Introduction

In volume 2 of The Second Sex from 1949, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) examines how women in all stages of life are subjected to and shaped by society’s norms and expectations to perform a specific role in relation to men. As the famous opening goes:

One is not born, but rather becomes, woman”

The book caused huge controversy. The Vatican banned the book and even progressive thinkers, such as Albert Camus, decried the book lamenting that it insulted all French men. Still, the book’s underlying message is as relevant today as when it was published 75 years. Much has also changed, though, especially how girls are raised and their freedom to be physically active, access to sexual education, and an increased focus on articulating gender differences. In some parts, her ideas should therefore be seen as analyses of principles rather than 1:1 descriptions of today’s reality.

This article follows a presentation of volume 1 (The Second Sex – Facts and Myths), and will be followed by a presentation of volume 3 in the series.

Childhood

Although girls and boys in many ways are similar during their early years, boys are often encouraged to be a “little man” and generally treated a bit more roughly. But if the boy is less protected, Beauvoir argues, it is only because bigger things are expected of him. He is taught to embrace and take pride in his masculinity, and this abstract concept takes on a concrete form for him: it is embodied in the penis. His pride in his small, insignificant sex organ does not arise spontaneously—it is the product of how those around him value and affirm masculinity that equals the phallus. Girls’ genitals do not receive the same attention.

The ability to urinate standing up is an event that initiates the little boy into the father’s world and the fact that boys can urinate standing up makes a deep impression on the little girl. When she has to relieve herself, she must squat, expose herself, and hide away. While boys have an “appendage” they can project themselves through, the girl experiences her sexual functions as shameful and awkward, which makes it difficult to handle the vague fear girls feel toward their mysterious “inner parts.”

For boys, the body is a tool through which he, as a subject, can conquer nature. From early on he learns to take blows, to despise pain, and to swallow his tears. Of course, he also experiences himself as an object, a being that exists “for others,” Beauvoir agrees, but there is no fundamental contradiction between this objective image he has of himself and his will to assert himself through concrete goals.

The girl, on the other hand, is encouraged in a tendency—common to all children—to make herself an object. She is taught that if one wishes to please, one must strive to be pleasing—that is, to make oneself into a desirable object—and she quickly learns the value of being “beautiful,” while the boy finds his value in acting. This creates, from early on, a conflict within the girl that becomes a vicious cycle: the less she uses her freedom to understand, grasp, and explore the world around her, the less support she finds in that world, and the harder it becomes for her to dare to assert herself as a subject.

This perception is reinforced when the girl sees that, generally, it is men who make the decisions in the world, while women’s value is often tied to appearance. There are, indeed, many strong female role models, but even when women have power, it is often on the man’s stage—in his “system.” And on a personal level, the father in many households still has the higher salary or the more “prestigious” position. Over time—and not through one great revelation, but through a thousand small realizations—the girl gradually discovers that a woman’s place is more limited, even when no one says so out loud.

Everything, in the little girl’s eyes, contributes to affirming this hierarchy between the sexes. History, literature, songs, fairy tales—all glorify the man. It was man who explored the earth and invented tools, who created nations, culture, and history. So when the little girl explores the world and her destiny, she does so not with her own eyes, but through the eyes of men. Male superiority is overwhelming.

And further:

She learns that one must be loved in order to be happy. And to be loved, one must wait for love. The woman is Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White—she is the one who receives and submits, while the young man boldly sets out to slay giants and seek the woman… Even when women appear as heroines, no matter how enterprising and daring, this reward is what they all strive for. And usually, no other virtue is demanded of them but beauty… For the princess as for the shepherdess, it is beauty that wins love and happiness.”

All these demands placed on little girls—to be quiet, sweet, and well-behaved—suppress their natural vitality. Because they are not allowed to use themselves freely, and because they are bored, they become introverted, sad, dreamy, and detached from reality.

Beauvoir wrote this in 1949, and while it no longer applies with the same intensity—today girls can climb trees and play football, boys also do household chores, and we accept that children are different. But there are still subtle differences in expectations for how girls and boys are allowed to express themselves: girls are allowed—even encouraged—to be helpful, neat, and competent, but too much wildness, anger, or physical activity is quickly seen as a problem. Conversely, boys have easier access to physicality, while vulnerability is suppressed.

