I consider myself a feminist. Perhaps it makes me feel good to now I am one.

Years ago I leant however,

that when you are a man, it not easy being a feminist. I had woven the theory in my head that sex meant
much more to women than it did to women. Like Lord Byron once wrote (in Don Juan), “love is of a
man’s life a thing apart; ‘Tis woman’s entire existence.” Men can fantasise over centrespreads; women
need to warm up to a man before she can visualise sex with him. The Raymond ‘Complete Man’ was
sexually attractive to women, my theory postulated. I thought I was being extra sensitive to women and
their sensibilities, imbuing them with greater sexual intensity than men, for whom the testosterone
driven “wham bam, thank you ma’am” routine was, more often than not, par for the course.

My female colleagues at the university were shocked by my naiveté. “What bull,” they cried, “Give us a
face with a body to match, and we can fantasise the exact same way that men do, perhaps better!” My
paternalistic feminism, as it were, went straight out of the window. I am wiser now. I don’t try and think
nice things on behalf of women. Women’s sexual desires are no different from a man’s. That is the first
thing men need to deal with. The giver-receiver stereotype is a societal construct. Centuries of cultural
training has wended its way into scientific studies and men, and often women themselves, have created
this great myth – ‘men are from Mars, and women from Venus’.

Sexual reticence marks a woman’s social performance. Ever watched a woman aboard a public transport
vehicle? She will do her damnest to appear sexually non-provocative. That is her training at home, and
that is also a safety device because the public space is male dominated. God gave Adam territorial rights
over Eve, and men seem not to have given up the privilege. But observing thousands of demure women
in public should not produce the theory that women do not wish to express their sexuality. What
women want is to be able to do just that, just like men do when they strut about with their smart
phones and stretch limousines (these toys are decoys, because they can’t show the real thing, can
they?).

In private, within the safety of a relationship, or even an encounter, women are likely to be even more
sexually expressive than men; men are always playing the field, whereas women are at home only on
base turf. Financial and other types of independence perhaps play a role, but left to her own, deep
inside, a women demands sex just the way men do. Damn good thing that is too. It lifts the burden off
proto feminist like I from formulating comfortable generalisations about female sexuality. The question
that hangs unattended is this: Can men deal with a sexually assertive woman? As they free themselves
from the burden of womanhood, contemporary women desire it all. They want to take. Are men willing
to give?

(513 words)
Debraj Mokerjee