Feminists' heterosexual relationships: more on dominance and mating

Feminists' heterosexual relationships: more on dominance and mating.

"The hypothesis that female dominance inhibits mating whereas male dominance facilitates it, and seemingly incongruous findings suggesting that dominant women take more initiative and are more interested than others in sex, are explored through comparison of feminist and control subjects, ie, women who were expected, a priori, to be located at widely separated points on a theoretical dominance continuum. Principal findings are the following: (1) sexual initiative and satisfaction appear to be greater among feminists than others, (2) there is no difference between groups in frequency of coitus in a present (or most recent) sexual relationship, but (3) there is a tendency for feminists to have had less stable first marriages than control subjects. These findings do permit more than one interpretation: the greater sexual satisfaction combined with marital instability among feminists may reflect their energy and willingness to change an unsatisfactory condition, or, in addition, the more general proposition that personal power is associated with positive sexual response in both men and women, so that there is minimal complementarity along this dimension. Both cultural and biologic factors appear to contribute to the relative instability of feminists' marriages...

The author's original hypothesis that female dominance inhibits mating whereas male dominance facilitates it was derived from empirical findings including (1) field observations of nonhuman primates that reveal that the mother/son incest taboo can be broken in the rare instance where the son challenges and then becomes dominant over his mother; (2) psychiatric studies that link various forms of male sexual dysfunction, including homosexuality3 and transvestism,' with having been reared by a very dominant mother; and (3) ethnological reports that show high divorce and infidelity rates in association with cultural patterns favoring female power. The dominance hypothesis also provides a parsimonious framework for understanding (4) experimental manipulations showing that sexually potent male bonnet macaques will not mate with females more dominant than themselves, as well as (5) psychiatric observations of the pathological condition in which male sexual arousal is dependent on degradation of the female,conversely, where male impotence and exhibitionism appear to be triggered by relationships with dominant women...

The problem was approached through comparison of mating patterns and sexual histories of (1) women active in the feminist movement and (2) more traditionally oriented women from the population at large. Assuming that the self-avowed character and goals of the women's liberation movement virtually assure that its participants have espoused demands for parity in male-female statuses, and also that power is more likely to be acquired when it is a conscious objective, there is face validity in expecting that a women's liberation group and a nonfeminist group will differ substantially in their level of dominating within heterosexual couple relationships. Thus, the research is designed to build in a wide range of values for relative male-female power.

The sample consists of 24 feminists and 26 control subjects, all of whom have a primarily heterosexual orientation, are between 21 and 39 years of age, and have completed at least one year of college. Feminists are defined as having attended, at least once, an organized women's meeting or consciousness-raising group and as being in sympathy with a majority of the goals of the women's movement... Although only one feminist who was asked to participate refused, over three quarters of married women from the general population refused. This response pattern may indicate that the most traditionally oriented women are under-represented in the control group, creating an experimental bias that probably minimizes real differences between feminists and others...

There is no difference between groups on age of first coitus or in frequency of coitus in ongoing relationships, which averages slightly less than twice a week for both groups. However, there is a nonsignificant tendency for feminists to have had less-stable marriages than more traditionally oriented women, suggesting interruptions in coital activity. Although one control subject and no feminist had been divorced twice, feminists were more than twice as likely as controls to have terminated a first marriage.

Information on their divorce or separation provided by nine of the 11 women suggests qualitative differences between feminists and controls. More traditionally oriented women report development of marital crises in the context of their having been ill-used in spite of attempting to be compliant under difficult circumstances; on the contrary, in describing their failed marriage, feminists inject themes of competition, a power struggle, or the incompatibility of marriage with other valued goals. Nonetheless, a rating of generalized hostility toward men reveals no difference between groups; a process rather than preconceived attitudes appears to explain marital disruption.

Finally, sexual dysfunction may have a higher incidence among feminists' husbands than others; episodic impotence was an associated complaint in two cases where feminists and their spouses sought professional assistance in increasing coital frequency; but partially balancing this, the second husband of one nonfeminist was repeatedly arrested for indecent exposure."


It's not surprising feminists don't have less sex. Due to female mate choice you can always find a man to bang you. The question is why feminists don't have *more* sex given that they are against slut shaming etc.

This is evidence that feminists are more likely to get divorced.

Feminists having more extramarital sex also strongly suggests that they're more likely to cheat on their husbands.

They conclude that feminists and non-feminists are equally dissatisfied in their marriages (and no doubt feminists will trumpet that this just shows that those who get divorced are exiting unhappy marriages), but considering that feminists have had more marriages, their average dissatisfaction in their marriages is most likely higher (i.e. survivorship bias).

Ultimately when feminism is taken as a proxy for dominance, there are too many omitted variables to conclude that sexual dominance in women increases sexual satisfaction (given evidence to the contrary).