The differences persist in the world around children—in advertising, films, toys, adults’ reactions and more. Many girls therefore still internalize the need to be sweet, perfect, and presentable, which can lead to what Beauvoir describes: over-adaptation, boredom, anxiety, and turning creative energy inward as restlessness or overachievement instead of free expression. Romantic fantasy may also have taken a new form in social media, where girls, more than boys, are inclined to mirror themselves in ideals of appearance, relationships, and perfection.

Beauvoir compares the situation to that of Black people in the United States, who in a similar way experienced exclusion. The major difference, however, was that Black people possessed no privilege that could serve as compensation and did not accept their fate.

Women, on the other hand, are encouraged to collude with their oppressors… Parents and educators, books and myths, men and women all entice the little girl with the delights that passivity can offer. From a very early age, she is taught to develop a taste for it, and as the years pass, the temptation creeps in on her from every side. Her resistance inevitably weakens, as her urge for active expression increasingly encounters obstacles. But in accepting passivity, she also accepts without resistance the desire to submit to a fate dictated from the outside—and this necessity frightens her.

Puberty

With puberty the child’s body is transformed into a fully developed female body and nearly everything in the girl’s relationships with her surroundings changes.

During this confusing period, the little girl must get used to the fact that there is now almost always a strange pain in her tender chest. Something is happening—something that has nothing to do with illness, but is a consequence of the very laws of existence, and yet feels like struggle and division… Now her body is “developing”—even the word itself fills her with revulsion… Whether she is more or less prepared, she senses in these changes a purposefulness that tears her away from herself. Through them, she is thrown into a life cycle that extends beyond her immediate existence, and she senses a dependency that binds her to man, child, and grave. Until now, everything in her body had a function—and the somewhat suspect urinary organ was hidden away. Now her breasts are suddenly visible beneath her blouse, and the body she thought was herself is experienced as flesh, as an object that others can see and look at. It can come as a shock to many girls when they realize they are being looked at. The girl feels as though her body is slipping away from her—that it is no longer a clear expression of her individuality, but something foreign.

In prepuberty the girl may feel no discomfort at all with her body. She is proud to become a woman, stuffs tissues into her blouse, and watches with satisfaction as her chest begins to grow. Understanding comes with the first menstruation, and now the feeling of shame arrives. As one girl says: From then on, there was a ‘before’ in my memory. The rest of my life would now only be an ‘after.’

Beauvoir wrote this in 1949, and it may not apply in quite the same way today, where many girls receive good education and experience support at home. But studies show that many girls still experience shame and discomfort, hide their tampons, and feel unclean during menstruation, which is considered something to be concealed and managed, rather than something one is simply allowed to be in.

During puberty, boys too feel burdened by their bodies, but since they have been proud of their virility since childhood, it comes naturally for them to project the process of maturing into that identity. They boast about the hair growing on their legs, speak loudly with deep voices, and show off their upper arms, etc. A demanding freedom may cause anxiety, but they embrace their masculine dignity with joy. And the penis continues to be an alter ego he can be proud of.

The little girl’s sexuality, by contrast, has always taken place in secret. When her eroticism is transformed and takes hold of her entire flesh, it becomes an oppressive mystery… She understands that her destiny is to be possessed, since she herself longs for it—but she rebels against her own desire. She both wants and fears the degrading passivity associated with being a willing prey… But the most undeniable and repulsive symbol of physical possession is this: that the man’s organ must penetrate her.

Today, sexual norms are different, and the dynamic of desire and power no longer necessarily follows the pattern “man active, woman passive.” Still, many women’s first sexual experiences may be marked by ambivalence and uncertainty. And although women today have access to contraception and abortion, there remains a difference between the one who “receives” and the one who “penetrates.” Many women (and girls) feel that their boundaries must be defended, that they must consider what they are “giving away”—and this makes the experience of possession still real, though now more hidden in the language of consent.

In 1949, Beauvoir could also write:

Even the “most pious and innocent” little girl harbors “abominable” fantasies and desires in her heart. She does everything to hide them… Her only wish is to live and think as convention dictates… But despite all repression, she feels burdened under the weight of unspeakable sins. Not only shame, but also guilt is inextricably linked to her transformation into a woman.

