Since there is so much talk about testosterone these days, especially the supposedly falling levels of testosterone of women in peri to post-menopause, we might just as well embark on this topic and talk about our allegedly non-existent libido and sex life in the West.
Also, it’s fair to ask if pumping ourselves with exogenous testosterone is enough to warrant good sex? Or is there more to our sex life?
Well, there is a definite correlation between testosterone and libido, I can certainly vouch for that. Exercise, especially weight training, is a fantastic temporary testosterone booster. To be precise, about 15 minutes post exercise testosterone is elevated, for some this joy last up to an hour. I must admit, since I have started Olympic Weightlifting, my sex life has improved. Big time. You’re welcome.
So, when you look at the strong socialist women flexing their muscles on their propaganda posters, you might think that you now know their secret. And you might be right, partially.
My most formative years were under communism: empty shelves, long queues, rationing of toilet paper. But they were also filled with free holiday camps; subsidised school meals; free really good healthcare, availability to have an MOT with my gynaecologist every six months or more often should I want it; sex education; subsidised school trips to theatres and cinemas etc.; 8 hours of sport every week (I chose volleyball but, because socialism pushed athleticism, you could practically do any sport for free), my master’s degree. You get the gist.
My mother, grandmother, in fact every woman that I knew of, had a job. Women didn’t have to fight for equal rights because they had equal rights. Why? Because everybody was obliged to work, and most jobs were paid equally.
In return, the social safety net was there for women who, when with a baby, were able to take paid maternity leave (varied length depending on the country in the Eastern Block). The state-provided childcare also meant that women didn’t need to choose between having a job and spending the majority of their salary on childcare or, as I see happening a lot in the West, quitting their job altogether.
My grandmother was a single parent never having to quit her job while looking after my mother, and guess what, she worked as a foreman in a shipyard. (Yes, the famous Gdansk Shipyard where Lech Walesa started his Solidarity revolution.) Why? Because the childcare was taken care of by the state-run kindergartens.
When I was a kid and school holidays came, I hardly saw my parents as I was busy attending a variety of holiday camps, usually with a theme of linguistics, sailing or horse-riding. I never heard my parents complaining: ‘oh gosh, it’s half-term again’. Their daughter was busy peeling potatoes while learning to be a girl scout deep in the Pomeranian Lake Side.
When I’m pushed for an honest answer, I do not think women in the West are any more emancipated than those under socialism.
Having access to free education, healthcare, job availability and childcare (for those who wished to be mothers), meant that we were able to, I guess, have our cake and eat it.
And we also had a lot of free time. And since TV was pretty bad back then, there were no smartphones (you were lucky if you had a phone at all), so women read… or had sex.
And how on earth is being constantly busy and chasing our career, childcare, gym routine, being a taxi driver for the teenagers and God-knows-what-else in this so-called emancipated West, sex-conducive? I’m tired just thinking about it.
There was an experiment done after the Berlin Wall collapsed looking into sexual satisfaction between women in East Germany and West Germany.
Just to give you an economic background on this, once the wall was dismantled, the people in the West drove Mercedes and BMWs and in the East, they were pootling along in Trabants. So based on that, you might think that women in the more prosperous country would be more emancipated and, ergo, more sexually satisfied. Nope!
For four decades the two Germanys followed different paths.
The West embraced capitalism and traditional gender roles (breadwinner/homemaker model of marriage).
The East pushed for a massive mobilisation of women into the labour force, mostly due to labour shortages and with the goal of women’s emancipation. Female economic independence was proposed with men encouraged to participate in domestic work, sharing the burden of childcare with their wives, who were also employed full-time.[1]
Being financially independent meant that sex was less of a commodity and women had more autonomy to choose their male partners based on their intelligence, humour and other qualities (including sexual performance in the bedroom) than just the ability to make money.
In fact, being a single mother in socialism wasn’t such a burden as schools, kindergartens, all post-school and holiday activities were covered by the state.
In the West, if you are dependent on your husband’s salary to provide for you and your children and, like in the case of some countries, health insurance, you are less likely to leave if not satisfied.
Hence the statistics taken during the ideological battle between those two countries once they unified in 1990 called “The Great Orgasm War’”. The studies showed that 82% of the East German women reported to feel ‘happy’ after sex, whilst only 52% felt the same in the West Germany. In fact, after the wall collapsed, there was some interesting talk of Western men fetishising the idea of the passionate East German woman.
But the passionate East German woman is not an ‘easy woman’. In societies where the state supports female independence, sex is no longer an avenue for social mobility or financial security. This means that men have to try harder.
With more and more educated and independent women in the West, it seems like the boys are struggling to keep up. The old-fashioned rules of men being the alpha and omega no longer apply. Maybe this is why, as The Economist writes, young men and women are drifting apart [2]
I do not really want to dive as deep as talking about Incels (Involuntarily Celibate). These are the individuals who hold misogynistic beliefs and often blame women for their lack of sexual activity or romantic relationships. They claim to be the nice guys that nobody wants. Men who identify as involuntarily single consider themselves not good at flirting, socially awkward, and not attractive to the opposite sex.[3]
However, let’s ponder the last sentence here. ‘Socially awkward, not good at flirting’. In fact, I must admit, I came across a lot of these types of men after I moved to the West. Apart from my husband who took me out for a picnic to Greenwich Park and behaved like a true Mr Darcy, and a couple of other wonderful men I have the pleasure of knowing, I feel the dating horizon for women in the West is bleak.
The lack of manners and any life interests, worldly ignorance, uncultured behaviour and zero interest in books makes me feel like I’m back in the American adult animated series Beavis and Butt-Head.
I do not come from East Germany but as per my husband’s words: I’m this exotic (I laughed when I’ve heard this!) passionate woman from a country that has a long history of female emancipation.
Now, let’s be clear, I do not advocate we return to any form of twentieth-century state socialism. Those experiments failed under the weight of their own contradictions. [4] But the free economy and capitalism is not all pure gold. That is why I ask those questions in search of better alternatives.
Thoughts? Observations? Let me know in the comments below.
[1] [4] Why women have better sex under socialism; And Other Arguments for Economic Independence. Kristen R. Ghodsee.
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