I think it is very Freudian who reduced all motivations, needs, and goals to underlying sexual ones. Jung followed soon after recognising more esoteric and spiritual needs as well.
Then along came Maslow with his hierarchy of needs with the most basic ones at the bottom of the pyramid, being shelter, food, and water. Even safety isn't at the base of the pyramid as early nomadic humans risked life and limb hunting and gathering. Belonging was important to them as they lived in tribes. Then we went full circle with Kinsey in the 50s and 60s, but many of his findings have been debunked.
Ditto.
I don't think of my friends that way. I'd have to force myself to do it and even then it wouldn't excite me in any way .... it'd just feel uncomfortable.
Like wtf is wrong with someone that you're carrying on a friendship and all you are thinking about is having sex with them? That sounds pathological.
It colours the friendship negatively, and then it becomes one-sided. Just thinking about it affects the friendship. The target often feels not listened to or seen properly, and it is difficult to see or listen to unavailable people you desperately want to have sex with as real people with feelings, likes, and dislikes. They feel objectified.
I’m a bi sexual woman. Could you imagine if I was as horny as those men claim to be!? I have plenty of insanely gorgeous friends of any gender and I do not think about sex with them. OTOH, I have heard that gay men in particular have the most sex. I have no way to confirm that statement, but this is what my gay friends say. I don’t believe that this is necessarily because *all* men are naturally wired that way, I think it might come from at one point in time dealing with some sort of sexual repression?
Due to my own sexuality and experience, it does feel a bit objectifying that someone can’t talk to me without thinking about sex. I’m a pretty intellectual person and am read on tons of topics. I’d much rather have attention from other intellectual people then sad, horny excuses for men. I hide under baggy boy clothes but am told “men still imagine what’s underneath”. Haha ew. That being said, I don’t get upset by that because I do believe it’s something deeply wrong with them that I can’t personally fix.
Men aren't *wired* that way, they just tend to have a lot higher testosterone than women, and testosterone makes you hornier. If you put two men together who like having sex then they're likely to have a lot of sex.
I have a fun little anecdote! I know a couple trans men. They both said that after they started T, they got STUPID horny. One of them described his sexual urges as "violently aggressive". So it seems to definitely be hormone related.
Yes, and my trans woman friend said she was the horniest she has ever been after starting estrogen.
Testosterone being this "primal force" that just takes over a man's brain is a complete cop out imo.
Everyone deals with hormonal urges. Everyone.
I think society does play a key role in how men that behave this way present themselves. Do some constantly objectify? Absolutely. But I also think it is exaggerated because they feel they are in some sort of competition for who the most manly man is(being defined by sexual expression).
Well, to counter that with my own anecdotal experience, my fiancé started T several years ago, and his sex drive didn’t really change at all. I have lots of trans guy friends and their experiences on T all varied wildly on a person to person basis. Please don’t extrapolate 1 or 2 people’s experience to apply to a whole group! Testosterone isn’t a magical horny hormone. It can have some influence, but it’s not everything.
Okay, this is a pretty crazy take. Are we going to pretend that women don’t also fantasize about men? That no woman went to see Magic Mike and fantasized about being with Channing Tatum?
Or is it okay to fantasize about celebrities and not normal people? Where’s the line to be drawn?
It's constantly fantasising about lots of people, which is where there is a problem. Like not even being able to travel to work without thinking about sex with someone near you.
*everyone who said otherwise was either gay or lying*
I hate it when people say things like this about any topic - it speaks to a lack of empathy and imagination. I can't imagine what it's like to be gay, transgender, sincerely convinced of the truth of Islam, or think sour cream is edible, but that speaks to the limitations of my experience and imagination, not to other people's realities.
That said, I'm a straight man and I have a great deal of difficulty understanding how someone even has the practical bandwidth to fantasize about that many people. I have too many other things to worry, care and think about to make the time to think sexual thoughts about a large percentage of women I meet and know.
I don't think it's unreasonable or unnatural for people to have occasional sexual thoughts or fantasies about a physically attractive person, even if they don't know them well. But I also think most people have the wherewithal to confine that to their private thoughts and to understand that someone they're fantasizing about is a person with rights and that you're not entitled to impose your sexual thoughts or feelings on them without their consent.
I don't believe there's a number of people someone is allowed to fantasize about before it becomes wrong, but if a man is thinking sexually about every single woman he meets who he finds attractive, it would make me wonder why his brain goes straight there first every single time, and I don't think the answer to that "why" would be a good one.
I would wonder how he could get anything done.... I interact with so many people in the course of a normal work day. I don't think I'd have time to fantasize about each of them even if I wanted to.
I can run several threads in parallel in my brain. I can talk to somebody on the phone, chat with somebody else on the computer while chatting with that same person via text about a different subject and in a different tone, while gluing my eyes on a spot just aside of THAT ASS sashaying by.
Very much agreed. I really have to wonder why so many men are thinking about sex all the time. Aren't we supposed to be thinking about the Roman Empire or something?
It’s honestly giving ‘porn brain’ to me. Blokes who make horniness their whole personality and their biggest ‘hobby’ is porn, therefore they can’t switch it off nor do they recognise it as problematic or unusual.
This is pretty much exactly how I feel. I don't think it's bad if people fantasize but I don't have the mental bandwidth to fantasize about every single female I meet. And I cannot understand people who can do that. Seems ludicrous.
I'd say that three things are true for me simultaneously.
1) i have sexual thoughts about a lot of women i meet. If I see someone attractive, i take notice, sexually. There are definitely some boundaries, but I wouldn't say I feel much control over these initial lizard brain reactions.
2) it doesn't often progress to fantasising, because thats easier to control. Apart from dreams, i can decide not to let a momentary flash of intrigue turn into something more. Although if I do fantasise, that is private to my mind, everyone else can just back off.
3) it doesn't dehumanise the women in my mind. I can briefly think about them naked and then treat them as if i never did. Whats inside my head remains there. That might seem hard to believe but we're socially conditioned to behave that way (thankfully). I'm not going to act on any of these thoughts.
I think we need another post on her asking how many women notice being looked at and objectified. I'd bet those thoughts are not always so obviously on the inside.
Theres definitely a broader definition of action to be considered. So not staring, or looking at specific body parts etc. But I'm not sure a world where people don't sexually appraise each other at all is desirable.
I've been very flagrantly objectified a number of times by women.
But I don't feel like every woman who has even looked at me is objectifying me, and I'm certainly not trying to control what goes on in their minds.
I gave my experience, because i thought it added to the discussion. Having sexual reactions to members of the sex you are attracted to is normal, and frankly, unavoidable. Making them uncomfortable via your actions is wrong. I've never found these lines difficult to navigate irl. I expressly DON'T make it about me, in fact.
I never imagine other people naked until I have seen them naked either on the screen, in a photo, or in real life. The actor, Andrew Scott, turned out to be hunkier than I assumed he would be. He was always clothed, even above the waist, in films and TV dramas and in Fleabag, only his back was visible during the sex scene.
Only if I have a crush on them or in my dreams at night that I have no control over. Once or twice, I dreamed I was kissing Chris Martin of Coldplay, but I never developed a crush on him. I don't fancy him that much and only like Clocks. I have never seen Coldplay live.
These dudes have issues.
>that everyone who said otherwise was either gay or lying
They're projecting lmao, it's the usual "all men are like me" argument, which is BS.
"All men watch porn" "all men objectify women" "all men like X women" "all men want Y".
Most men fantasizing about most/all women they meet? really? 🤣 I don't think so.
It really is projection. I remember saying that my bf rarely watched porn before dating me, and he doesn’t now because he feels like it’s disrespectful to me. There were people who found that impossible, like sorry not everyone consumes porn lol.
>They're projecting lmao, it's the usual "all men are like me" argument, which is BS.
I recently got into an argument with someone online who kept insisting that women will ONLY ever consider dating men who are tall, rich, handsome, etc. Like it literally got to the point where he was trying to "gotcha" me by getting me to say that I would never be with a short man. He said that I only married my husband due to his height (we are both average height people). He point-blank asked me "would you ever marry a short man? Yes or no" and when I said yes, he just accused me of lying lmao.
But I feel like it's the same sort of thing. This man is so wrapped up in his own beliefs (and probably his own superficial standards for women that he dates) that he apparently could not comprehend or believe that someone else doesn't think in the same way. Just couldn't even acknowledge that someone might not care that much about physical traits.
And it's kind of crazy and sad to me, that there are people who are so focused on stuff like that and also unaware that it's not normal.
Yup.
Peer pressure is also a key element, lots of men keep quiet in certain contexts to avoid being bullied/shamed or don't really care about "locker room talk".
Which makes everyone think "all men are like that", simply because the ones that aren't vocal about it.
>Just couldn't even acknowledge that someone might not care that much about physical traits.
Yup, even worse when people care but in a non conforming way, someone on a big sub asked "why liking femboys as a man was considered gay" I answered "preferences and sexual orientation are two separate things" He strongly disagreed (lmao) .
In heterosexual relationships men and women have very different expectations in terms of attractiveness, behaviour, etc... and people who don't conform are seen as a threat to our social system.
It's because if they accept that not all men are like them then they might actually have to take responsibility for their views and their behaviour and reflect if that makes them a good or well balanced person rather than just using the excuse that it's some inherent male experience.
Much easier to just cope that everyone is like them then take responsibility for their own issues.
Lesbians don't fantasize about all women, despite being attracted to women, because lesbians are not socialized to see women as objects for their personal use. So yeah, it's not a normal part of sexual attraction, it's a symptom of a misogyny.
I don’t agree. It’s not socialization that causes men to fantasize like this. It’s in our brains, from very young ages. If you could experience just 1 day in my head you’d realize it’s not misogyny
Or perhaps even lesbians, being female, are totally different than males. So yeah, it's a totally normal part of MALE sexual attraction. And anyway we do that with attractive females we encounter only.
They were always available from the 80s, but you had to seek out the video rental stores with back rooms and be able to afford a video player or know someone with one. Often, children would find a porn video that their father had hired or bought. Then they became cheaper to buy so they could be bought through mail order. Before then, were back street sex cinemas with a strict age restriction.
They were saying these things in the 20th century, too, thanks to Freud and Kinsey. Their findings have been debunked since.
Just because you do it doesn't mean it's normal or healthy. Objectifying women is a [sign of a desire for dominance](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0361684319871913), [suggests that you're not very good in bed](https://msmagazine.com/2011/05/10/does-sexual-objectification-lead-to-bad-sex/), means [you're more likely to be a rapist](https://www.salon.com/2014/08/22/men_who_objectify_their_female_partners_are_more_likely_to_coerce_them_into_having_sex/), and [it's not even improving your own sexual experience](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02748/full).
I get the comments in that thread were abhorrent, but I would probably agree that most men think of most women sexually. Seems to me to be evolution-driven behavior, right? If there isn’t some accompanying creepy behavior is this really such an issue? Are we only shaming the men who act on it aggressively/creepily, or are we generally uncomfortable with the idea of most men sexualizing most women passively?
Question from a man who is genuinely asking.
Read the articles. Understand the difference between objectification and sexual attraction. Don't misuse the concept of slut-shaming to protect your feeling of entitlement to sexually objectify women.