This likely does not apply with the same intensity today, but many girls and young women still experience double standards: they are allowed to be sexually liberated—but not too much; they should be natural, but also attractive; they are expected to be autonomous and independent, but also caring and easy to get along with.

This creates an internal conflict, where one easily ends up feeling ashamed of one’s own feelings, desires, and aggressions—even if one knows that it is “allowed” to feel them. Today, that shame often takes the form of self-criticism, low self-esteem, anxiety, or perfectionism.

Youth

With the arrival of puberty, the future not only draws nearer to the woman—it takes up residence in her body. In practical terms, in 1949 this meant that the woman was now expected to wait for her prince and liberator, and biologically, that she had to adjust to a new reality:

Menstruation is accompanied by pain, headaches, soreness, and stomach aches and makes normal activity difficult or even impossible. To these ailments often come psychological difficulties. It is not uncommon for women, each month, to become slightly mentally disturbed in their nervous and irritable state… The entire universe becomes an unbearable burden when experienced through this suffering and sensitive flesh.

As for society’s boundaries regarding women’s agency, these are especially evident when it comes to the use of force. While brute strength plays no major role in the adult world, it still haunts it, and on every street corner, a fight is always in the air. Most often, nothing happens. But the very fact that the man feels the will to self-assertion in his fists is enough to convince him of his sovereignty and his right to embrace his passions and will.

Beauvoir elaborates:

If one categorically renounces the use of force, it is equivalent to locking oneself inside an abstract subjectivity and forfeiting any possibility of arriving at objective truth. The anger, the rebellion that does not reach the muscles never leaves the realm of the unreal. To be excluded from allowing one’s innermost impulses to leave a trace on the earth is one of the most dreadful misfortunes a human being can suffer… One need only observe the importance young men place on their muscles to understand that every subject perceives their body as the objective expression of the self.

Add to this that the girl’s body often responds directly and physically to her emotional life, as if there is almost no distance between what she feels and what her body expresses. She has not yet learned to separate or process her internal states in a way society recognizes, and therefore her restlessness, anxiety, anger, or vulnerability often manifest through the body. This may show up as fatigue, tension, stomach aches, or sleep disturbances. The body becomes a direct reflection of what she cannot say aloud or fully understand—a kind of bodily protest or appeal for understanding.

The self-control imposed on the woman, which becomes “well-behaved young girls’” second nature, kills all spontaneity, joy of life, rebellion, and initiative—and instead encourages laziness and mediocrity. Without trust in her body, her confidence evaporates, and the woman prepares herself to be prey and to perceive herself as an object. But the forced acceptance of passivity has consequences for her view of existence:

The taste for secrecy that was developed in the little girl during prepuberty becomes even more pronounced. She withdraws into exalted solitude. She does not want to share with others the hidden self she considers her true self, but which in reality is an imaginary person. She becomes absorbed in the role of the extraordinary marvel she believes herself to be, infinitely distant from the objective person known by her parents and friends. This convinces her that no one understands her, which only deepens her passionate attachment to her own self. She intoxicates herself with her solitude, feels different from others, above her surroundings—in short, as an exceptional being. She promises herself that the future will bring reparation for the mediocrity of her present life and uses dreams as a means to escape this narrow and petty existence… She tells herself silly fairy tales. Her lack of grasp on the world explains why she so often gives in to this sort of nonsense. If she were forced to act, she would have to face things, but instead, she can sit in the fog and wait. The young man also dreams—but mostly of exciting events in which he plays an active role. The young girl prefers the wondrous over the exciting. She surrounds people and things with a shimmering, magical light. The idea of magic is the idea of a passive power. The young girl must believe in magic because she is confined to passivity and yet desires power. She must believe in the magic of her body, which is supposed to force men under her yoke, and in the magic of life itself, which will fulfill her wishes without her having to do anything. The world of reality, on the other hand, she ignores.

