So, according to Stephen Fry, women don’t like sex. ‘If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas,’ he is quoted as saying in Attitude magazine.
Fry has claimed that he was misquoted and that a lot of people had missed the humour in his statement (including Rosie Boycott and Susie Orbach). Perhaps his remarks were taken out of context, but the whole episode seems to have touched a very raw nerve.
‘Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking “God, I’ve got to get my fucking rocks off” [....] It doesn’t happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it,’ Fry apparently continued. ‘Sex is the price they [straight women] are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want.’
But is it any wonder there aren’t women hanging around offering free sex to men in the assorted churchyards of Great Britain? From an early age, we’re taught that for women, sex is a powerful bargaining tool, from the virgins of Greek mythology whose virtue was sacrificed to appease the Gods, to jolly old Nancy and her Oom-pah-pah in Oliver! If we’ve learned one thing, we’ve learned men are willing to pay.
If you remove the first implication— that only prostitutes are up for an illicit encounter — then you’re left with a statement that I suspect a lot of men, and women, might agree with, even if they won’t admit it. Heard all the jokes about the women who become frigid after their wedding day (ie, after the ‘deal is sealed’)? Not to mention gold diggers, sugar daddies and all the other charming names we have for the men and women for whom sex is a bargaining tool.
The sad thing is that a lot of women believe it about themselves — sex can never be just about pleasure, unless you’re lewd and promiscous (yet another discussion about Sex and the City, anyone?). Even Germaine Greer, commenting on Stephen Fry, said, ‘If he thinks women are not interested in genital encounters with total strangers then he is absolutely right.’ But surely some women are? And why shouldn’t they be? Anyone remember Fear of Flying?
Before we get too outraged over Stephen Fry, perhaps we should ask ourselves how comfortable we are with the idea of women pursuing pleasure for the sake of it.
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