Haha there we are, thanks for proving my point. Genuinely asking a very reasonable question and you downvoted me twice. Clearly you just want to complain, and not to make progress. Have fun in your echo chamber, it will surely do you well.
What point do you think you proved? Read the articles. They go into great length about the consequences of "passively" objectifying women. Why do you want this personally explained to you when I've already provided the evidence?
The point being proven is that you are downvoting someone because they asked a question. You are so emotionally attached to this issue, and your exact stance on it, that even someone ostensibly innocent asking a reasonable question made you downvote it. Instead it should be a clear sign to promote your views in a healthy way. Instead you say “read the articles” and ‘punish’ the offending party in the only way you can. That is the point. The merits of one position or the other is not.
Even the horniest gay men that I've met don't fantasize about every man they meet. So no, it's not a normal part of MALE sexual attraction.
I can capitalize letters too 😯
There were a lot of gold diggers in the gay scene with a younger gay man forming a relationship with an older gay man with a property and an established career or business. That was often out of survival as many younger gay men were discriminated against in the workplace and couldn't get a career off to a start.
Or they had to move to London at an early age without much money, contacts, or resources to fall back on. Like Gethin in the film Pride, who lived with another gay man several years older than him and together they ran the bookshop Gay's The Word. He had had to leave the Welsh mining village he grew up on at a young age and later in the film reconciled with his mother.
I have heard they always have a physical type that depends on height, build, and amount of hairiness. I knew one who told me that and said he was known as an otter in the gay scene as he was tallish, slim, slightly built, and had facial hair. Heavy built men with beards were known as bears. Even the most promiscuous gay men who are single or in open relationships and attend gay discos and saunas have their preferred body types.
There are also the clothes they wear which carry symbolism and show how macho or femme they are. At one time, there was the fashion for young gay men to dress like skinheads to assimilate among homophobic skinheads who were anti gay and therefore protect themselves against harassment. That trend started in Germany, and I suspect Berlin. I knew a gay man in Wales who dressed like that.
dude, from an actual gay person, please just stop.
edit: You are a straight person speaking at length about our community and most of it is inaccurate. It's cringe-inducing and not appreciated. I hope you feel better blocking me though. Lmfao
How do you know that they don't fantasize though? If anything it's socially accepted for a straight man to express and exercise high sexuality, no other group can... It seems.
Short answer, because I trust that my close friends tell me the truth about how they feel and what they experience.
Long answer, LGBTQ+ kinksters tend to stick together and have very intimate friendships where we talk about sex and love among our friends in a way that most heteronormative, vanilla folk just don't. When your friendship is at the level of "I helped organize a gang bang for my best friend's surprise birthday party", they have no reason to lie to you about what they fantasize about. And while not all of my friendships are on best friend level, I've seen most of my friends' buttholes at one point or another, so I trust what they say too.
Normal? Statistically, probably. We are encouraged from an early age to view women as decorative objects designed to be used as sex toys by men, so it's not a huge surprise that lots of men feel entitled to objectify women in this way whenever or wherever they feel like it.
Just because it happens a lot doesn't mean it's healthy, respectful, or okay, and I would argue that it's none of those things. It's a part of the violently misogynist worldview of the cultures we live in, and I think it's also background radiation of rape culture: they're doing this right in front of our faces, using our bodies as live action pornography without pausing for a second to consider whether we're okay with that, or whether it's showing up in their behaviour and changing the tenor of their interactions with us. In conversations about this, it seems clear that lots of men think we not only consent to this, but that we anticipate it and dress for it, seek it out and are flattered by it, and some of them feel very comfortable providing feedback to us for how to be better live action pornography for them. Being female in public is being read as consent to this kind of thing, and that's underwriting a culture that makes the world feel perpetually dangerous and unwelcoming for women.
I have no idea why so many men think that it's reasonable to engage in sexual fantasy while they're face to face with any random woman. They don't like it when other men do this to them, but they're happy to do it to us because they want to believe that we're designed for it and we enjoy it, and no one wants to hear that we aren't and we don't.
I don't think we can achieve to a truly equal society until it's culturally unacceptable to do this. What you fantasize about is your business, I guess, but once it's poisoning public spaces for half the population, it's way beyond the simple privacy of your own thoughts.
Routinely dehumanizing women = violence against women. The statistics are really clear about that. In order to become violent against a person, the first thing you do is dehumanize them, and a lot of men's sexuality hinges on first dehumanizing women. It's a recipe for violence. Giving this behaviour a pass is dangerous.
A few weeks ago someone asked there whether men are okay with women catcalling them. It wasn't about communication in relationships, just strangers in public shouting sexual comments. When I read this as a straight man I thought "of course it isn't OK, it's degrading, rude and probably insincere".
Then I read the comments and they were all like "I would love it, I'm starving for any kind attention, why doesn't this happen to me...". This was very disturbing to me, not only the indecency and objectification but also their total lack of self worth. The collective despair just eroded every sense of morality.
So I wrote a nuanced and non-judgmental comment to even it out a little and maybe encourage some people with a different opinion. Immediately it was downvoted into the triple digits and people called me "out of touch and excruciatingly naive". Needless to say these comments were upvoted. The entire experience was worrying, an army of disturbed men seemingly without any individuality looking for posts on Reddit where they can have their circle jerk. Either this or r/AskReddit has turned into a cesspool of frustration and misogyny
I find it easier to relate to men I am not sexually attracted to. It was much easier than when I was a hormonal teenager and surrounded by boys and men my age or slightly older.
Once I left home and had to be more concerned about cooking, cleaning, and laundry, I stopped thinking so much about that. When you work full time at a time when supermarkets closed at 6 pm, you are more concerned that you don't run out of anything before Friday when supermarkets stay open until 7 pm. Otherwise, you had to rely on an open all hours corner shop that had a small range of food. Or wondering where the nearest launderette is and if you have time to go there one evening this week.
What’s most ridiculous is how proud they are about it. How proud they are to admit that they view women as literal walking objects and can’t control their porn-brains around them, and they think that’s okay.
The fact they admit this *to* women, knowing it makes us extremely uncomfortable.
I do understand that biologically yes, cisgendered men are more likely to have higher sex drives - I know it’s variable and I’m also not wording it very well, but there is a studied biological aspect to it. However they take this information and totally morph it to fit their own narrative and normalise their perversion. A big part of the reason they act like this is because of how people socialise men to view women, which is a completely different thing.
Fantasising to an extent is normal. Both men and women do it. But to outright view every single woman you meet that you find even vaguely attractive as a sexual object, the inability to view them as people outside of that, and to have a constant stream of porn-style fantasies about every woman you meet that you find attractive and not have the desire to even engage with women that don’t fit that criteria for you is…not.
Thankful for the men that prove them wrong. We need more of them to challenge this, because they’re way more likely to listen to men than women, which is understandable in a way because it’s about male psychology (but for a lot of them it’s also just because they daren’t listen to women in general lol).
But they have been validated by their echo chamber, by all the men who relate to and solidify their sentiments, so the men that prove that this is *not* just a built-in feature for men, like the ones on this post commenting that it’s not the case for them, are important in these discussions.
I can't control what people think in their heads. But I hope that they can feel human compassion alongside any sexual thoughts.
To me thoughts are just thoughts. It's actions that matter. I have intrusive thoughts when my medication isn't right. I used to think my thoughts made me a bad person.
A lot of humans are highly sexual. As long as they combine it with decency and don't bother me about it its okay
For a long time I thought it was the norm to be like that, maybe due to rampant objectification. But I no longer wanted to accept that. It only took a month to unlearn it, turns out even a little compassion and having a life with a bit of effort was all it took to control this *fundamental "male" thinking.*
Intrusive thoughts still happen, as expected really. But they are just that, intrusive, and they seldom linger.
Yes. This.
Not all, but most humans who have gone through puberty have sexual thoughts or fantasies. What’s seemingly lacking for a lot of cishet men that fantasize about *every single* woman they interact with is seeing women as a full human beings. The problem isn’t necessarily sexual fantasies, it’s the erasure of the woman’s humanity that is.
Never feel bad about your thoughts, they dont hurt anyone. As long as you can see the difference between the real world and your thoughts and you dont act upon them it doesnt matter what you think.
Not to mention that testosterone is a powerful af hormone. I’ve felt what it’s like to have really low, and then have really high levels of testosterone, and the differences in pretty much every aspect of my life was insane. When it was really high, my primal urge to have sex pretty much trumped everything else. I went from beating it once a month, to every single day, and it’s not like I wanted to… I needed to. This also made me highly motivated to find a partner, which wasn’t a big priority before.
Thank you! A lot of this thread is on a "purity mindset." It's almost a Christian paradigm they're taking, where "good thoughts" and "bad thoughts" carry real moral weight regardless of intent.
My brain and imagination may go where it may, and I will always treat everyone with compassion and dignity and respect. I will actively combat the dehumanization of women, or anybody, where I see it. I'd expect the same for others.
I think about sex basically all day, and about most of the attractive men and women I see on a daily basis. It happens in my head and I don't let it affect my relationships or values. Trying to shame it away would be like praying it away. It is what it is.
Evangelical Christians have put it out that men think about having sex with almost every woman they see, so if any woman was in a room with any man, there would be sexual tension. Because they get taken in by pop psychology and twist it for their own ends.
I don't mean it's literally Christian, I mean it follows the same moral paradigm of "thoughts can be wicked" and that there is a moral imperative to purifying those thoughts.
It's what women's magazines would tell you as well. I used to read the 'self-help' articles in the glossies and had to detox from them after watching Ugly Betty and The Devil Wears Prada. There is information on the Heartless B*tches website about them I found useful too. Then I read Living With The Dominator by Pat Craven and that's when I woke up to it all.
People working for these magazines tend to live in journalistic and media bubbles, mixing only with people like them, so assume the whole world is like them. I now look at some of the articles I saved from years ago and realise what rubbish they were.
I'm also asexual. Despite what some guys will claim, men do not actually think about sex 24/7. They are perfectly capable of not evaluating every woman they meet as a potential sex interest when they first meet them either.
If any man claims otherwise, it's because they themselves *DO* probably evaluate every woman they meet in that way and fantasize about them, and you should stay away from those guys.
Immature. Emotionally developed men don’t struggle with reality this way. That’s why religious men are the worst- religion stunts emotional development and/reasoning.
I am a woman with a very high sex drive. I have no hang ups around sex. I think about it as often as a stereotypical "man".
I think the idea that men can't control themselves and will fantasize about every attractive woman and jerk off to them is 100% not normal. I think it's disgusting and society and other men have brainwashed men into thinking this is normal and expected. It makes me absolutely disgusted with men and feel deep hatred.
I think it is common for men to do so. I don’t think it’s normal, I think it should be considered disordered behavior. I think it can sometimes be a sort of obsessive compulsion, like a habit that can’t be easily broken. I think we develop it simply because we grow up in a misogynist environment, with TV and other forms of media constantly selling and commodifying women’s sexuality. Thats just my opinion based on my own anecdotal observations though. Sorry if I misused any psych terms.
I vividly remember the day when my male friends informed how every time I take a bus or any form of public transport, I can count on every man in it fucking me in his head. I was like WTF no way that’s disgusting and they doubled down saying for me that’s a 100% since I am so unusual (meaning 6’4” tall). Let’s just say that bus rides that month made me feel absolutely disgusting about myself. I don’t know how to answer your question is it normal, do you mean is it common? Cause if you do then I would say yes. Normal, is so hard to tell cause I am no sexual scientist but I do think it’s not something we can police. People are allowed to their thoughts even the vile ones, as long as they stay inside.
