Interesting words from Michael Bader

"As I show both in Arousal: The Secret Logic of Sexual Fantasies, and in my new book, Male Sexuality: Why Women Don't Understand It -- and Men Don't Either, the male libido is neither more powerful than that of women, nor can it be adequately explained through trite generalizations about the cruelty of men under patriarchy. Instead, sexual arousal for both men and women depends on one thing -- the momentary elimination of feelings and beliefs that inhibit it.

Our psyches have to contend with all sorts of threats to sexual excitement. We can't get aroused if we're too guilty about hurting the other, or too worried about him or her. We can't get turned on if we're feeling rejected, inferior, damaged, or helpless. All of us feel these things at some point or another, the mix and intensity of which depend on our particular histories. It turns out, for example, that both male and female desire gets shut down when guilt and worry squelches the capacity for selfishness and aggressiveness. Good and healthy sex requires not only affection and love, but also the capacity to not worry about one's partner, to "let go" with selfish abandon. I've had dozens of men and women who have consulted me about sexual boredom say some version of, "I wish s/he would just throw me on the bed and fuck me!" So-called "lesbian bed-death" often results from just such an inability of the partners to feel selfish, separate, and aggressive enough to "use" each other in a pleasurable way. The sexual ideal of two people lovingly gazing into each other's eyes is belied by powerful needs for something more out-of-control, perhaps forceful, and transgressive. As Woody Allen said: "If sex isn't dirty, you're not doing it right!""

From Alternet