In the long run, the lonely life of daydreams becomes unsatisfying for the young girl. She often seeks help among her peers, and the young girl may develop strong feelings for a female friend or a teacher. Or she may experiment by falling in love with a socially esteemed man—an older, slightly comical teacher or a film star; thoughts she would never carry out, but which allow her to become acquainted with love on a purely abstract level.

Since the woman has only one option—the man—she eventually needs his love. But the condition for him to give her independent value is that he himself is a sovereign consciousness. Self-assurance, in whatever form it appears, carries something victorious with it, and a woman may feel drawn to the cruelty of a Nero.

Many young girls search for a man who, in their eyes, stands above all others in terms of position, qualities, and intelligence. They want him to be older than they are, because that ensures his position is consolidated, his prestige and authority widely recognized. Wealth and fame exert an irresistible power over them, as the chosen one appears to them as the absolute Subject, whose love will allow them to share in his radiance and necessity. His superiority gives the young girl’s love a glow of ideality: when she wishes to surrender to him, it is not because he is a male being, but because he is this radiant being of exception. “I search for giants, and find only men,” as one despairing young girl said.

The woman simultaneously refuses to acknowledge the consequences of objectification. The young girl may be proud of being able to attract a man’s interest and arouse his admiration, but blushes and becomes angry the moment she is looked at too closely.

It amuses her to challenge the man, but if she realizes that she has awakened his desire, she withdraws with every sign of disgust. Male desire is as much an insult as it is a tribute. As long as she feels responsible for her charm and senses that she has control over it, she delights in her victories—but the moment she experiences her features, her shape, her flesh as something given and imposed upon her, she wants to hide them from this foreign and intrusive independent being who desires them. This is the core of that elemental sense of shame that can appear, seemingly without reason, in the midst of the most uninhibited flirtation. A young girl can take the most astonishing liberties because she has not yet realized that it is precisely her initiative that reveals her as the passive object. As soon as she discovers this, she is frightened and filled with anger. Nothing is more ambiguous than a gaze. It observes from a distance, and because of this distance it appears respectful—but it stealthily takes possession of what is seen. The newly emerged woman constantly falls into such traps. First she gives in to her feelings, but immediately afterward stiffens with tension and suppresses her own desire. Her still uncertain body experiences a caress one moment as gentle pleasure, the next as an unpleasant tickling.

While the young boy can resort to powerful acts of force and affirm himself as a subject through punches, the young girl is not permitted to assert herself or make her presence felt—and it is precisely this that outrages her so deeply.

For her, there is no hope of changing the world or rising above it. She knows—or at least believes—that she is bound, and perhaps she even wants to be. Her only option is to be destructive. Behind her rage lies a deep despair… The young girl watches herself as she suffers. She is more preoccupied with her own desire for violence and rebellion than genuinely interested in what she might achieve by realizing those tendencies. When she adopts such a perverted attitude, the reason is that she is still firmly rooted in a childish universe that she cannot—or will not—completely free herself from. She beats blindly against the bars of her cage without seriously trying to escape it. Her behavior is negative, inward-facing, and symbolic.

Woman is placed in a desperate situation. Her passivity is unsatisfying, but she has not learned to act and is tormented by self-loathing for doing nothing, all the while her surroundings try to convince her that she lives in the best of all possible worlds—where all she must do is wait for the prince.

But the lie imposed upon the young girl consists primarily in this: that she is required to act as though she were an object—indeed, a charming object—while in reality she experiences herself as an insecure and divided being that knows her own flaws all too well… She carefully rehearses what are supposed to be natural and spontaneous facial expressions and mimics enraptured passivity. Nothing is more startling than suddenly seeing a face, whose usual expression one knows well, in the midst of performing its “feminine” function. Transcendence denies itself and mimics immanence. The gaze sees nothing but functions as a mirror; the body no longer lives but waits; every movement and every smile is a summons. Defenseless and compliant, she stands there possessing no more independence than a flower being offered or a fruit waiting to be picked.

The man encourages the deception—indeed, he demands to be deceived. And the woman, who has no opportunity to act but only to be, does what is required of her. She has no means of measuring herself, and therefore seeks comfort in performance. She assembles a personality and tries to make this constructed personality meaningful; she surrounds herself with tragedy in order to at least feel that she is alive, or she lulls herself into delusions and wishful dreams. As one woman said: “I want everything — and now.”