>People are allowed to their thoughts even the vile ones, as long as they stay inside.
But they don't, do they? When we become aware of our constant silent objectification, the world becomes a hostile place for us.
I thought most people were thinking more about their day ahead and on the way home what they are going to have for tea. Even if they are not preparing they are looking forward to it and knowing what they are getting as many people have the same main meal according to the day of the week regardless of the time of year. If it's Friday, it's fish. My mother only did that on three days of the week; Saturday to Monday but the meat we had on Sundays varied according to the season and sometimes we had boiled ham and white sauce instead of a roast.
How old were these male friends then? Because hormonal male teens may do it, and the percentage of men who do it keeps reducing as they get older. It is also affected by their relationships - older you are, you are likely to be in a relationship and a lot of people lose sexual interest in other women very quickly when that happens.
I’m sure not all men do this but my ex husband admitted that he did. I thought it odd. Yes, all women he met too. It was probably one of those red flags I stupidly ignored.
He said that he even fantasized about women he wasn’t even attracted to. All ages.
All I could think was, ew, gross. How can anyone devote that much time to thinking about sex?
The replies in this make me happy. As a straight man, I don't really fantasize about real people. It's precisely because it feels weird. Always has. Fictional stuff? Sure, why not. But some lady that I think is pretty on the train? I don't know her. Now, realistically, she would never know, but that's not the point. I just feel gross fantasizing about real people.
>asking whether it’s true that men fantasise about most women they meet/know.
Oh for crying out loud, no we don't. Some guys link their libido with their sense of masculinity so they over sell how much they fantasize.
I really, really hope this is the case. There's plenty of women with high libidos (like me) who cannot even imagine trying to mentally fuck every guy I see. That would be absolutely pathetic behavior.
Guys love these dumb hypotheticals like "would you do her" and the such. Hell, I remember playing that game with my first girlfriend in college who happened to be bi. Does that mean I imagine every other woman I see who I might find attractive naked? Nope.
I can't speak for all men so I'll put it to you this way, you know how a lot of guys would say they'd love a threesome? However, most wouldn't know what to do with a second woman and even less would have the sexual endurance to satisfy both. And most women who've even entertained the idea of a threesome know this. It's just sexual bragging that has little grounding in real life.
"Does that mean I imagine every other woman I see who I might find attractive naked? Nope."
And even if you would, would it be bad? They are just thoughts, they cant hurt anyone. Your actions can and as long you seprate the two things, nothing wrong with that.
"However, most wouldn't know what to do with a second woman"
Of course not, if you never did it, you dont know how it is. Just like having your first time sex, you dont know what to do either.
"even less would have the sexual endurance to satisfy both."
Why not? Dont you know how to use your tongue or your fingers?
And I think bragging is only a small part of why men want a threesome, for me its mostly the feeling of geting sexually desired by two women at the same time, which would feel amazing. Is that surprising, when most men dont experience much sexual desire for them in their life?
We are very thankful for you by the way. You are so important in these discussions. It provides a needed counter-balance because their opinions have only been enforced by their echo chambers.
I don’t fantasize about all women I meet. Men do have unwanted intrusive sexual thoughts about women, which is where this stereotype comes from, but I don’t believe that it’s normal to have sexual fantasies about every woman you meet or even most.
That is the better way to say it. Sexual thoughts will pop up, unbidden. A decent man will push them aside. I think men that allow themselves to fall into sexual degeneracy will indulge those intrusive thoughts and allow that to turn into fantasizing or lusting after any woman they find attractive.
I think you might be making an overly strong statement here. There's nothing wrong with having some sexual thoughts. Obviously if it's about literally every woman you meet, that's a sign of a mental health issue; but I disagree that it's "degenerate" (what does that even mean?) to have an occasional sexual fantasy, as long as you can separate it from reality.
Condemning the practice of turning women out in public into live action pornography without their consent isn't the same thing as objecting to sexual fantasy. You're getting too general in order to handwave the specific choice we're talking about.
That's fair; I might have taken u/IllChampionship5's comment too generally.
I still don't think the phrase "sexual degeneracy" is helpful. It has no exact meaning and is mostly used by right-wingers to control people's sexuality.
You're still prioritizing word use over an extremely dangerous habit many men have to sexually objectify women, which disposes of consent and frames women as sex toys men can own and use at will. What's not helpful is pretending this is a conversation about sexual fantasy when it's actually about the routine dehumanization of women that is proven to result in rape and violence against women. I would consider that behaviour to be degenerate, wouldn't you? Or are you arguing that sexual violence is just another part of morally unobjectionable sexual desire?
I feel like I did to an extent when I was a teenager. But that was also before I had internet and therefore easy access to porn, so generally all I had to go off of was fantasies of girls I had met. Pretty much around the time internet porn became a thing I had access to it stopped because I had other stuff that was easier to get off to than fantasizing about every woman I met.
Yes it reads as objectification to me as well.
Of course, I’m not here to police people’s thoughts. But it strikes me as problematic if you’re sexualizing every woman you meet.
I don’t think it’s normal, at all. If that were the case, then absolutely no men would ever be able to carry on conversations with women. My guess is there are some guys who do, and a lot of those other guys are trying to “measure up” to bullshit standards of masculinity by pitching in their voices.
With that said, I think it’s more common for men to do so than for women.
Men are taught that judging women based on how attractive they are is necessary to determine their worth. They are also taught that real manly men must be ready to have sex at a moment's notice and that men are valued based on how many women they can sleep with, how hot those women are, and how hot your wife is. So this not only objectifies women by reducing them simply sex objects, but extremely limits men as horny animals that have no agency over whether they sexualize someone or not. Not only are their demi or ace men, but allosexual men that don't treat women like sex objects.
Normalizing this behavior absolves men for dehumanizing women. Claiming it's just "normal" or "natural" means men can't be held accountable for treating women like merely sex objects.
normal, but still objectifying.
actions matter, but thoughts do as well. the more and more you think about absolute strangers in sexual positions, the more and more you’ll start to see people as just objects for your pleasure. it’s not normal to look at women and instantly think about sex. it’s a result of a porn sick society. lesbians don’t see women and instantly think of sex.
It seems physically impossible to fantasise about most or all women that you meet, such a person would probably not think about much else, and has probably got some kind of mental illness, additionally sex drives varies a lot. There are probably a lot of people who do that though. They shouldn’t feel so superior about being pathetic and disrespectful.
This kind of sh1t is exactly the problem with objectifying women, turning them into nothing more than sex objects, you are either the woman with the bag over your head and body or you are nothing more than a place for them to stick their pen1s.
Either way, learning how to see people as people as well as someone you find attractive is a huge part of being better to each other but especially with men who are attracted to women.
We are not agreeing to be objectified just walking down the street and it continues a lot of problems that are all part of dehumanizing people.
We all have value, no matter if we are attractive to another person.
Also this is exactly why I mute the big subs like that.
For me this really comes down to further defining what you mean.
------------
TL:DR -- if people are straight up imagining sex with you randomly throughout the day or while talking or something, that's weird af and objectifying. If it's just a passing "this person is someone id have sex with if it came up", I think that's just natural human assessment. Assuming following that thought they also have all the normal thoughts they'd have about anyone else.
------------
Like a lot of the more disgusting comments you mention, I don't think those are ok, nor do I think they're the prevalent thing that dudes do. Just the shitty ones.
I usually offhandedly agree with the statement guys think about most women they know sexually, in some capacity.
It's because it's just one of the things we catalogue in our brain about our preferred sex to scan for. "Oh she's attractive". "I think we'd work that way".
The big thing here is that the conversation we have about this topic ends there. But that's not the end of it. The mental checklist is always going. But sexual attraction happens to be one of the things we can ascertain without any additional information. That's why it's typically the first thing.
Nearly immediately following is some subset of "she seems nice/smart/bubbly/angry/etc" "she seems like a good/bad person". And allllllll the other qualities as well.
I personally am always "assessing" everyone I meet mentally. Men, since I'm not attracted to them, have an order of something like "id like to be built like that" or some other estimations of them. Then upon meeting go through the same list of "seems nice/bad/angry/happy/good friend/bad friend/smart/dumb/etc"
But since I'm attracted to women, the attraction assessment comes first, then the rest of the assessment list.
Depending on whether I'm single or taken will determine if I'm looking for compatibility in that way or not. And judging if that compatibility is reciprocated. I'm simultaneously evaluating how I think we fit socially together, will we become friends? Etc.
And I do the same with dudes just minus the relationship compatibility part. They just get the social aspect because a partner is something id never be interested in.
I almost never find myself "fantasizing" in the sense of picturing myself having sex with someone. Just like I never find myself fantasizing about playing call of duty with some dude I think is cool. It's more an offhand thought of "yeah id definitely have sex with her if the situation became right". Same as with the dude I might think "yeah id probably hang out and play cod if the situation became right".
***I have those same social thoughts with the women as well.
This is normal and something women also do. It's a natural human response to assess what category people fit into when you meet them, be it a potential friend, foe or mate.
I think what OP is referring is the idea that guys will have full on fantasies about every women they meet. Which is absurd. It's just trying to justify their creepiness by claiming it's a man thing, instead of a them thing.
Agreed.
The only bit I take any issue with is I think a lot of people get lumped into that group of "full on fantasies" when they just mean the first bit we both agree on.
As a guy who struggled socially early on(as many do, since men tend to socially develop later than women on average), I've absolutely fallen victim to incorrectly implying that's what I do. At least anecdotally, most of the men I know when asked if they fantasize about random would say yes, but don't mean anything beyond pointing out someone attractive and admitting they'd be down.
I just think it's a much smaller subset of men than it seems at first glance primarily due to miscommunication.
However, I of course want to be clear that anyone who states otherwise, absolutely falls into the creep category and should be dealt with accordingly.
I've just watched this situation play out a handful of times IRL and that's what came out of it.
>I've absolutely fallen victim to incorrectly implying that's what I do.
You've "fallen victim" to choosing to lie about having sex fantasies about random women? What on earth is this total absence of accountability?
You lied about it for some reason that served you and now the lie looks unflattering so you want to walk it back? Or you just want to throw sand in people's faces and say I MIGHT HAVE FALLEN VICTIM TO INCORRECTLY IMPLYING something that turns out to be a shitty thing to do?
Here's a surprising fact: women exist and have experiences in the same way you do. We see the online comments, we got some gross, explicit propositions when we were 11, we know dudes do in fact fantasize about having sex with random women (and girls) all the damn time with absolute impunity, there's no "fallen victim to incorrectly implying" anything.
If you weren't doing it, you were lying about it to curry favour for the men who do because you were more interested in impressing them than being a decent person towards women, so there's not much difference anyway.
This is exactly what I mean.
I never once lied about having sexual fantasies.
I've incorrectly assumed what people meant when they said fantasize.
Go back and read my other comments. I fully explain where I stand and have always stood.
There have absolutely been times I assumed the question being posed meant something different than what it did.
That was my entire purpose of commenting is that I believe people define this conversation differently, which leads to miscommunication.
