SEX ACCORDING TO MAÏA
Are women men like the others – at least in their relationship to sexuality? For the vast majority of French people, the answer is no. A month ago, an Ipsos-Traumatic Memory survey dissected our representations related to rape: through the responses, we could also see the persistence of very powerful beliefs related to gender differences.
Among the stereotypes that emerge from this survey, some make you smile: thus, two-thirds of French people think that a woman needs to be in love to have sex (rest in peace, Tinder). Other answers are chilling: one in ten French people believe that women like to be sexually forced and that when they say no they mean yes (a declining figure).
Two days before March 8 (which celebrates, I specify for the dunces, the International Day of Women’s Rights), the survival of these sexist clichés calls out. It also questions our most intimate practices. Thus, 53% of French people think that men have a simpler sexuality than that of women – and almost as many (51%) believe that it is more difficult for a man to control his desire. Some stereotypes are more widely shared by men (twice as many of them believe that you can get your sex education through pornography), others are more widely held among women (11 points more for the idea that men have a lesser perception of what constitutes a violent relationship).
To bang your head against the walls
What do these figures reveal? To begin with, let our vision of the world purr, quietly settled in the 1950s (courage: it’s not our fault, it’s inertia). Despite the media breakthrough of gender studies and non-binary thought, Mars and Venus are doing wonderfully… thirty years after the publication of John Gray’s bestseller (Men are from Mars, women are from Venus., published in 1992). 96% of French people subscribe to at least one sexist stereotype. Translation: 96% of us think that men and women function differently – and too bad for the other reading grids: differences in age, attractiveness, income, marital status, preferences, etc.
Faced with these clichés, two possibilities: smiling (“as it’s vintage, here we are back under General de Gaulle”) or banging your head against the walls. Exceptionally, I lean towards the second solution. And this, for a simple reason: I believe (still) that sexuality brings us closer. However, these stereotypes, they alienate us. They even erect a wall between our representation of the world (“men and women are fundamentally different, especially during sexual intercourse”) and our sexual ideal (“the differences between men and women disappear during sexual intercourse, at the favor of a miraculous fusion”).
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