I would like to introduce this ebook to you all:

http://books.google.com/books?id=NyicMIxzkUwC&pg=PA29&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=0_0#v=onepage&q&f=false

It’s only a preview, but you can view enough of it. It’s pretty amazing. It includes a quote about a man talking to his buddies—and his buddies say, hey, listen, your girl might not be labeled as a prostitute, but you’re still paying for sex in dinner and gifts and stuff. Haha. Ha.

Ha.

I mentioned to my mother (and I will probably mention her a lot—our views differ a bit, but we still talk every day) about this sort of view, and she responded that the sanctity of marriage and a life-long commitment was the basis of marriage, and that your husband is not ‘paying for sex’ in alternate ways. She also gave me another nugget of wisdom:

“There are two things that men find most important, and they may not know it. The first is his job. The second is sex.”

Sex is (usually) very important to a romantic relationship. In the cases of asexual people, this is generally not true, because they can be romantically involved and perfectly happy without sex. Most relationships need sex to maintain a connection. 

I was watching Dr. Phil the other day, and a husband was unfaithful to his wife with several people. He claimed she wasn’t giving him ‘what he needed’, and therefore he had to look for it in ‘other places’. This man is a pig. But his viewpoint adheres to the ‘commodity model’ of sex described in the book preview.

Women have it, men want it. Hence phrases such as ‘get it’, ‘get some’, and, hey, ‘don’t give it up’. Virgins are often valued, despite the fact that they usually don’t know a shit clue about what they’re doing. Women who aren’t virgins are ‘less valuable’. More experienced, and probably a better and more satisfying partner, but still not as good. They’re used. Damaged goods.

Well, newsflash, most people in their late teens and older are probably not virgins. Unless I hang around an unusually small group of sexually active people.

I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this, I just mostly wanted to share the book. It’s called Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape. It’s by Jaclyn Friendman and Jessica Valen. Go wild.