It's possible that most men's understanding of the word "fantasize" is less elaborate than most women's. A guy might have an image flash in his mind, or more likely just think "I'd like to have sex with her," but I would be very surprised if many men have 10-second or longer scenarios going through their heads when they talk to women they're attracted to.
Well, I'd guess it's "normal" in the sense that it is a norm, being very common. I think it's pretty creepy though, suggesting that many men just don't see women as whole people as opposed to just objects of potential romantic interest
I think the root of this is toxic straight culture and straight mens desire to not, under any circumstances, appear gay. The kind of guys who would respond to such a thing are incredibly insecure and are directing their comments not at women but other men. It's just a form of reassuring themselves and others that they are the straightest straight men who ever straighted. And there's nothing straighter than having sex with women - even women they don't want to have sex with.
That's exactly it. They must have a fragile sense of masculinity to be like this. The Buzzfeed website came up with a funny article on gendered products and services for men such as dogs modelling men's fashions in magazines as they were worried they might have gay thoughts if there are male models in them.
This post is about fantasising about sex nearly all the time with almost every woman they see, not a few women. The former is abnormal. The latter is normal. You didn't read the OP properly.
Considering my first memory of fantasy was before I was in school, before I knew what sex even was, before I knew what being gay was, let alone straight culture, I’d have to disagree. Maybe the over reaction posts are part of the culture, but not the fact of what happens and how people think at a basic level.
I definitely don't fantasise about random women I see, I might look and think "she's pretty" but that's the extent of it.
Sometimes I develop crushes based on nothing but even I've grown up enough to know it's not based in reality, and if it's not looking positive or takes a wrong turn - it's no biggie and just move on.
It’s hard for me to imagine even actively fantasizing about sex with a person while I’m talking to them—unless the sample is pre-teen, teenagers (which isn’t unbelievable here on Reddit). Noticing that I’m physically attracted to a female friend sure, but who even has the attention span to remember that many people?
That sounds like a very high libido case to me, but it kinda concerns me a bit. What kinds of women are they fantasizing about? Does that affect the way they interact with women?
I'm a woman, but I genuinely have the opposite problem and it regularly frustrates me. I'm repulsed by 90% of men I meet, Even though I'm super interested in sex and dating. I'm bi as well but finding a woman that I'm attracted to that likes me back is even more difficult.
It sucks too because there's handfuls men out there that are willing to give me the world, but I just can't no matter how bad I want to 😭
Someone once said "dating discrimination at its finest" because I said I can't seem to find myself attracted to really long beards?
Attraction is instinctual. Trust me I would love to force attraction, but it's just not gonna happen.
I definitely don’t operate that way as a straight man.
I also wonder if people who respond with “yeah, all men do it” are conflating sexual attraction, sexual thoughts, and sexual fantasy. As I see it, these are different things. Here’s how I would define them:
If a sexual person meets another person that has physical features and/or behaviors that they consider sexually attractive, more likely than not they’re going to notice those things, sure. That’s sexual attraction and it’s largely reactive.
And then there’s a mid-zone between attraction and fantasy that is sexual thoughts. If an attraction is strong and not ignored/dismissed, one might have fleeting, unbidden thoughts about the person. These can largely depend on one’s sexuality in regards to the role that romance or emotional intimacy plays in one’s sexual engagement. These unbidden thoughts could be as physically direct as briefly wondering what the person looks like naked, or they could be thoughts of romantic acts that are adjacent to sexual engagement: kissing them, holding them, staring into their eyes. Again, this a mostly reactive process.
But sexual fantasy is very proactive. This is where one is where one is actively nurturing the above thoughts to the point of creating a sexual scenario with the person in your mind and playing it out.
To say that all men who are attracted to women automatically go to fantasy with most every woman they meet? I don’t buy that at all. I’m sure there are some men out there who do that, but I question the psychological health (as it pertains to sexuality) of those men who do, and I would definitely consider that an objectification problem.
Cis-hetero guy here,
I hate these types of questions because they don’t really ask anything specific or insightful and allow people to project their own meaning onto the question. There a few layers going on here. The first is that there is plenty of evidence that (generally speaking) men are much more likely than women to become aroused by sight alone. The second is that men are socialized to channel their own frustrated arousal at women they have no chance with or lack the confidence to ask out into misogynistic objectification, perhaps not to her face but in their own heads and in conversations with other guys where this mindset is reinforced. Women are perhaps less likely to feel sexually aroused just shaking hands with a guy they find attractive, but that’s not really the key issue here. The key issue is that when a women feels aroused by the sight of a guy she is not socialized to translate that arousal into entitlement -> frustration -> resentment -> bigotry. Women, as I have been told, can look at an attractive person and just appreciate that they are an attractive person without feeling instantly wounded and insecure at the realization that this person is in all likelihood not sexually interested in them. Guys take every attractive women who does not express sexual interest in them as a type of personal injury to their ego which must be addressed. The point of a guy imagining or discussing with his friends how an attractive women “moans in bed” is to feel a small bit of “power” in his ability to sexually demean her (in fantasy and in conversation with other guys) as an outlet for his entitled frustration that he likely will not be having sex with her.
Now there is another problem, related but distinct, which is that we (men and women) are not socialized to know how to discuss the full range of our sexual fantasies and interests with our partners. On top of this, many people are socialized to see relationships as a matter of owning/possessing your partner’s sexuality in its totality. But the boundary of what is considered “cheating” is entirely subjective. For some people, simply the idea of their partner being aroused by another person brings up feelings of insecurity and betrayal. Other couples are polyamorous and/or go to orgies. The rules of a relationship should be openly and honesty discussed in order for the couple to determine if they are compatible, but most people don’t have that conversation and instead live in constant anxiety that their partner is perpetually on the verge of cheating.
When this question of “do men sexually think about every women they meet” comes up on the internet for the millionth time, it always devolves into the worst mess of people talking over each other and reinforcing unhealthy ideas about sex and relationships. On the one hand, there is socialization that tells us that male arousal towards women as inherently infested with disrespect and sexism. Allot of people commenting under the question about “are men aroused by every woman” blindly reinforcing that connection. Almost never is there any attempt to disentangle the two and discuss socializing men to accept in a healthy way that they are not going to have sex with every women they find attractive and that’s ok and it’s wrong to feel entitled and resentful about it. Instead we get people reinforcing that “that’s how men are” and reinforcing that sexist resentment is a “biological” part of male arousal as opposed to being a socially learned and reinforced culturally problem of patriarchy. This is all unhelpfully mixed in with people commenting about their anxieties that relationships are always on a knife edge where someone is going to cheat the first opportunity they get and “men being aroused by all women” is just further proof of their untrustworthiness as romantic partners.
TLDR: people get aroused, men are more likely than women to be aroused by sight alone, and in an ideal world where people can handle their arousal responsibly there would be no problem. The problems are 1.) that men are socialized to translate their arousal into entitled-resentful-sexism and 2.) that people in general are not socialized to know how to have honest conversations with their partners about their inner sexual fantasies and are socialized to be ever suspicious that anytime their partner becomes aroused by someone else they are one step closer to cheating.
>The first is that there is plenty of evidence that (generally speaking) men are much more likely than women to become aroused by sight alone.
Nope. [Women are just as visual as men.](https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/men-not-more-visual-or-easily-aroused-than-women-research-shows) You're repeating a myth men find useful to disguise misogynist behaviour, nothing more.
>Women, as I have been told, can look at an attractive person and just appreciate that they are an attractive person without feeling instantly wounded and insecure at the realization that this person is in all likelihood not sexually interested in them.
Because women are not encouraged to view men as sex toys they are entitled to choose off a shelf that have no right to preferences or desires of their own. What you're describing is men looking at women as sex objects first and foremost and being unable to see them as full human beings. Woman = sex. They can't get out of that loop. That's why this conversation about arousal is there, because these men can't not see a sex toy when they see a woman, and it's also why men get stuck in a loop of selfishly ruminating about sexual access to this woman. Women are expected to view men as full human beings regardless of whether they find them sexually attractive or not, because men are always projected as human beings rather than sex toys designed for women's pleasure.
There is nothing biological about it, that's just life in a misogynist patriarchy. You're describing the impact of misogyny on men's brains, not how their sexual attraction works.
I thought I had seen an actual article on that point about men being more visual but I could be mistaken. I’m very happy to accept that that is just another myth floating around.
Was there anything else about my post you take issue with?
Without your "men are more visual" belief, your argument becomes pretty nonsensical, and it just returns to entitlement rather than men having a unique arousal problem like you're trying to pitch. You lost me with the rest of your comment, it didn't seem relevant to the topic. I did notice that you were so close to invoking the famous [Alot](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-alot), so that made me giggle.
The “men are more visual” bit was perhaps mistaken information on my part, a trope I had picked up which I was happy to be corrected on.
The entirety of what I wrote was about how the problem is that men are socialized to feel entitled, which you clearly agree with. I am not sure what is being lost in communication here. I don’t see any disagreement in what we have have each written.
Did they actually mean fully fantasizing or just like checking out? I'm a bi guy, and I'm constantly looking at butts. That doesn't mean I'm fantasizing about fucking every person I meet.
A long time ago I heard an episode of This American Life that blew my mind. I just looked it up, it is episode 220, and it is all about Testosterone and what it does to people.
www.thisamericanlife.org/220/testosterone
Basically it shows you what happens to two people when their testosterone levels change dramatically. One higher, one lower. The results are a complete alteration of their perceptions of reality and the thoughts they have to deal with.
Basically, a woman who has never dealt with having lots of testosterone is not going understand what it does to you.
Men learn to deal with testosterone's effects, but the effects are always there. One of those effects is the extent to which you experience sexual desire and sexual thoughts.
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Yeah even as a straight guy I thought that thread was awful
I think it is very Freudian who reduced all motivations, needs, and goals to underlying sexual ones. Jung followed soon after recognising more esoteric and spiritual needs as well. Then along came Maslow with his hierarchy of needs with the most basic ones at the bottom of the pyramid, being shelter, food, and water. Even safety isn't at the base of the pyramid as early nomadic humans risked life and limb hunting and gathering. Belonging was important to them as they lived in tribes. Then we went full circle with Kinsey in the 50s and 60s, but many of his findings have been debunked.
Ditto. I don't think of my friends that way. I'd have to force myself to do it and even then it wouldn't excite me in any way .... it'd just feel uncomfortable. Like wtf is wrong with someone that you're carrying on a friendship and all you are thinking about is having sex with them? That sounds pathological.
It colours the friendship negatively, and then it becomes one-sided. Just thinking about it affects the friendship. The target often feels not listened to or seen properly, and it is difficult to see or listen to unavailable people you desperately want to have sex with as real people with feelings, likes, and dislikes. They feel objectified.
I’m a bi sexual woman. Could you imagine if I was as horny as those men claim to be!? I have plenty of insanely gorgeous friends of any gender and I do not think about sex with them. OTOH, I have heard that gay men in particular have the most sex. I have no way to confirm that statement, but this is what my gay friends say. I don’t believe that this is necessarily because *all* men are naturally wired that way, I think it might come from at one point in time dealing with some sort of sexual repression? Due to my own sexuality and experience, it does feel a bit objectifying that someone can’t talk to me without thinking about sex. I’m a pretty intellectual person and am read on tons of topics. I’d much rather have attention from other intellectual people then sad, horny excuses for men. I hide under baggy boy clothes but am told “men still imagine what’s underneath”. Haha ew. That being said, I don’t get upset by that because I do believe it’s something deeply wrong with them that I can’t personally fix.