Such childish obstinacy is found only in those who dream their destiny. The dream sweeps away time and all obstacles, and must constantly outdo itself to compensate for its lack of reality. Anyone with real plans knows a sense of finality and limitation, which is the very pledge of concrete power. The young girl expects everything to be given to her because nothing depends on her. Hence also her sensitivity and vanity, since her value is determined by the capricious judgment of her surroundings, never by her own effort—and the smallest criticism or mocking remark casts her entire existence into doubt.

The young girl’s vulnerability to painful inner conflict gives her a certain richness and complexity. Her inner life develops more than her brothers’. She watches her feelings more attentively, which makes them more nuanced and diverse. She has greater psychological sensibility than boys, whose minds are oriented toward external goals. She does not as easily fall into the traps of solemnity or conformism and offers only an ironic, perceptive smile for the lies her surroundings have concocted. She experiences daily the ambiguity of her conditions and dares to question not only the declared optimism of society but also its ready-made values and its hypocritical, comforting morals.

Most often, the young girl makes only negative use of this freedom, but she may also develop such a capacity for receptivity that she enchants the entire world with her gentle generosity. But it requires an unspoiled authenticity to spare her from the ordinary conflicts of girlhood.

As the human universe does not seem to have a place for her, and she herself struggles to fit in, she manages—like the child—to view it objectively. Instead of focusing solely on mastering things, she lingers on their meaning. She grasps their unique contours and surprising transformations… The young girl immerses herself in things with burning interest because her transcendence has not yet been stifled—and precisely the fact that she accomplishes nothing and is nothing only makes her passionate enthusiasm all the more intense. Empty and limitless as she is, she will from the depths of her nothingness attempt to attain Everything.

This youthful demand for the absolute can also ignite a fervor that may burn through an entire life, as in the cases of Rosa Luxemburg or Sophie Scholl.

Amid her slavery, amid her powerlessness, the young girl can draw from the depths of her rebellion the courage for the boldest actions. She encounters poetry, and she encounters heroism. To rise above the narrow horizon of society is one of the ways in which she can relate to the fact that she is poorly integrated into it.

But these are exceptions. The Brontë sisters had a harsh fate. The young girl is pathetic because, alone and helpless, she rebels against the world. But the world is far too powerful. If she persists in rejecting it, she is broken. That is why most girls, during puberty, submit. The girl who was once so rebellious becomes a sensible being resigned to a woman’s life. Little by little, the young girl buries her childhood—that is, the independent and sovereign individual she once was—and obediently enters the adult world.

As the eighteen-year-old Marie Bashkirtseff wrote: “The closer I come to the old age of my youth, the more indifferent I become. Few things excite me now, whereas everything used to excite me.”

Sexual Initiation

For the man, the transition from childhood sexuality to maturity is relatively simple; the man still remains at the center, but reaches beyond himself toward the object without losing his independence. The sexual act concludes with orgasm, and the man has not been subjected to any infringement on his bodily integrity; his contribution to the species is one with his own pleasure.

The woman’s eroticism is far more complex and reflects the complexity of her entire situation. The sexual debut tears the woman out of her childhood world. It is not a harmonious conclusion to a continuous development, but a sudden break with the past and the beginning of a new cycle. The clitoral orgasm is now accompanied by the vaginal orgasm, which can be seen as more “mature” because it involves the partner and symbolizes a kind of surrender and union—but it can also represent an adaptation to the man’s needs more than the woman’s actual experience of pleasure.

Another important difference is how male and female sexuality are viewed. The patriarchal society has consecrated the woman to chastity, while the man is granted the right to satisfy his sexual desires and is admired for his conquests. For her, the sexual act is sin and fall. The man is strong and potent, active and reaching beyond himself; the woman is warm or cold in her passive qualities.

The woman’s sexuality thus awakens in an entirely different atmosphere than the man’s. Furthermore, her erotic attitude is extremely complex the first time she faces a man.

