Desiring Desire

Also is it just me or does it seem like women being socially conditioned to desire desire (more than desiring a given partner), to find being the object of desire more erotic than doing the desiring is a patriarchal thing… like we’re conditioned to desire to be objects of male-gaze without having our own gaze if that makes sense. I know that I personally very much want my partner to be desirable and know they’re desirable and kind of flaunt that desirability and use it in a very “feminine coded” way, idk

I think this is something that developed with capitalism and has correlates interesting with developments in costume history. In 15th century Europe for example women were perceived as the lustful ones and men perceived as “just wanting commitment” while still being an immensely patriarchal group of societies… but men’s clothing was brighter and had a lot more elements of “sexual display” than women’s did at the time (I don’t think clothing is inherently sexual but when unclothed bodies are sexualized and there’s like a contrast in the sexualization of clothing between groups there’s sort of like… something going on semiotically, and this women are lustful rhetoric was used as a justification for the inferior status of women… so like that’s interesting) and in fact the 19th century “women are purer” was a reaction to the historical idea of women as the “lustful” sex (their terminology, not mine, obviously that’s super binarist and essentialist and fucked in a myriad of ways) and this was the period during which European men’s clothes went from pretty and colorful and display-y to drab and boring and sort of intentionally anti-sexual. IDK I think it might have something to do with the fully development of capitalism (which I think really blossomed in the 19th century which fits well with my historical materialist theory of cosmetics usage) but like IDK exactly what it means but it all seems sort of… suggestive of something doesn’t it (no pun intended)