Arousal

Women who are struggling with this issue require the safety of a committed relationship in order to lower their sexual inhibitions.

The girl responds to this guilt by keeping her sexuality in check. She represses her urges to enjoy sexual pleasure for its own sake.

Another way in which paternal vulnerability can contribute to a girl’s guilt is if the father responds to his daughter’s sexuality by becoming overly stimulated and inappropriately sexual in response.

In my view, the key psychological mechanism shaping the special form that female sexual desire takes in our culture is guilt, various blends of separation and survivor guilt that women experience growing up that specifically target their desires and capacities for sexual arousal and pleasure.

Over thousands of generations, evolution ensured that the need to link sex with emotional loyalty became wired into women’s psyches, even though the subjective interests of any individual woman might diverge from this pattern.

On the other hand, evolutionary theory dictates that for the male, reproductive success was enhanced by inseminating as many women as possible, because the male’s best chance to pass along his genes was to make use of his biological ability to father a huge number of offspring, not to nourish any particular one of them.

Since women produced only one egg each month and were fertile for only a brief period, and since they were highly vulnerable and increasingly dependent during pregnancy—as were their children during their early years—it was in their interest, and those of their offspring, to secure a mate who had the strength and social status to protect them and t

The general rule is that sex tends to be a more serious and personal proposition for women than it is for men.

Women, on the other hand, also use objectification for the same reasons—to overcome guilt and merger—but since their gender identities are less threatened by closeness and merger than those of men, they have to resort to less objectification in order to feel safe.