It worries me that I get dry. Sometimes I think I am so turned on and my husband tells me I am dry. Sometimes just when I really want to do it, it bums when he tries to go in me. I think I might be having menopause or something. I’m only thirty-two years old and I’m drying out.
WIFE
If men have been pressured by the focus on erection of the penis as a tangible sign of emotional state, then women have been pressured by a form of’ ‘sexual dipsticking,” checking for vaginal’ ‘fluid levels” as a sign of arousal. Both indicators are invalid because erection of penis, clitoris, and lubrication are merely reflexes that do not accurately reflect our emotional or arousal state. Men can he intensely aroused without erection and intensely erect without arousal, and women can be intensely aroused and not lubricated and abundantly lubricated and not aroused.
The sexist orientation of a well-lubricated opening for a rigid male organ neglected the fact of female clitoral erection. This orientation saw women as being made ready by men to receive men, and is unlike the new perspective, which sees couples getting ready together to merge and share. The early perspectives tried to make sexual response totally different from all other human physiological response. Our bodies just do not work that way. We are a system, and the sexual part of that system does not enjoy or suffer from exclusivity. If you are sweating heavily, you would not necessarily report that you are vigorously exercising. Sweating is determined by many factors, including temperature, humidity, general metabolism, diet, feelings, thoughts, and activity level. This concept is true for lubrication (actually transudation or a sweating of the vaginal walls).
We cannot look to our genitals to tell us whether or not we are turned on or aroused, because they are only a part of a complex interactional system that can arouse us as much as signal arousal. The phallocentric, vaginalcentric orientation limits our potential for sexual development by assuming a one-directional, stimulus/ response mechanism that does not exist in human experience. Learning this key point is another important step toward super marital sex.
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