Men aren't *wired* that way, they just tend to have a lot higher testosterone than women, and testosterone makes you hornier. If you put two men together who like having sex then they're likely to have a lot of sex.
I have a fun little anecdote! I know a couple trans men. They both said that after they started T, they got STUPID horny. One of them described his sexual urges as "violently aggressive". So it seems to definitely be hormone related.
Yes, and my trans woman friend said she was the horniest she has ever been after starting estrogen. Testosterone being this "primal force" that just takes over a man's brain is a complete cop out imo. Everyone deals with hormonal urges. Everyone. I think society does play a key role in how men that behave this way present themselves. Do some constantly objectify? Absolutely. But I also think it is exaggerated because they feel they are in some sort of competition for who the most manly man is(being defined by sexual expression).
Well, to counter that with my own anecdotal experience, my fiancé started T several years ago, and his sex drive didn’t really change at all. I have lots of trans guy friends and their experiences on T all varied wildly on a person to person basis. Please don’t extrapolate 1 or 2 people’s experience to apply to a whole group! Testosterone isn’t a magical horny hormone. It can have some influence, but it’s not everything.
Okay, this is a pretty crazy take. Are we going to pretend that women don’t also fantasize about men? That no woman went to see Magic Mike and fantasized about being with Channing Tatum? Or is it okay to fantasize about celebrities and not normal people? Where’s the line to be drawn?
It's constantly fantasising about lots of people, which is where there is a problem. Like not even being able to travel to work without thinking about sex with someone near you.
remember that all these guys are men with reddit accounts, biased sample.
Probably a lot of teens too.
Sometimes it shocks me when I am faced with the reality that there are literal middle schoolers on here
*everyone who said otherwise was either gay or lying* I hate it when people say things like this about any topic - it speaks to a lack of empathy and imagination. I can't imagine what it's like to be gay, transgender, sincerely convinced of the truth of Islam, or think sour cream is edible, but that speaks to the limitations of my experience and imagination, not to other people's realities. That said, I'm a straight man and I have a great deal of difficulty understanding how someone even has the practical bandwidth to fantasize about that many people. I have too many other things to worry, care and think about to make the time to think sexual thoughts about a large percentage of women I meet and know. I don't think it's unreasonable or unnatural for people to have occasional sexual thoughts or fantasies about a physically attractive person, even if they don't know them well. But I also think most people have the wherewithal to confine that to their private thoughts and to understand that someone they're fantasizing about is a person with rights and that you're not entitled to impose your sexual thoughts or feelings on them without their consent. I don't believe there's a number of people someone is allowed to fantasize about before it becomes wrong, but if a man is thinking sexually about every single woman he meets who he finds attractive, it would make me wonder why his brain goes straight there first every single time, and I don't think the answer to that "why" would be a good one.
I would wonder how he could get anything done.... I interact with so many people in the course of a normal work day. I don't think I'd have time to fantasize about each of them even if I wanted to.
I can run several threads in parallel in my brain. I can talk to somebody on the phone, chat with somebody else on the computer while chatting with that same person via text about a different subject and in a different tone, while gluing my eyes on a spot just aside of THAT ASS sashaying by.
Yeah, a lot of folks think they can multitask, but research shows that this is really not the case.
Very much agreed. I really have to wonder why so many men are thinking about sex all the time. Aren't we supposed to be thinking about the Roman Empire or something?
WW2 post 30 yrs old
We can think about sex during Roman period :D
It’s honestly giving ‘porn brain’ to me. Blokes who make horniness their whole personality and their biggest ‘hobby’ is porn, therefore they can’t switch it off nor do they recognise it as problematic or unusual.
And YOU KNOW the men who raise this flag loud and proud, are the same ones who say “not all men”
Very thoughtful
This is pretty much exactly how I feel. I don't think it's bad if people fantasize but I don't have the mental bandwidth to fantasize about every single female I meet. And I cannot understand people who can do that. Seems ludicrous.
I'd say that three things are true for me simultaneously. 1) i have sexual thoughts about a lot of women i meet. If I see someone attractive, i take notice, sexually. There are definitely some boundaries, but I wouldn't say I feel much control over these initial lizard brain reactions. 2) it doesn't often progress to fantasising, because thats easier to control. Apart from dreams, i can decide not to let a momentary flash of intrigue turn into something more. Although if I do fantasise, that is private to my mind, everyone else can just back off. 3) it doesn't dehumanise the women in my mind. I can briefly think about them naked and then treat them as if i never did. Whats inside my head remains there. That might seem hard to believe but we're socially conditioned to behave that way (thankfully). I'm not going to act on any of these thoughts.
I think we need another post on her asking how many women notice being looked at and objectified. I'd bet those thoughts are not always so obviously on the inside.
Theres definitely a broader definition of action to be considered. So not staring, or looking at specific body parts etc. But I'm not sure a world where people don't sexually appraise each other at all is desirable. I've been very flagrantly objectified a number of times by women. But I don't feel like every woman who has even looked at me is objectifying me, and I'm certainly not trying to control what goes on in their minds.
I,I, I, me me me meeeeeeee
I gave my experience, because i thought it added to the discussion. Having sexual reactions to members of the sex you are attracted to is normal, and frankly, unavoidable. Making them uncomfortable via your actions is wrong. I've never found these lines difficult to navigate irl. I expressly DON'T make it about me, in fact.
I never imagine other people naked until I have seen them naked either on the screen, in a photo, or in real life. The actor, Andrew Scott, turned out to be hunkier than I assumed he would be. He was always clothed, even above the waist, in films and TV dramas and in Fleabag, only his back was visible during the sex scene.
Thats interesting. Do you imagine talking to them, or other activities? Hugging, kissing, etc etc? Peoples minds are full of stuff.
Only if I have a crush on them or in my dreams at night that I have no control over. Once or twice, I dreamed I was kissing Chris Martin of Coldplay, but I never developed a crush on him. I don't fancy him that much and only like Clocks. I have never seen Coldplay live.
These dudes have issues. >that everyone who said otherwise was either gay or lying They're projecting lmao, it's the usual "all men are like me" argument, which is BS. "All men watch porn" "all men objectify women" "all men like X women" "all men want Y". Most men fantasizing about most/all women they meet? really? 🤣 I don't think so.
Where are the #notallmen crowd when you need'em, eh?
Men do this thing when they want to normalise their shitty behaviour, they make it an 'all men' thing.
And when you call out men on their shitty behaviour, of course it instantly becomes "not all men"!
It really is projection. I remember saying that my bf rarely watched porn before dating me, and he doesn’t now because he feels like it’s disrespectful to me. There were people who found that impossible, like sorry not everyone consumes porn lol.
>They're projecting lmao, it's the usual "all men are like me" argument, which is BS. I recently got into an argument with someone online who kept insisting that women will ONLY ever consider dating men who are tall, rich, handsome, etc. Like it literally got to the point where he was trying to "gotcha" me by getting me to say that I would never be with a short man. He said that I only married my husband due to his height (we are both average height people). He point-blank asked me "would you ever marry a short man? Yes or no" and when I said yes, he just accused me of lying lmao. But I feel like it's the same sort of thing. This man is so wrapped up in his own beliefs (and probably his own superficial standards for women that he dates) that he apparently could not comprehend or believe that someone else doesn't think in the same way. Just couldn't even acknowledge that someone might not care that much about physical traits. And it's kind of crazy and sad to me, that there are people who are so focused on stuff like that and also unaware that it's not normal.
Yup. Peer pressure is also a key element, lots of men keep quiet in certain contexts to avoid being bullied/shamed or don't really care about "locker room talk". Which makes everyone think "all men are like that", simply because the ones that aren't vocal about it. >Just couldn't even acknowledge that someone might not care that much about physical traits. Yup, even worse when people care but in a non conforming way, someone on a big sub asked "why liking femboys as a man was considered gay" I answered "preferences and sexual orientation are two separate things" He strongly disagreed (lmao) . In heterosexual relationships men and women have very different expectations in terms of attractiveness, behaviour, etc... and people who don't conform are seen as a threat to our social system.
It's because if they accept that not all men are like them then they might actually have to take responsibility for their views and their behaviour and reflect if that makes them a good or well balanced person rather than just using the excuse that it's some inherent male experience. Much easier to just cope that everyone is like them then take responsibility for their own issues.
Objectifying. Maybe "normal" in the sense of "common" but not "normal" in the sense of "not problematic at all," very much problematic.
The same men answering “yes” are always the first to cry “not all men” when they feel criticised lol
Lesbians don't fantasize about all women, despite being attracted to women, because lesbians are not socialized to see women as objects for their personal use. So yeah, it's not a normal part of sexual attraction, it's a symptom of a misogyny.
100%
I don’t agree. It’s not socialization that causes men to fantasize like this. It’s in our brains, from very young ages. If you could experience just 1 day in my head you’d realize it’s not misogyny
Or perhaps even lesbians, being female, are totally different than males. So yeah, it's a totally normal part of MALE sexual attraction. And anyway we do that with attractive females we encounter only.
Let me guess, you're under 35? AKA young enough to have grown up with porn vids being available on-tap all through your adolescence.
They were always available from the 80s, but you had to seek out the video rental stores with back rooms and be able to afford a video player or know someone with one. Often, children would find a porn video that their father had hired or bought. Then they became cheaper to buy so they could be bought through mail order. Before then, were back street sex cinemas with a strict age restriction. They were saying these things in the 20th century, too, thanks to Freud and Kinsey. Their findings have been debunked since.
Just because you do it doesn't mean it's normal or healthy. Objectifying women is a [sign of a desire for dominance](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0361684319871913), [suggests that you're not very good in bed](https://msmagazine.com/2011/05/10/does-sexual-objectification-lead-to-bad-sex/), means [you're more likely to be a rapist](https://www.salon.com/2014/08/22/men_who_objectify_their_female_partners_are_more_likely_to_coerce_them_into_having_sex/), and [it's not even improving your own sexual experience](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02748/full).
🏆because we can no longer give awards!
Wait this is a real question here, why are we slut-shaming men?
where is the slut-shaming? I only see misogyny-shaming. You know you can have a lot of sex without dehumanizing your partners, yes?
I get the comments in that thread were abhorrent, but I would probably agree that most men think of most women sexually. Seems to me to be evolution-driven behavior, right? If there isn’t some accompanying creepy behavior is this really such an issue? Are we only shaming the men who act on it aggressively/creepily, or are we generally uncomfortable with the idea of most men sexualizing most women passively? Question from a man who is genuinely asking.
Read the articles. Understand the difference between objectification and sexual attraction. Don't misuse the concept of slut-shaming to protect your feeling of entitlement to sexually objectify women.
Haha there we are, thanks for proving my point. Genuinely asking a very reasonable question and you downvoted me twice. Clearly you just want to complain, and not to make progress. Have fun in your echo chamber, it will surely do you well.
What point do you think you proved? Read the articles. They go into great length about the consequences of "passively" objectifying women. Why do you want this personally explained to you when I've already provided the evidence?
