Many people talk about the harmlessness of men who are in positions of power and having sex with their subordinates. They may snicker and treat it as a joke. Or they may say that when sex is consensual it is the business of the people involved and should not be there for the world to view. I disagree vehemently!

Women are wired from an early age to revere, cower or fear male authority even though it might not be discernable or is so subtle it slips by us. The one who has the power (obviously, in most instances men), no matter how much women are raised to be independent thinkers, still represents superiority. When a man wields power and has sex with subordinates the word consensual may be non-existent.  

The impression that men are dominant starts at a very early age. Take a look at children’s books and DVDs. For instance, Bob the Builder. A male is in charge of building and giving orders. His helper is a woman. Most of children’s literature shows that the heroes and villains are men and the women are helpers – always placed in aiding positions. Oh, yes, there are the female comic book heroes, but look at them. They are voluptuous and in very abbreviated costumes. Are big boobs necessary to achieve feats of valor and strength?

When in a restaurant I have noticed the waitress inevitably plays up to the male. Often they get even get bigger drinks than the female companion. People will say that men are bigger tippers. I doubt that. It is just so imprinted to dote on men from childhood that they can’t help it. And I don’t mean this is coming from an earlier era – it continues until even today.

In an article by Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times Maureen Dowd, Men Behaving Madly, October 7, 2009, she said: “In an ideal world, bosses would refrain from sleeping with subordinates, so as not to cause jealousy and tension in the office. But we’re not in an ideal world. Otherwise, we’d already have health care for everyone and Glenn Beck wouldn’t have any influence over the White House.

“After David Letterman acknowledged that he’d had flings with young assistants, some commentators talked about it in the same breath as Roman Polanski, who drugged and sodomized a 13-year-old. That’s Sexual harassment entails pressuring or penalizing a staffer or making the office atmosphere hostile. Despite the blustering of the attorney of the alleged execrable extortionist, Joe Halderman, there’s no evidence yet that Letterman was guilty of that.”

Maureen I love your work and agree with 99.9% of what you have to say. I’m sorry to say I disagree with your article in what I perceive as slightly minimizing Letterman’s behavior.  What so many men in high positions do is to take advantage of the subtle underlying weakness that is reinforced in women on a daily basis no matter how strong and confident they may seem to be.

I’m not pointing fingers at anyone in particular, but in my opinion men who prey on adoring female subordinates or even non-adoring employees are predators using SEXPLOITATION that to me is on a par with rapists only it is achieved in a much more subtle way.

It seems as though many of these women are put between a rock and a hard place. If she refuses the power monger’s advances he can become hostile toward her. It’s easy for him to claim any number of reasons for his sudden disinterest in her, going so far as to ignore, demote and even fire her. If the hit was subtle she can’t prove he made moves. If she goes for a sexual harassment suit, she might have to kiss her butt goodbye for landing another job in her chosen field or even other areas of employment.

That is not to say that some women are willing to use sex as a means to get ahead, but even that kind of thinking has been a part of the fabric of society’s expectation of women for centuries and has certainly not ended. Look at the news that what we have become accustomed to reading and hearing about almost every day.

Even though men may shudder at the thought of facing a sexual harassment suit it doesn’t necessarily stop them from trying. A woman who has instituted such a suit, no matter how valid, is generally not welcome in a new workplace. They are tainted. The men who do the hiring avoid women who have instituted suits, fearing they’ll be next in line.

Because of that, women often acquiesce to the sexual demands of a boss and keep quiet. I am sad to say that I believe we have not moved into a new, enlightened era where men, no matter how much they fantasize, exercise reason and caution and refuse to indulge in such horrific abuse of power. For my part, I’d call this kind of behavior as far from innocent, but rather CONSENUSAL RAPE.

The sexyG

 Where is our comparable magic pill for women with sexual dysfunction? Can the lack of a cure be tied to the entire research debacle that occurs when it comes to women? After all, when it came to heart disease, studies were done without women and still females are rarely included. The natural result is that, to this day, only a small number of physicians are aware of the symptoms of heart attacks in women. Up until just a few years ago, the medical community believed that women who complained of heart symptoms were head jobs.

Female symptoms differ from those of men. It stands to reason that physicians are using the available research as a guide to detecting heart attacks. It often doesn’t apply to women. When a woman gives her symptoms it is difficult for a physician to make the diagnosis because the guidelines come from studies with men. There are some improvements of late but not enough to save the lives of countless women. By and large, women are still not participating in the research studies for heart and many other ailments.

So, why is the research community so slow in coming up with something that increases the libido of women. I believe it has the same biased reasoning as it does with heart disease. Women are in greater need of help because there are so many myths, fears and missteps in understanding the differences in sexual matters between men and women. Taking that into consideration, it certainly means that we desperately want to speed up the process. But it seems to me that, once again, science is approaching female sexual dysfunction by basing research and findings on male issues in their curative approach. That is why so little has come out to help us.

All men need in order to improve their sex lives is an erection. The search was to find a pill that drives an adequate blood flow to the penis and – lo and behold – an erection was born. They can now perform. But performance is only a small part of what improves a woman’s desire.

For a woman there are so many other components to approaching sex, a major one being the mind. All women and especially those who are multi-careered (full-time jobs and in charge of domestic responsibilities) are especially sensitive to sexuality or the lack of.

If women view sex as just another task to be performed her sex drive is sure to go down. Sex might qualify as the more expendable chore on a list of priorities. Children and jobs can’t be neglected, but sex can be dispensed with. We don’t need it to live so it’s easy to put it at the bottom of the list.