It is easy to slip from sensory arousal to mere ticklishness, from irritation to desire; arms that embrace a body may offer shelter and protection—but they may also be a suffocating prison. For the untouched girl, this ambiguity is chronic because of the paradox of her situation: the organ where the transformation is to take place is closed. The vague, burning longing in her flesh is spread throughout her body, except in the very place where the act is to be fulfilled. She has no organ through which she can satisfy her active eroticism, and of the one that binds her to passivity, she knows nothing by experience.

This does not mean that the woman cannot use her energy. She can transform a burning vitality entirely and fully into carnality. To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is something entirely different from being a passive object. The balance is easily broken, but it can release powerful impulses. These phenomena, however, only emerge once a certain climax has been reached, and this is only possible if complete freedom from both physical and moral coercion has first made it possible for all vital energy to concentrate in the sexual act. It is therefore not enough for the young girl to let it happen; she must participate actively.

In other words, the woman’s erotic debut is not easy (!) and marks a clear threshold. Yesterday she could flirt and still play with reality; today it is real eyes that look at her, and real hands that touch her. The young man, too, has been initiated by his first lover, but he has an erotic independence clearly expressed in the erection; what his lover does is simply giving reality to the object he already desired: a female body. The young girl, on the other hand, needs the man in order to come to clarity about her own body, and so her dependency is far deeper.

Like the woman, the man is also a piece of flesh, but he has the aggressive role and his erection, which makes him less exposed and less afraid of being judged; it is not their passive qualities their lover demands of them—it is rather their potency and their ability to satisfy the woman that their complexes gather around; and at the very least, they can defend themselves and try to win the game. The woman has no such opportunity to make her flesh an expression of her will; the man is the judge, and the woman can never know for certain what his judgment will be.

And it is precisely this that terrifies her; lovers are even more frightening than someone who looks at her—they are judges; they are to tell her what she truly is. Even if she has been passionately enamored with her own image, every young girl doubts herself the moment she stands before the man’s judgment; that is why she wants darkness and hides under the covers. When she admired herself in the mirror, she was only dreaming of herself—dreaming of being seen through a man’s eyes. But now the eyes are there, and it is impossible to deceive, impossible to resist; it is someone else, in impenetrable freedom, who decides—and the decision is irreversible. When she is put to the test of reality in the erotic experience, the compulsions of childhood and youth will either dissolve at last or be definitively confirmed. Many young girls suffer because of their legs, which they find too thick, their breasts, which are too small or too large, their narrow hips, the mole they have somewhere—or simply because they are afraid their bodies are in some way wrongly made.

Beauvoir cautions:

That is why the man’s attitude is so significant. Passion and tenderness on his part can give the woman a self-confidence that may withstand all denials; even at eighty, a woman may perceive herself as the exotic flower or bird that a man’s desire once awakened in her. If her lover or husband, on the other hand, is clumsy, he may instill in her an inferiority complex that can sometimes develop into chronic neuroses—and into a resentment that manifests as lasting frigidity.

Beauvoir goes so far as to assert that the first sexual intercourse is always, in a sense, a form of rape. This sounds harsh, but her point is that the pain and discomfort many young girls experience during their first vaginal intercourse—especially when it occurs without adequate knowledge, desire, or respect—is a deeply transgressive event.

But it is not even the pain that plays the biggest role; rather, it is the very act of the man penetrating her. What the man inserts into the act, Beauvoir says, is merely an external organ—while the woman is struck deep within her interior. She surrenders her own body to the man who enters it.

On top of that comes the threat of the child. Today, there is contraception and access to abortion, but the threat still exists—and even these measures deny the natural function of her body.

However, the woman need not experience a traumatic upheaval if her first lover acts without violence or surprise. In that case, however, she has not been “possessed” and has not had that experience. That experience can in fact be found even in a dance, which may awaken a demon in the girl. If they never have that experience at some point, they may spend their whole lives in a state of semi-frigidity. “True sexual maturity exists only in a woman who consents to become flesh in the excitement of the senses and of pleasure.”

This should not lead one to believe that all difficulties disappear in passionate women, though; on the contrary, they may become even greater.

