Agent of Desire Transforming perceptions of female sexuality

What Women Find Sexy The temptation in exploring what the truth actually is in this one, would be to show a photo gallery of sexy men and women, or links to sites with porn/semi-porn images to explore what turns us on. But I have a relationship with someone I love and don't want to look at sexual images of anyone else as it would feel like an infidelity. Also it comes across as reactive- "let's show men how the worm has turned - they like to look at degrading pictures of women so lets see how they feel about being degraded". It's still playing the sexual game as defined by accumulated male fantasies and the industries who exploit  them. I went to the 'Seduced' exhibition at the Barbican recently showing erotic art from the past two thousand years, and of the few female artists shown, two of these were merely reactive. One was K R Buxey's Requiem - quite a moving piece showing her receiving oral from her partner - yet it was a reaction to Andy Warhol's Blowjob. Her artistic expression of female sexuality was within parameters set by a man before her. Another of the female artists was the truly appalling works of Marlene Dumas; appalling because of the absence of content. Merely painting pages from pornographic magazines. Absolutely nothing to add about female sexuality. I was not surprised to be honest. There were no refreshing works to counter the plethora of unnaturally posed women with double-jointed-boneless-bendy bodies that have been created for presumeably male pleasure and fantasy - from Ancient Greece to recent Japan. Well, no exceptions but one - some of the Roman works - which I found quite mysterious. They seemed to actually capture the nerves and underlying musculature of women who were taking an active role in the sexual depiction - they were markedly different from all the others. I don't know the historical reason for this. So why the absence of erotic art created by and for females? Are women just a bit more private about our experience of sexuality, preferring to let it dwell in our imaginings than seeking to externalise it in art, pornography and the sex industry like men? Or perhaps this private experience of female sexuality was forced upon us because our options were polarised by patriarchal control into either The Whore or The Madonna ; to be openly sexual is to be a prostitute available for hire which means pretending to be sexual for male pleasure, or the alternative is to be the sexless virgin mother who will never stray from her husband and divorces herself from all connection with her own loins. Either way, genuine female sexuality has historically had no right to openly exist. And as to the question of why females don't tend to externalise their experience of sexuality, it is impossible to answer, because patriarchy has convoluted the female sexual urge. To explore what is genuine to me I will have to go with what 'feels right' here. It's tenuous, but its all I have. And what 'feels right' is to respect the privacy and intimacy of my sexuality. So to begin to share my experience of being a sexual woman when it is expressed very privately with only one other person, I think writing it down is a bit more respectful to love and sex than using visual representations. What Makes Men Sexy All sexology programmes and collation of statistics seem to begin with the assumption that men are attractive to women for economic reasons. Women are turned on by wealth or the potential for wealth, full stop. Yet I have had very strong sexual urges that I obviously must repress towards men that do not fit this catagory. For example, once, walking past a gangly teenage roadsweeper of about 17 - all spotty and hormonal - I had a very strong urge to pounce on him as I walked by. The thing that turned me on was that I could sense his hormonal charge and it gave him a sexual aura with magnetism to a distance of about 6 metres. As a woman I know I am not alone in this, because there is plently of anecdotal evidence that Mrs Robinson phenomenon is not just fantasy. I know of a number of men that lost their virginities to older women when they were between 14-17 years old and it was all shrouded in secrecy because the woman was usually married. But it happens. This urge to copulate with someone significantly younger than oneself and way below us in terms of social status and economic power is counter to the assumption women primarily find money and power to be aphrodisiacs. I'd say the biggest aphrodisiac is a very horny person. Another big aphrodisiac is expressions of sensuality. This is partly why women sleep with musicians and artists, who also rarely fit the mold of wealth and power. Of course there can be a status grabbing 'trophy screw' element to it, because any person on stage increases their visibility and consequently their sexual attractiveness, merely by being able to captivate attention. But that is only part of the story and not relevant to Agent of Desire. The more interesting thing is the sexualisation of any activity that men engage in which women fantasise over. For example, watching a man playing the double bass with attention and musicality is not too much of a stretch to invisage him 'playing' with a woman. His skill can be observed, which can directly translate to digital and rhythmic sexual skills. And this doesn't confine itself to music and art -watching Ray Mears use his hands with deftness can verge on the pornographic. So an important element of what makes men sexy is anything that makes a woman think "Just imagine the way he'd touch me".... swoon .... It would be hard to talk about what is physically attractive to women in men, because there is so much variety in taste. There is the media projected male who we are meant to idolise and is constantly re-inforced to sell us products, but this is just a two dimensional image in perfect lighting, etc, in other words not a real man - so is not actually relevent to the exploration of what actually makes men physically attractive. I've heard such variety over the years about what is the real turn-on about men. I've heard women say they like veiny hands, long hair, broad shoulders, short hair, beer bellies, hairy backs, big forearms, skinny torsos, big feet... in short a whole variety of physical characteristics will get a woman going. Exploring my own preferences is not as interesting in getting a wider opinion. I would like to invite you to share with me your take on this. What things have you found powerfully attractive that deviate from the sterotype you are supposed to find desirable - to the point you are quite baffled? Which celebrities that are not sold to you as a sex symbol get you going and why? Please click this link here and we could begin to get an interesting picture of what our sexuality is really saying beneath the indoctrination. Also men are welcome to contribute too.

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