Manly Thor's Day Special

Part 2: Jennifer Fulwiler's other slip
Let's revisit that first quote.

And thus she reveals her understanding of something that everyone knows but nobody wants to admit: Women hold all the cards when it comes to sex. As a gender, men want sex more than women do, and they are willing to go to great lengths to get it. They’ll change their behavior. They’ll reconsider their ideas.

And note the bit I have added emphasis to because I'd like to call your attention to something else that everyone really does know but that neither Catholics nor feminists seem to be keen to admit. My guess is that you don't have to step very far outside your door to see this thing. Walk around town, or the office, or (especially) a high school or college campus, and you'll be bombarded with it.



Everywhere you go women are engaged in a cutthroat competition with other women for sexual status.
Here is the thing: the main reason women don't hold all the cards is other women. Lingering in the background of this whole discussion is a crude and simplified version of Aristophanes' masterpiece Lysistrata. In that work, the women all unite to collectively deny men sex until they get what they want. In real life, women never do this because they have no reason to. In real life, women are in cutthroat competition with other women for sexual status. Consequently, in real life men have choices.

Don't believe me? Jennifer Fulwiler—the same Jennifer Fulwiler who insists that women hold all the cards—also had a post up yesterday about make up!

Here is a random factoid about women's sexual response that may interest you. When a woman is sexually aroused, her lips get fuller and redder, her cheeks flush and her eyes get more noticeable because her pupils dilate and her stare becomes more fixed. With that in mind, read what Fulwiler advises about make up and ask yourself what the net effect of doing what she advises.

Here, check out the picture on her blog:

Full red lips? Check. Flushed cheeks? Check. Large noticeable eyes fixed on you? Check. And, pardon me for saying so, but where does that neck line she is wearing lead your eye? And let me assure you that if the woman having coffee with you gives you that look, she wants your sexual attention.

But why is Jennifer Fulwiler presenting herself this way. Sexually, she is in an exclusive deal. Unless your name is Mr. Jennifer Fulwiler I can guarantee you'll never get what is only apparently being offered here.

And that is an odd thing isn't it. Even happily married women don't stop playing the game. They are constantly reminding men that we do have choices. Why? Well, why do Porsche advertise their cars even though they can't make enough to meet the demand? Partly because they want to remind the guys who already have Porsches that they have something desirable. And partly to remind themselves that they have something desirable.

Lewis noted that one aspect of courtly love was adultery. It relies absolutely on a woman offering us something that is forbidden. Even if she never intends to give, or never actually gives, that sex to other men it's always on the menu. Pardon me for putting this quite so bluntly but the hand of sex cards Fulwiler insists gives women so much power only has that power if all women are willing, in theory at least, to put out only when a given set of conditions is met. And there will always be some women who are actually willing to do so for less.

As I noted before, courtly love is a male fantasy and it is a male fantasy that springs up in situations where men do not have much access to women. It is only possible where you have cultured men capable of producing poetry and song but who cannot have women because other men with more power have cut off access, which is to say only in something like a feudal court can you really have full blown courtly love.

In our world every woman has to be aware of the competition. And those other women also hold a hand of cards and are willing to play those cards. Including the you-get-to have-sex-with-her card. That's where wanting to hold all the cards gets you. In our world a woman who seeks a happy marriage had better be willing to offer the sex card and it won't come  as a surprise to find that women who actually want sex a whole lot themselves will have a huge advantage here—the overlap between women who report getting regular satisfying sex and women who report being happily married is large.

To believe even one word of the argument that Catholics like Fulwiler and feminists share about women having the power to control the world through sex, you have to believe that women are morally superior beings. And to believe that you have to discount what your own lying eyes will tell you every day. For if our desires are such debased things, why do women like Fulwiler spend so much time and effort measuring up to these desires? Because, sexually speaking, the only cards a woman has to play are the ones men will respond to.