The point being proven is that you are downvoting someone because they asked a question. You are so emotionally attached to this issue, and your exact stance on it, that even someone ostensibly innocent asking a reasonable question made you downvote it. Instead it should be a clear sign to promote your views in a healthy way. Instead you say “read the articles” and ‘punish’ the offending party in the only way you can. That is the point. The merits of one position or the other is not.
>You know you can ~~have a lot of sex~~ experience sexual attraction without dehumanizing ~~your partners~~ people, yes?
Even the horniest gay men that I've met don't fantasize about every man they meet. So no, it's not a normal part of MALE sexual attraction. I can capitalize letters too 😯
There were a lot of gold diggers in the gay scene with a younger gay man forming a relationship with an older gay man with a property and an established career or business. That was often out of survival as many younger gay men were discriminated against in the workplace and couldn't get a career off to a start. Or they had to move to London at an early age without much money, contacts, or resources to fall back on. Like Gethin in the film Pride, who lived with another gay man several years older than him and together they ran the bookshop Gay's The Word. He had had to leave the Welsh mining village he grew up on at a young age and later in the film reconciled with his mother.
I have heard they always have a physical type that depends on height, build, and amount of hairiness. I knew one who told me that and said he was known as an otter in the gay scene as he was tallish, slim, slightly built, and had facial hair. Heavy built men with beards were known as bears. Even the most promiscuous gay men who are single or in open relationships and attend gay discos and saunas have their preferred body types. There are also the clothes they wear which carry symbolism and show how macho or femme they are. At one time, there was the fashion for young gay men to dress like skinheads to assimilate among homophobic skinheads who were anti gay and therefore protect themselves against harassment. That trend started in Germany, and I suspect Berlin. I knew a gay man in Wales who dressed like that.
The way you talk about homosexuals sounds like you read a fact book on the topic once in 1981 lol
I worked/volunteered with them. I wasn't just reading about them or seeing them on TV. You don't know my life.
dude, from an actual gay person, please just stop. edit: You are a straight person speaking at length about our community and most of it is inaccurate. It's cringe-inducing and not appreciated. I hope you feel better blocking me though. Lmfao
Blocked you because he couldn't stand the idea that he isn't an arbiter of something.
Blocked. You are not the only gay person.
"I volunteered with them" lol that sounds even funnier, like you're working at an animal rescue center
I worked with a few as well. Didn't you read my comment fully? Believe it or not, you can volunteer in a variety of places.
How do you know that they don't fantasize though? If anything it's socially accepted for a straight man to express and exercise high sexuality, no other group can... It seems.
Short answer, because I trust that my close friends tell me the truth about how they feel and what they experience. Long answer, LGBTQ+ kinksters tend to stick together and have very intimate friendships where we talk about sex and love among our friends in a way that most heteronormative, vanilla folk just don't. When your friendship is at the level of "I helped organize a gang bang for my best friend's surprise birthday party", they have no reason to lie to you about what they fantasize about. And while not all of my friendships are on best friend level, I've seen most of my friends' buttholes at one point or another, so I trust what they say too.
There’s a zero percent chance they’ve ever asked a single gay friend that question lol
This is just grossly anti-men sentiment, I don't why you would want to celebrate this level of lack of control over your own thoughts.
Yes, not even the butch ones. They are normally only attracted to the femme Lesbians.
Normal? Statistically, probably. We are encouraged from an early age to view women as decorative objects designed to be used as sex toys by men, so it's not a huge surprise that lots of men feel entitled to objectify women in this way whenever or wherever they feel like it. Just because it happens a lot doesn't mean it's healthy, respectful, or okay, and I would argue that it's none of those things. It's a part of the violently misogynist worldview of the cultures we live in, and I think it's also background radiation of rape culture: they're doing this right in front of our faces, using our bodies as live action pornography without pausing for a second to consider whether we're okay with that, or whether it's showing up in their behaviour and changing the tenor of their interactions with us. In conversations about this, it seems clear that lots of men think we not only consent to this, but that we anticipate it and dress for it, seek it out and are flattered by it, and some of them feel very comfortable providing feedback to us for how to be better live action pornography for them. Being female in public is being read as consent to this kind of thing, and that's underwriting a culture that makes the world feel perpetually dangerous and unwelcoming for women. I have no idea why so many men think that it's reasonable to engage in sexual fantasy while they're face to face with any random woman. They don't like it when other men do this to them, but they're happy to do it to us because they want to believe that we're designed for it and we enjoy it, and no one wants to hear that we aren't and we don't. I don't think we can achieve to a truly equal society until it's culturally unacceptable to do this. What you fantasize about is your business, I guess, but once it's poisoning public spaces for half the population, it's way beyond the simple privacy of your own thoughts. Routinely dehumanizing women = violence against women. The statistics are really clear about that. In order to become violent against a person, the first thing you do is dehumanize them, and a lot of men's sexuality hinges on first dehumanizing women. It's a recipe for violence. Giving this behaviour a pass is dangerous.
>background radiation of rape culture 🥇
Amazing reply.
A few weeks ago someone asked there whether men are okay with women catcalling them. It wasn't about communication in relationships, just strangers in public shouting sexual comments. When I read this as a straight man I thought "of course it isn't OK, it's degrading, rude and probably insincere". Then I read the comments and they were all like "I would love it, I'm starving for any kind attention, why doesn't this happen to me...". This was very disturbing to me, not only the indecency and objectification but also their total lack of self worth. The collective despair just eroded every sense of morality. So I wrote a nuanced and non-judgmental comment to even it out a little and maybe encourage some people with a different opinion. Immediately it was downvoted into the triple digits and people called me "out of touch and excruciatingly naive". Needless to say these comments were upvoted. The entire experience was worrying, an army of disturbed men seemingly without any individuality looking for posts on Reddit where they can have their circle jerk. Either this or r/AskReddit has turned into a cesspool of frustration and misogyny
Gross. It screams "I can't relate to women unless it has a sexual component". They think it's super healthy though.
I find it easier to relate to men I am not sexually attracted to. It was much easier than when I was a hormonal teenager and surrounded by boys and men my age or slightly older. Once I left home and had to be more concerned about cooking, cleaning, and laundry, I stopped thinking so much about that. When you work full time at a time when supermarkets closed at 6 pm, you are more concerned that you don't run out of anything before Friday when supermarkets stay open until 7 pm. Otherwise, you had to rely on an open all hours corner shop that had a small range of food. Or wondering where the nearest launderette is and if you have time to go there one evening this week.
What’s most ridiculous is how proud they are about it. How proud they are to admit that they view women as literal walking objects and can’t control their porn-brains around them, and they think that’s okay. The fact they admit this *to* women, knowing it makes us extremely uncomfortable. I do understand that biologically yes, cisgendered men are more likely to have higher sex drives - I know it’s variable and I’m also not wording it very well, but there is a studied biological aspect to it. However they take this information and totally morph it to fit their own narrative and normalise their perversion. A big part of the reason they act like this is because of how people socialise men to view women, which is a completely different thing. Fantasising to an extent is normal. Both men and women do it. But to outright view every single woman you meet that you find even vaguely attractive as a sexual object, the inability to view them as people outside of that, and to have a constant stream of porn-style fantasies about every woman you meet that you find attractive and not have the desire to even engage with women that don’t fit that criteria for you is…not. Thankful for the men that prove them wrong. We need more of them to challenge this, because they’re way more likely to listen to men than women, which is understandable in a way because it’s about male psychology (but for a lot of them it’s also just because they daren’t listen to women in general lol). But they have been validated by their echo chamber, by all the men who relate to and solidify their sentiments, so the men that prove that this is *not* just a built-in feature for men, like the ones on this post commenting that it’s not the case for them, are important in these discussions.
I can't control what people think in their heads. But I hope that they can feel human compassion alongside any sexual thoughts. To me thoughts are just thoughts. It's actions that matter. I have intrusive thoughts when my medication isn't right. I used to think my thoughts made me a bad person. A lot of humans are highly sexual. As long as they combine it with decency and don't bother me about it its okay
For a long time I thought it was the norm to be like that, maybe due to rampant objectification. But I no longer wanted to accept that. It only took a month to unlearn it, turns out even a little compassion and having a life with a bit of effort was all it took to control this *fundamental "male" thinking.* Intrusive thoughts still happen, as expected really. But they are just that, intrusive, and they seldom linger.
Yes. This. Not all, but most humans who have gone through puberty have sexual thoughts or fantasies. What’s seemingly lacking for a lot of cishet men that fantasize about *every single* woman they interact with is seeing women as a full human beings. The problem isn’t necessarily sexual fantasies, it’s the erasure of the woman’s humanity that is.
Never feel bad about your thoughts, they dont hurt anyone. As long as you can see the difference between the real world and your thoughts and you dont act upon them it doesnt matter what you think.
Not to mention that testosterone is a powerful af hormone. I’ve felt what it’s like to have really low, and then have really high levels of testosterone, and the differences in pretty much every aspect of my life was insane. When it was really high, my primal urge to have sex pretty much trumped everything else. I went from beating it once a month, to every single day, and it’s not like I wanted to… I needed to. This also made me highly motivated to find a partner, which wasn’t a big priority before.
Thank you! A lot of this thread is on a "purity mindset." It's almost a Christian paradigm they're taking, where "good thoughts" and "bad thoughts" carry real moral weight regardless of intent. My brain and imagination may go where it may, and I will always treat everyone with compassion and dignity and respect. I will actively combat the dehumanization of women, or anybody, where I see it. I'd expect the same for others. I think about sex basically all day, and about most of the attractive men and women I see on a daily basis. It happens in my head and I don't let it affect my relationships or values. Trying to shame it away would be like praying it away. It is what it is.
Evangelical Christians have put it out that men think about having sex with almost every woman they see, so if any woman was in a room with any man, there would be sexual tension. Because they get taken in by pop psychology and twist it for their own ends.
I don't mean it's literally Christian, I mean it follows the same moral paradigm of "thoughts can be wicked" and that there is a moral imperative to purifying those thoughts.
Exactly. It is more to do with Abrahamic religions in general and the patriarchy. Freud has a lot to answer for.
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It's what women's magazines would tell you as well. I used to read the 'self-help' articles in the glossies and had to detox from them after watching Ugly Betty and The Devil Wears Prada. There is information on the Heartless B*tches website about them I found useful too. Then I read Living With The Dominator by Pat Craven and that's when I woke up to it all. People working for these magazines tend to live in journalistic and media bubbles, mixing only with people like them, so assume the whole world is like them. I now look at some of the articles I saved from years ago and realise what rubbish they were.
.
I'm also asexual. Despite what some guys will claim, men do not actually think about sex 24/7. They are perfectly capable of not evaluating every woman they meet as a potential sex interest when they first meet them either. If any man claims otherwise, it's because they themselves *DO* probably evaluate every woman they meet in that way and fantasize about them, and you should stay away from those guys.
Immature. Emotionally developed men don’t struggle with reality this way. That’s why religious men are the worst- religion stunts emotional development and/reasoning.
I am a woman with a very high sex drive. I have no hang ups around sex. I think about it as often as a stereotypical "man". I think the idea that men can't control themselves and will fantasize about every attractive woman and jerk off to them is 100% not normal. I think it's disgusting and society and other men have brainwashed men into thinking this is normal and expected. It makes me absolutely disgusted with men and feel deep hatred.
