously: I have no intention of telling
anyone what "real" men do or feel, or what "real" women do or feel. However, it seems
conceivable to me that most men are generally more likely to enjoy promiscuity and
emotionless sex than most women are -- if only for hormonal reasons. Here's a quotation
from the brilliant trans man sex writer Patrick Califia on the effects of testosterone:
It's harder to track psychological and emotional changes caused by one's taking
testosterone than it is to notice the physical differences. But I think the former actually
outweigh the latter. It isn't that testosterone has made me a different person. I always had
a high sex drive, liked porn and casual sex, couldn't imagine giving up masturbation, was
able to express my anger, and showed a pretty high level of autonomy and assertiveness.
But all of these things have gotten much more intense since I began hormone treatments.
During the first six months on T, every appetite I had was painfully sharp. A friend of
mine expressed it this way: "When I had to eat, I had to eat right fucking now. If I was
horny, I had to come immediately. If I needed to shit, I couldn't wait. If I was pissed off,
the words came right out of my mouth. If I was bored, I had to leave." My body and all
the physical sensations that spring from it have acquired a piquancy and an immediacy
that is both entertaining and occasionally inconvenient. Moving through the world is
even more fun, involves more stimulation than it used to; life is more in the here-and-
now, more about bodies and objects, less about thoughts and feelings.
... Casual sex has changed. When I want to get off, my priority is to find somebody who

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