How is this rectified? A miracle pill? Maybe, but the research to find something effective has slowed down. They have not as yet found anything that has proven to work for women and much of what was produced by drug companies has been turned down by the FDA.

Good sex is healthy to mind and body.  I’m convinced that women are reluctant to dispense with it and feel guilty when they do.

What can be done about it? Think about the brain muscle as a powerful aphrodisiac. Set aside a romantic interlude/s each week. How about a bubble bath, sharing showers, a champagne bucket in the bedroom? Maybe a few erotic DVDs, and most importantly, taking time with foreplay.

There are so many books on how to make love? Books can stay forever without buying new ones. Pills need to be replenished periodically and can get quite expensive. Long term, they might be harmful to the body. For a woman, treating her as special every day can be as exciting as watching porno. A man who is attentive to a woman, eager to help out at home, and treats her opinions with respect is definitely a titillating experience. How she’s seen through the eyes of her mate can awaken her sexuality.

Why isn’t this behavior used as the basis of research? I believe it is because men, for the most part, are doing the research and find it far easier to come up with a pill. I wonder if a pill that increases a woman’s desire will encourage lovemaking to be a wham bam thing.

I can visualize the scenario if they do come up with a pill that enhances a woman’s libido.

Picture both taking their sex pills, but there has to be coordination so that reaching the zenith of desire occurs at the same time. Say that you get through step number one and the desired effects are well-timed. Do they jump in bed, get it on fast and over quickly before it wears off?

We women need the emotional component that should take place every day – the mutually respectful conversations, the humor, the touching in non-erotic places, the frequent friendly kiss, the surprise little gift, the compliment. That’s what creates passion in the bedroom. It’s all a build-up to much more satisfying lovemaking.

I think that enhancing female desire with non-artificial, genuine passion is where it’s at.

The SexyG                                                                  franuc@aol.com

 In our society marriage is the underlying dictate given to all women and men. Despite the last census that proclaimed more singles than married folks for the first time in census history, a woman who never marries is considered an oddity. Long conversations are played out behind the subject’s back. Speculation about why she couldn’t connect with a man is endless. Was she too picky, compulsive, frigid, abnormally attached to parents, too career involved, man-hating, extreme feminist, not appealing to men, too much into herself and worst of all – afraid of intimacy. If a man is not gay he’s given more slack about not being married – he’s a womanizer, a serial monogamist or likes playing the field and is sometimes the envy of many men.

Why is it weird that a woman has never been married? Why does that become the subject of endless conversation? The single older woman knows this is all going on behind her back and sometimes insensitive people raise the topic to her face. There are mean-spirited people who won’t hesitate to ask a woman why she isn’t married. And others who say, “It’s selfish not to marry and have kids.” A woman who once asked a friend of mine why she only had one child and inferred she was too into herself to have more. So, what do you think she’ll ask the woman who never married?

In my day if you reached twenty-five and were unmarried you got strange looks. At least, they give you more leeway today. Women start getting attitude when they reach mid to upper thirties (some even early thirties). By late thirties the ticking biological clock is putting stress on numbers of women. By age forty people give up on these women and the whispering, if it hasn’t already started, begins.

We can imagine what these women are feeling. Some adapt and are able to deal. Those that don’t are pained and even tortured. They wonder what it is about them that caused this to happen. Guilt and doubt infuses their sense of self worth. They go to parties alone and hang back. Many married women keep their husbands away from single women, a statement of their own insecurity.

Single women attending an event may wind up in the bathroom hiding in a stall, waiting until the party ends. Even though I was in a long term marriage, when I became widowed I was isolated when attending a party alone. I’d get a perfunctory nod and the conversation swilled around me without my inclusion. If a husband dared speak to me, he quickly got pulled away. And I was in a long-term marriage and maybe not considered as much of a threat as a never-married woman.

When a woman is single all of her life, they are made to feel like failures, discarded, unwanted and invisible. Sometimes females can repress these feelings and go on with life, but feel as though they’re limping along. In other words, they feel they are making the best of “a wasted life” or made to feel only half a person.

This is sad. Why do we put such pressure on women to marry? After all, at least half of all marriages end in divorce and of those left as many as 80% are said to be unhappy. Is society saying it’s better to be in a bad marriage than single your entire life? From what I’ve been able to observe I’d say that is exactly the message society sends to women.

On the other hand, if women succumb to the pressure and desperately look for a mate (sometimes with ferocity) they are probably destined to lose. I found the following article about career women most interesting.

Forbes.com published an article by Michael Noer, editor on August 22 about whether or not to marry a career woman. It was titled, Opinion Careers And Marriage at Forbes.com. “Guys: a word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don’t marry a woman with a career.

“Why? Because if many social scientists are to be believed, you run a higher risk of having a rocky marriage. While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat and less likely to have children. And if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it.”

There are so many factors to why, if true, this occurs. In my opinion, men might be attracted to career women who are intelligent, but they often times prefer someone less intelligent where they can shine. Money becomes an issue especially if the woman is earning as much or more than her mate.

Male ego can become a factor if he wants to dominate. It’s the subtle and not-so-subtle power-play with its negative entanglements that too many times prevents a happy relationship. It’s hard for a husband to bully a woman who is on an equal footing with him. More is demanded domestically of a man in a two-career marriage. He might balk and an ocean of resentment develops. It’s much easier to control a woman who is not working, and is at her husband’s economic mercy.

This is a sliver of what women are up against. And in today’s economic climate, women are often forced to work and contribute to the household especially where the husband’s income is declining or has become non-existent.

All of this makes me wonder if many women who remain single have chosen this status and defy the demands of society by not marrying to gain peace of mind. 

The SexyG                                                                                  franuc@aol.com