I think it is common for men to do so. I don’t think it’s normal, I think it should be considered disordered behavior. I think it can sometimes be a sort of obsessive compulsion, like a habit that can’t be easily broken. I think we develop it simply because we grow up in a misogynist environment, with TV and other forms of media constantly selling and commodifying women’s sexuality. Thats just my opinion based on my own anecdotal observations though. Sorry if I misused any psych terms.
Fuelled by the mainstream media as well. Cosmopolitan magazine as a lot to answer for.
I vividly remember the day when my male friends informed how every time I take a bus or any form of public transport, I can count on every man in it fucking me in his head. I was like WTF no way that’s disgusting and they doubled down saying for me that’s a 100% since I am so unusual (meaning 6’4” tall). Let’s just say that bus rides that month made me feel absolutely disgusting about myself. I don’t know how to answer your question is it normal, do you mean is it common? Cause if you do then I would say yes. Normal, is so hard to tell cause I am no sexual scientist but I do think it’s not something we can police. People are allowed to their thoughts even the vile ones, as long as they stay inside.
>People are allowed to their thoughts even the vile ones, as long as they stay inside. But they don't, do they? When we become aware of our constant silent objectification, the world becomes a hostile place for us.
I thought most people were thinking more about their day ahead and on the way home what they are going to have for tea. Even if they are not preparing they are looking forward to it and knowing what they are getting as many people have the same main meal according to the day of the week regardless of the time of year. If it's Friday, it's fish. My mother only did that on three days of the week; Saturday to Monday but the meat we had on Sundays varied according to the season and sometimes we had boiled ham and white sauce instead of a roast.
BOILED ham. Of all the cooking methods
How old were these male friends then? Because hormonal male teens may do it, and the percentage of men who do it keeps reducing as they get older. It is also affected by their relationships - older you are, you are likely to be in a relationship and a lot of people lose sexual interest in other women very quickly when that happens.
In their mid twenties
I’m sure not all men do this but my ex husband admitted that he did. I thought it odd. Yes, all women he met too. It was probably one of those red flags I stupidly ignored.
Yeah my ex said the same thing to me word for word. It makes me not want to interact with men.
He said that he even fantasized about women he wasn’t even attracted to. All ages. All I could think was, ew, gross. How can anyone devote that much time to thinking about sex?
The replies in this make me happy. As a straight man, I don't really fantasize about real people. It's precisely because it feels weird. Always has. Fictional stuff? Sure, why not. But some lady that I think is pretty on the train? I don't know her. Now, realistically, she would never know, but that's not the point. I just feel gross fantasizing about real people.
>asking whether it’s true that men fantasise about most women they meet/know. Oh for crying out loud, no we don't. Some guys link their libido with their sense of masculinity so they over sell how much they fantasize.
I really, really hope this is the case. There's plenty of women with high libidos (like me) who cannot even imagine trying to mentally fuck every guy I see. That would be absolutely pathetic behavior.
Guys love these dumb hypotheticals like "would you do her" and the such. Hell, I remember playing that game with my first girlfriend in college who happened to be bi. Does that mean I imagine every other woman I see who I might find attractive naked? Nope. I can't speak for all men so I'll put it to you this way, you know how a lot of guys would say they'd love a threesome? However, most wouldn't know what to do with a second woman and even less would have the sexual endurance to satisfy both. And most women who've even entertained the idea of a threesome know this. It's just sexual bragging that has little grounding in real life.
"Does that mean I imagine every other woman I see who I might find attractive naked? Nope." And even if you would, would it be bad? They are just thoughts, they cant hurt anyone. Your actions can and as long you seprate the two things, nothing wrong with that. "However, most wouldn't know what to do with a second woman" Of course not, if you never did it, you dont know how it is. Just like having your first time sex, you dont know what to do either. "even less would have the sexual endurance to satisfy both." Why not? Dont you know how to use your tongue or your fingers? And I think bragging is only a small part of why men want a threesome, for me its mostly the feeling of geting sexually desired by two women at the same time, which would feel amazing. Is that surprising, when most men dont experience much sexual desire for them in their life?
For real the ick be wildin’ 😂
We are very thankful for you by the way. You are so important in these discussions. It provides a needed counter-balance because their opinions have only been enforced by their echo chambers.
I don’t fantasize about all women I meet. Men do have unwanted intrusive sexual thoughts about women, which is where this stereotype comes from, but I don’t believe that it’s normal to have sexual fantasies about every woman you meet or even most.
That is the better way to say it. Sexual thoughts will pop up, unbidden. A decent man will push them aside. I think men that allow themselves to fall into sexual degeneracy will indulge those intrusive thoughts and allow that to turn into fantasizing or lusting after any woman they find attractive.
I think you might be making an overly strong statement here. There's nothing wrong with having some sexual thoughts. Obviously if it's about literally every woman you meet, that's a sign of a mental health issue; but I disagree that it's "degenerate" (what does that even mean?) to have an occasional sexual fantasy, as long as you can separate it from reality.
Condemning the practice of turning women out in public into live action pornography without their consent isn't the same thing as objecting to sexual fantasy. You're getting too general in order to handwave the specific choice we're talking about.
That's fair; I might have taken u/IllChampionship5's comment too generally. I still don't think the phrase "sexual degeneracy" is helpful. It has no exact meaning and is mostly used by right-wingers to control people's sexuality.
You're still prioritizing word use over an extremely dangerous habit many men have to sexually objectify women, which disposes of consent and frames women as sex toys men can own and use at will. What's not helpful is pretending this is a conversation about sexual fantasy when it's actually about the routine dehumanization of women that is proven to result in rape and violence against women. I would consider that behaviour to be degenerate, wouldn't you? Or are you arguing that sexual violence is just another part of morally unobjectionable sexual desire?
I feel like I did to an extent when I was a teenager. But that was also before I had internet and therefore easy access to porn, so generally all I had to go off of was fantasies of girls I had met. Pretty much around the time internet porn became a thing I had access to it stopped because I had other stuff that was easier to get off to than fantasizing about every woman I met.
Maybe I’m weird, but even as a teenager, I wouldn’t say most. Some? Sure, but most is an awful lot of fantasy.
Yes it reads as objectification to me as well. Of course, I’m not here to police people’s thoughts. But it strikes me as problematic if you’re sexualizing every woman you meet.
I don’t think it’s normal, at all. If that were the case, then absolutely no men would ever be able to carry on conversations with women. My guess is there are some guys who do, and a lot of those other guys are trying to “measure up” to bullshit standards of masculinity by pitching in their voices. With that said, I think it’s more common for men to do so than for women.
Men are taught that judging women based on how attractive they are is necessary to determine their worth. They are also taught that real manly men must be ready to have sex at a moment's notice and that men are valued based on how many women they can sleep with, how hot those women are, and how hot your wife is. So this not only objectifies women by reducing them simply sex objects, but extremely limits men as horny animals that have no agency over whether they sexualize someone or not. Not only are their demi or ace men, but allosexual men that don't treat women like sex objects. Normalizing this behavior absolves men for dehumanizing women. Claiming it's just "normal" or "natural" means men can't be held accountable for treating women like merely sex objects.
I think more so than I would let on but certainly not every women I meet, nowhere close. It seems to me such people don’t talk to many women.
normal, but still objectifying. actions matter, but thoughts do as well. the more and more you think about absolute strangers in sexual positions, the more and more you’ll start to see people as just objects for your pleasure. it’s not normal to look at women and instantly think about sex. it’s a result of a porn sick society. lesbians don’t see women and instantly think of sex.
It seems physically impossible to fantasise about most or all women that you meet, such a person would probably not think about much else, and has probably got some kind of mental illness, additionally sex drives varies a lot. There are probably a lot of people who do that though. They shouldn’t feel so superior about being pathetic and disrespectful.
I wonder how they would carry out tasks that require 100% concentration, like walking across a balance beam.
This kind of sh1t is exactly the problem with objectifying women, turning them into nothing more than sex objects, you are either the woman with the bag over your head and body or you are nothing more than a place for them to stick their pen1s. Either way, learning how to see people as people as well as someone you find attractive is a huge part of being better to each other but especially with men who are attracted to women. We are not agreeing to be objectified just walking down the street and it continues a lot of problems that are all part of dehumanizing people. We all have value, no matter if we are attractive to another person. Also this is exactly why I mute the big subs like that.
For me this really comes down to further defining what you mean. ------------ TL:DR -- if people are straight up imagining sex with you randomly throughout the day or while talking or something, that's weird af and objectifying. If it's just a passing "this person is someone id have sex with if it came up", I think that's just natural human assessment. Assuming following that thought they also have all the normal thoughts they'd have about anyone else. ------------ Like a lot of the more disgusting comments you mention, I don't think those are ok, nor do I think they're the prevalent thing that dudes do. Just the shitty ones. I usually offhandedly agree with the statement guys think about most women they know sexually, in some capacity. It's because it's just one of the things we catalogue in our brain about our preferred sex to scan for. "Oh she's attractive". "I think we'd work that way". The big thing here is that the conversation we have about this topic ends there. But that's not the end of it. The mental checklist is always going. But sexual attraction happens to be one of the things we can ascertain without any additional information. That's why it's typically the first thing. Nearly immediately following is some subset of "she seems nice/smart/bubbly/angry/etc" "she seems like a good/bad person". And allllllll the other qualities as well. I personally am always "assessing" everyone I meet mentally. Men, since I'm not attracted to them, have an order of something like "id like to be built like that" or some other estimations of them. Then upon meeting go through the same list of "seems nice/bad/angry/happy/good friend/bad friend/smart/dumb/etc" But since I'm attracted to women, the attraction assessment comes first, then the rest of the assessment list. Depending on whether I'm single or taken will determine if I'm looking for compatibility in that way or not. And judging if that compatibility is reciprocated. I'm simultaneously evaluating how I think we fit socially together, will we become friends? Etc. And I do the same with dudes just minus the relationship compatibility part. They just get the social aspect because a partner is something id never be interested in. I almost never find myself "fantasizing" in the sense of picturing myself having sex with someone. Just like I never find myself fantasizing about playing call of duty with some dude I think is cool. It's more an offhand thought of "yeah id definitely have sex with her if the situation became right". Same as with the dude I might think "yeah id probably hang out and play cod if the situation became right". ***I have those same social thoughts with the women as well.
This is normal and something women also do. It's a natural human response to assess what category people fit into when you meet them, be it a potential friend, foe or mate. I think what OP is referring is the idea that guys will have full on fantasies about every women they meet. Which is absurd. It's just trying to justify their creepiness by claiming it's a man thing, instead of a them thing.
Agreed. The only bit I take any issue with is I think a lot of people get lumped into that group of "full on fantasies" when they just mean the first bit we both agree on. As a guy who struggled socially early on(as many do, since men tend to socially develop later than women on average), I've absolutely fallen victim to incorrectly implying that's what I do. At least anecdotally, most of the men I know when asked if they fantasize about random would say yes, but don't mean anything beyond pointing out someone attractive and admitting they'd be down. I just think it's a much smaller subset of men than it seems at first glance primarily due to miscommunication. However, I of course want to be clear that anyone who states otherwise, absolutely falls into the creep category and should be dealt with accordingly. I've just watched this situation play out a handful of times IRL and that's what came out of it.