The woman’s sensory arousal can reach an intensity that it does not in the man. The man’s desire is intense, but localized, and aside perhaps from the moment of ejaculation, it does not deprive him of mastery over himself. The woman, on the other hand, can be seized by a veritable madness; for many, this transformation is the most pleasurable and decisive moment in love—but there is also something magical and frightening about it. A man may be afraid of the woman he holds in his arms, so far outside herself does she seem, so overtaken by frenzy. The upheaval she experiences is a far more radical transformation than the man’s aggressive fury. Such a fevered state frees her from all shame; but when she awakens from it, it instead fills her with shame and terror. To be able to accept it with joy—or even pride—she must at the very least have burned in the flames of pleasure. She may be able to claim her desire if she has fulfilled it completely; if not, she rejects it with anger.

In other words, the woman’s sexual experience can be a total bodily and psychological overwhelm, dissolving the boundary between consciousness and body—something entirely different from the man’s more “localized” desire.

Beauvoir doesn’t state it directly, but her analysis carries a strong potential for understanding misogyny: that the woman’s ability to surrender, to lose control, and to transcend herself in ecstasy is what frightens men and prompts the cultural demonization and control of the female body.

The man’s attitude is therefore of the utmost importance. If his desire is violent and brutal, his partner feels turned into a mere thing in his arms. But if he does not surrender—if he does not become flesh—he demands that the woman become an object without offering her any power over him in return.
In both cases, her pride rebels; for her to reconcile her transformation into a carnal object with her demand to be a subject, she must, even as she makes herself prey to the man, also make him prey to her.

This brings us to an essential difference in the dramatic structure of intercourse:

For the man, intercourse has a definite biological endpoint: ejaculation… Once that is reached, it functions as a conclusion, and if not the satisfaction of desire, then at least its disappearance. For the woman, however, the goal is unclear from the outset and more psychological than physiological. She desires sensory arousal, pleasure in general; but her body offers no clear conclusion to the sexual act… The man’s desire rises steeply, culminates, and dies abruptly in orgasm. The woman’s desire radiates through her entire body…

The man therefore makes a serious mistake when he tries to impose his own rhythm on his partner and insists on giving her an orgasm; often, he only ends up disrupting the state of pleasure she was beginning to experience in her own way. The woman’s sexual experience is, in other words, not a project—and certainly not the man’s project!

Many believe that pleasure for a woman is a matter of time and technique—that is, something to be applied from the outside. They do not realize to what extent the woman’s sexuality depends on the overall situation… The woman wants to lose herself in a night of flesh, as impenetrable as the maternal womb. And most of all, she wants to erase the boundary between herself and the man; she wants to merge with him…

Again, Beauvoir does not make this connection but it is tempting to view the woman’s desire to erase the boundaries and merge with the man in light of her child bearing capabilities and woman’s very real experience of merger with another living being.

With that thought let us end this presentation with another quote from Beauvoir, where she highlights the potential that the woman’s complex erotic situation also holds:

The erotic experience is one of those that most painfully reveals to human beings the ambiguity of their condition; in it, they experience themselves as flesh and spirit, as otherness and as subject. It is for the woman that this conflict takes on the most dramatic character, because she first sees herself as an object and does not immediately find any secure autonomy in pleasure; she must reclaim her dignity as a free and transcendent subject, even as she embraces her bodily condition; it is a difficult and risky endeavor, and one that often fails. But it is precisely the difficulty of her situation that protects her from the mystifications the man succumbs to; he easily lets himself be duped by the deceptive privileges that come with his aggressive role and the complacent self-satisfaction that orgasm gives him …he recoils from fully recognizing himself as flesh. The woman, by contrast, experiences herself with greater authenticity.

Concluding Remarks

I hope the above introduction to volume 2 of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex has sparked your interest. In an upcoming article I will present volume 3, which focuses on woman’s life after youth. You can find the presentation of the first volume in the series here.

If you would like to be introduced to a related scientific field, follow this link to a presentation of Terror Management Theory that expands on Beauvoir’s ideas about sex, body and death.

Skeleton-Man show – Death: The High Price of Life

In my show Death: The High Price of Life, I introduce the audience to the existentialist tradition. You can read more about the show here, which is especially aimed at educational institutions and businesses — for example, as a festive feature at the annual general meeting of an art club.

For BOOKING and pricing inquiries, please contact: info@skeleton-man.com