“A Woman’s Body Is There for Her Pleasure — That’s Just BS.”

In a recent piece on the so-called "age of consent", The Career Ms (who also goes by the name Cathy) wrote:

We need to stop making women the gatekeepers of male desire and start making desire itself subject to ethics.

The Age of Access. Why We Need to Stop Calling It Consent The most uncomfortable thing I've written. You've been warned.

In direct response to those lines, I commented:

Yes!!!

As I just recently wrote in an OP:

It's as if boys are naturally strong with the Force, but we as a society don't see any value in training them in the ways of the Jedi. We pay lip service to the importance of consent, but we don't actually teach boys and men how to wield that awesome power of theirs in ways that not only won't harm girls and women, but will actually be mutually rewarding. And then we wonder why so many men end up either detached from their power (afraid to even talk to a woman) or wielding it like a Sith (thus becoming the next generation of men who make the consent conversation necessary in the first place).

Just for starters, what if we taught everyone this: A woman's body is there for her pleasure (not anyone else's). Not only does this respect women's bodily autonomy; it also respects her birthright as a sexual being and opens the door to the idea that a man can be a welcome partner in helping her claim that birthright.

I was not expecting a response like the one I got from Sir Love:

All good and well, but 'a woman's body is there for her pleasure' — that is just bull$h:t. We have bodies for each other's pleasure. Solo pleasure is not impossible, but it's sad when that has become the main thing.

I responded back:

That statement isn't intended to push solo pleasure over mutual pleasure. I made that very apparent in my comment. If you missed it, go back and read it again.

At that point, I started conceiving a piece in which I ask readers: "Does my statement about women's bodies being for their pleasure come across as saying, 'Women are meant to be gooners who never share their bodies with another person'?"

But then Sir Love came back with this:

Maybe not intended, but it's a fine display of buttlicking all the same.

I'm sure he thinks he "owned" me with that retort. I'm also sure he doesn't realize that what he's actually done is told on himself. In any case, it changed the trajectory of what I was starting to write into the finished piece you're reading now.

I went and checked out Sir Love's Home page.

I wanted to get more of a sense of what he's about. At the very top of the list of his posts, I found a piece titled In Praise of the Feminine. He comes across as a man who says (and maybe even believes) that he loves women, but really just loves the way they inspire lust in him.

Check out this snippet from near the beginning (the "you" he's addressing is women):

Where you appear, the room lights up. Our eyes light up with the leering fire of desire. We have to look. We must do our utmost to take our eyes off you. Is there a place where we can look at you at ease? For as long as we want? Even if it's just a picture, or a recording on a video device? We want to look at you and your picture. We are willing to pay to look at your picture.

That right there speaks volumes. He wants the intoxication he gets from women, and he sees women's actual company as an inconvenience he has to put up with in order to get his fix.

And how about this gem (the "we" refers to him and other men):

We would all like to be feminists if the title hadn't been already appropriated. Like a biologist dedicates his career to studying life, and a geologist to study stones & minerals, so we have dedicated our lives to studying the feminine. We dream of bringing together a true feminatheque where we will collect the most lovely specimens of the genus and put them on the turntables once in a while to make them spin.

What the actual fv©k?! When I read that, my jaw dropped so far that I had to go look for it under the couch. So let me get this straight, Sir Love: Your idea of loving women is dreaming of collecting the most lovely of them as specimens? And you think that's what the term feminism would mean had it not been — what was the word you used? — "appropriated"?

Let me be clear about something.

I don't fault Sir Love for finding women intoxicating. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. I'm not immune to it myself, nor do I wish I were or feel that it is a moral failing. It's where Sir Love goes with his desire that I find morally questionable.

As I've written here:

I'm not intimidated by women's beauty or feminine allure, because no matter how gorgeous a woman is — no matter how stunning or breathtaking I find her — I know that if she were to get naked with me, I would make it a beautiful experience for her.

To be clear, that isn't me deluding myself into thinking I can seduce any woman I set my sights on; it's a reminder to myself that even if a woman has a goddess-like effect on me, she is in fact a fellow human soul, and I have every right to relate to her as such without worrying I might not be in her league.

That last sentence embodies what differentiates me from Sir Love in regards to our desire for women: I genuinely desire to relate to women first and foremost as fellow human souls, and my yearning for the intoxicating effects they can have on me supports that desire, rather than detracting from it.

Circling back to Sir Love's follow-up comment about my "display of buttlicking": Now I see the picture. In his eyes, I'm licking the butts of women who've appropriated the term feminism. Women who are buzzkills because they want to interfere with men like him getting their fix of intoxicating femininity. Women like Cathy who dare to suggest that desire should be subject to ethics.

Ultimately, I don't want to make this about Sir Love.

As far as he's concerned, my hope is that he sees this for the learning opportunity it is. But he's just one man. I'm interested in much larger considerations.

In response to Cathy's assertion that desire should be subject to ethics, Brent Johnson wrote:

I'm not sure desire is something amenable to ethics. Desire is a feeling. The issue you're describing seems more one of entitlement. Men feel they are entitled to approach, to spin public fantasies, to treat 18-year-old girls with objectifying disrespect.

I agree with Brent that a distinction needs to be drawn between desire and entitlement.

But I'm living proof that desire is indeed amenable to ethics. Just look at my original comment on Cathy's piece in which I draw an analogy between male libido and the Force. I've actually written extensively about my quest to find ways to make desire and ethics work with each other. (I'll leave links at the end for further reading.) This is a conversation that our society desperately needs to have. Let's do it already!!!

© Ben Rosenthal 2026

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