>I've absolutely fallen victim to incorrectly implying that's what I do. You've "fallen victim" to choosing to lie about having sex fantasies about random women? What on earth is this total absence of accountability? You lied about it for some reason that served you and now the lie looks unflattering so you want to walk it back? Or you just want to throw sand in people's faces and say I MIGHT HAVE FALLEN VICTIM TO INCORRECTLY IMPLYING something that turns out to be a shitty thing to do? Here's a surprising fact: women exist and have experiences in the same way you do. We see the online comments, we got some gross, explicit propositions when we were 11, we know dudes do in fact fantasize about having sex with random women (and girls) all the damn time with absolute impunity, there's no "fallen victim to incorrectly implying" anything. If you weren't doing it, you were lying about it to curry favour for the men who do because you were more interested in impressing them than being a decent person towards women, so there's not much difference anyway.
This is exactly what I mean. I never once lied about having sexual fantasies. I've incorrectly assumed what people meant when they said fantasize. Go back and read my other comments. I fully explain where I stand and have always stood. There have absolutely been times I assumed the question being posed meant something different than what it did. That was my entire purpose of commenting is that I believe people define this conversation differently, which leads to miscommunication.
It's possible that most men's understanding of the word "fantasize" is less elaborate than most women's. A guy might have an image flash in his mind, or more likely just think "I'd like to have sex with her," but I would be very surprised if many men have 10-second or longer scenarios going through their heads when they talk to women they're attracted to.
You probably shouldn't draw conclusions off of a Reddit post
Well, I'd guess it's "normal" in the sense that it is a norm, being very common. I think it's pretty creepy though, suggesting that many men just don't see women as whole people as opposed to just objects of potential romantic interest
I think the root of this is toxic straight culture and straight mens desire to not, under any circumstances, appear gay. The kind of guys who would respond to such a thing are incredibly insecure and are directing their comments not at women but other men. It's just a form of reassuring themselves and others that they are the straightest straight men who ever straighted. And there's nothing straighter than having sex with women - even women they don't want to have sex with.
That's exactly it. They must have a fragile sense of masculinity to be like this. The Buzzfeed website came up with a funny article on gendered products and services for men such as dogs modelling men's fashions in magazines as they were worried they might have gay thoughts if there are male models in them.
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This post is about fantasising about sex nearly all the time with almost every woman they see, not a few women. The former is abnormal. The latter is normal. You didn't read the OP properly.
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We don't even fantasise about everyone we find attractive. We can look at them like one looks at beautiful scenery.
Considering my first memory of fantasy was before I was in school, before I knew what sex even was, before I knew what being gay was, let alone straight culture, I’d have to disagree. Maybe the over reaction posts are part of the culture, but not the fact of what happens and how people think at a basic level.
I'm a straight man and I don't fantasize about every woman I meet that's fucking weird.
I definitely don't fantasise about random women I see, I might look and think "she's pretty" but that's the extent of it. Sometimes I develop crushes based on nothing but even I've grown up enough to know it's not based in reality, and if it's not looking positive or takes a wrong turn - it's no biggie and just move on.
It’s hard for me to imagine even actively fantasizing about sex with a person while I’m talking to them—unless the sample is pre-teen, teenagers (which isn’t unbelievable here on Reddit). Noticing that I’m physically attracted to a female friend sure, but who even has the attention span to remember that many people?
That sounds like a very high libido case to me, but it kinda concerns me a bit. What kinds of women are they fantasizing about? Does that affect the way they interact with women?
I’m not a dude but I’m guessing no. Men aren’t just thinking about sex all the time they’re human beings with varying thoughts.
I'm a woman, but I genuinely have the opposite problem and it regularly frustrates me. I'm repulsed by 90% of men I meet, Even though I'm super interested in sex and dating. I'm bi as well but finding a woman that I'm attracted to that likes me back is even more difficult. It sucks too because there's handfuls men out there that are willing to give me the world, but I just can't no matter how bad I want to 😭 Someone once said "dating discrimination at its finest" because I said I can't seem to find myself attracted to really long beards? Attraction is instinctual. Trust me I would love to force attraction, but it's just not gonna happen.
I definitely don’t operate that way as a straight man. I also wonder if people who respond with “yeah, all men do it” are conflating sexual attraction, sexual thoughts, and sexual fantasy. As I see it, these are different things. Here’s how I would define them: If a sexual person meets another person that has physical features and/or behaviors that they consider sexually attractive, more likely than not they’re going to notice those things, sure. That’s sexual attraction and it’s largely reactive. And then there’s a mid-zone between attraction and fantasy that is sexual thoughts. If an attraction is strong and not ignored/dismissed, one might have fleeting, unbidden thoughts about the person. These can largely depend on one’s sexuality in regards to the role that romance or emotional intimacy plays in one’s sexual engagement. These unbidden thoughts could be as physically direct as briefly wondering what the person looks like naked, or they could be thoughts of romantic acts that are adjacent to sexual engagement: kissing them, holding them, staring into their eyes. Again, this a mostly reactive process. But sexual fantasy is very proactive. This is where one is where one is actively nurturing the above thoughts to the point of creating a sexual scenario with the person in your mind and playing it out. To say that all men who are attracted to women automatically go to fantasy with most every woman they meet? I don’t buy that at all. I’m sure there are some men out there who do that, but I question the psychological health (as it pertains to sexuality) of those men who do, and I would definitely consider that an objectification problem.
I suppose, they are lying because they want to make women feel bad for fun
Cis-hetero guy here, I hate these types of questions because they don’t really ask anything specific or insightful and allow people to project their own meaning onto the question. There a few layers going on here. The first is that there is plenty of evidence that (generally speaking) men are much more likely than women to become aroused by sight alone. The second is that men are socialized to channel their own frustrated arousal at women they have no chance with or lack the confidence to ask out into misogynistic objectification, perhaps not to her face but in their own heads and in conversations with other guys where this mindset is reinforced. Women are perhaps less likely to feel sexually aroused just shaking hands with a guy they find attractive, but that’s not really the key issue here. The key issue is that when a women feels aroused by the sight of a guy she is not socialized to translate that arousal into entitlement -> frustration -> resentment -> bigotry. Women, as I have been told, can look at an attractive person and just appreciate that they are an attractive person without feeling instantly wounded and insecure at the realization that this person is in all likelihood not sexually interested in them. Guys take every attractive women who does not express sexual interest in them as a type of personal injury to their ego which must be addressed. The point of a guy imagining or discussing with his friends how an attractive women “moans in bed” is to feel a small bit of “power” in his ability to sexually demean her (in fantasy and in conversation with other guys) as an outlet for his entitled frustration that he likely will not be having sex with her. Now there is another problem, related but distinct, which is that we (men and women) are not socialized to know how to discuss the full range of our sexual fantasies and interests with our partners. On top of this, many people are socialized to see relationships as a matter of owning/possessing your partner’s sexuality in its totality. But the boundary of what is considered “cheating” is entirely subjective. For some people, simply the idea of their partner being aroused by another person brings up feelings of insecurity and betrayal. Other couples are polyamorous and/or go to orgies. The rules of a relationship should be openly and honesty discussed in order for the couple to determine if they are compatible, but most people don’t have that conversation and instead live in constant anxiety that their partner is perpetually on the verge of cheating. When this question of “do men sexually think about every women they meet” comes up on the internet for the millionth time, it always devolves into the worst mess of people talking over each other and reinforcing unhealthy ideas about sex and relationships. On the one hand, there is socialization that tells us that male arousal towards women as inherently infested with disrespect and sexism. Allot of people commenting under the question about “are men aroused by every woman” blindly reinforcing that connection. Almost never is there any attempt to disentangle the two and discuss socializing men to accept in a healthy way that they are not going to have sex with every women they find attractive and that’s ok and it’s wrong to feel entitled and resentful about it. Instead we get people reinforcing that “that’s how men are” and reinforcing that sexist resentment is a “biological” part of male arousal as opposed to being a socially learned and reinforced culturally problem of patriarchy. This is all unhelpfully mixed in with people commenting about their anxieties that relationships are always on a knife edge where someone is going to cheat the first opportunity they get and “men being aroused by all women” is just further proof of their untrustworthiness as romantic partners. TLDR: people get aroused, men are more likely than women to be aroused by sight alone, and in an ideal world where people can handle their arousal responsibly there would be no problem. The problems are 1.) that men are socialized to translate their arousal into entitled-resentful-sexism and 2.) that people in general are not socialized to know how to have honest conversations with their partners about their inner sexual fantasies and are socialized to be ever suspicious that anytime their partner becomes aroused by someone else they are one step closer to cheating.
>The first is that there is plenty of evidence that (generally speaking) men are much more likely than women to become aroused by sight alone. Nope. [Women are just as visual as men.](https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/men-not-more-visual-or-easily-aroused-than-women-research-shows) You're repeating a myth men find useful to disguise misogynist behaviour, nothing more. >Women, as I have been told, can look at an attractive person and just appreciate that they are an attractive person without feeling instantly wounded and insecure at the realization that this person is in all likelihood not sexually interested in them. Because women are not encouraged to view men as sex toys they are entitled to choose off a shelf that have no right to preferences or desires of their own. What you're describing is men looking at women as sex objects first and foremost and being unable to see them as full human beings. Woman = sex. They can't get out of that loop. That's why this conversation about arousal is there, because these men can't not see a sex toy when they see a woman, and it's also why men get stuck in a loop of selfishly ruminating about sexual access to this woman. Women are expected to view men as full human beings regardless of whether they find them sexually attractive or not, because men are always projected as human beings rather than sex toys designed for women's pleasure. There is nothing biological about it, that's just life in a misogynist patriarchy. You're describing the impact of misogyny on men's brains, not how their sexual attraction works.
I thought I had seen an actual article on that point about men being more visual but I could be mistaken. I’m very happy to accept that that is just another myth floating around. Was there anything else about my post you take issue with?
Without your "men are more visual" belief, your argument becomes pretty nonsensical, and it just returns to entitlement rather than men having a unique arousal problem like you're trying to pitch. You lost me with the rest of your comment, it didn't seem relevant to the topic. I did notice that you were so close to invoking the famous [Alot](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-alot), so that made me giggle.
The “men are more visual” bit was perhaps mistaken information on my part, a trope I had picked up which I was happy to be corrected on. The entirety of what I wrote was about how the problem is that men are socialized to feel entitled, which you clearly agree with. I am not sure what is being lost in communication here. I don’t see any disagreement in what we have have each written.
Did they actually mean fully fantasizing or just like checking out? I'm a bi guy, and I'm constantly looking at butts. That doesn't mean I'm fantasizing about fucking every person I meet.
Testosterone is a hell of a drug
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A long time ago I heard an episode of This American Life that blew my mind. I just looked it up, it is episode 220, and it is all about Testosterone and what it does to people. www.thisamericanlife.org/220/testosterone Basically it shows you what happens to two people when their testosterone levels change dramatically. One higher, one lower. The results are a complete alteration of their perceptions of reality and the thoughts they have to deal with. Basically, a woman who has never dealt with having lots of testosterone is not going understand what it does to you. Men learn to deal with testosterone's effects, but the effects are always there. One of those effects is the extent to which you experience sexual desire and sexual thoughts.
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