Reina Gattuso Analysis

A few months ago, a Harvard senior named Reina Gattuso wrote a column in the school newspaper. It described her crummy night of drunken sex with a couple of men she didn’t know. “I have so much to drink my memory becomes dark water,” she wrote. She freely admitted that she consented. Enthusiastically. And that was the problem. She thought she would enjoy it, but instead she just felt rotten!

Most people might conclude from this experience that random sex with drunken strangers is a poor idea, and Ms. Gattuso really should not try that again. Old-fashioned moralists might even call such behaviour tawdry, degrading and sluttish. Not Ms. Gattuso. And not Rebecca Traister, the New York Magazine writer who wrote about it. To them, the moral of
These differences are to a great extent hard-wired. Female sexual desire can be as powerful and urgent as men’s. But most women are only able to have good sex with men they feel connected to and trust; for most men, that’s not the case. Most women really do not want sex unless it might lead to commitment. Men really do not want to invest a lot of time in women unless it leads to sex. And so it goes. Women’s best reproductive strategy is to be selective. Men’s best reproductive strategy is to be promiscuous. As Woody Allen once wrote: “Sex without love is an empty experience … But as empty experiences go, it’s one of the best.”

Eventually men will bond with you, of course, and everything will change, and they will be willing, even eager, to faithfully protect you and your babies. But until that happens you really can’t expect much from them.

I know all of this is a cliché. But it’s also true. Unfortunately, the emotional, behavioural, hormonal and biochemical differences between the sexes are not taught in sex ed or gender-studies courses because the truth is considered so reactionary. Some people also consider it monstrously unfair to women. Sadly, much in life is unfair. Men can pee standing up. But what can you