Miranda Devine, Bettina Arndt, The Sex Diaries (again), women's fragility and Woody Allen said it already, enough

(Above: la dee da, la dee da, fiddle de dee, and lordy lordy).

There's nothing so fun to see as women bashing and blaming women for the woes of poor men, and Miranda the Devine, in her puff piece designed to sell more copies of Bettina Arndt's 'controversial' new book The Sex Diaries, provide a fine example of the art.

Wifely duties spark a firestorm is the feeble header for a piece which comes some time after Arndt's first surge into the marketplace, suggesting Devine must have been short of column fodder this wee, and grabbed the first thing off the shelf (or maybe Arndt's book has been out for three weeks, and maybe sales are slipping? Who knows).

Still the header does perfectly capture the flavor of the piece - women do your wifely duty, just lie there and take it, or do it, or whatever, just get him off somehow, roll over and go to sleep.

I guess the furious response of feminists is the reason the Devine just has to be an Arndt cheerleader, on the principle that anything a feminist has to say is wrong.

You see, it's all about the fair sharing of housework. Women do twice as much, and then use it as an excuse (along with organizing the kids) for not having sex. But even doing more housework won't necessarily get a man laid more often. Sob, it's so unfair.

In other words, with the passion gone, it all becomes a negotiation, and because of those damn pesky feminists women think they have the right to say no. Or to use it as blackmail. Or simply not, my dear,  give a damn or a fuck. And what can a sensitive, helpless, hapless man do, confronted with an iron woman, who just happens to be very fragile, who doesn't give a fuck.

This is just so unfair to poor hapless, helpless men, who only want to get their rocks off in a regular, reliable fashion, as part of the marital deal. Now in Victorian days ... ah those were the times when men were men and women would allow them to exercise their beastly desires in the dark for two minutes, and have done with it. (Unless they went to one of the hundred thousand child prostitutes working the streets in London).

Anyhow, cue Arndt, who pretends her work is based on a meaningful sample, as opposed to a book-selling bias, complete with opportunity to display her long held and well known prejudices about men v women, and the Devine for a bit more of the same.

You see it's all to do with female resentment about the housework, and resentment is a passion killer. Why there's this poor man who once had sex every day and now is down to once every five or six months, and is expected to live like a monk.

Of course there's a feminist caveat:

Arndt is not suggesting women have sex against their will ...

Just have sex they don't like and don't want? Or just discover that they really like sex, but maybe not with the person they're currently living with? Or get out and have an affair to really teach him about the housework, and to show how much they really like sex with someone who's not a lame,  predictable fuck? Yeah that's what you get when you marry a loser who can't afford a maid, a cook, a driver, and French champagne and the style to which you'd like to become accustomed.

Somehow Arndt thinks that we're all heading towards marriages lasting forty years. Clearly the word about divorce in Australia hasn't caught up with her yet. There's a delusion at work here, that over forty years, you can go on eating vanilla icecream and it will taste exactly the same exciting, passionate way as it first did when you tucked into it forty years before. We should all be so lucky, or perhaps hypnotized into a permanently delusional state.

Relationships, and the psychology and sociology of relationships are much more interesting, complex and dynamic than the special pleading offered up by Arndt and Devine.

But it's an easy riff, with Arndt claiming she's been inundated by messages from frustrated men, and a friend telling her that after a promotional appearance for her book, every woman in her tuckshop group had sex with her husbands.

Funny, I would have thought a wank would have been the best reaction to the kind of guff preached by Arndt and Devine, but what would I know. 

It's the oldest form of publishing, to take a look at sex, put the actual word in the title and then watch it sell. Sex! Did I mention sex? Sex!!! Lordy, the hits on this blog are going to multiply a hundred fold.

My guess is you'd be better off re-reading Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden (and its sequels), and reviving your fantasy life than trawl through Arndt's exercise in guilt, 'female fragility', the natural order of 'lower female sex drive', and the ideal solution of women not liking it, but doing it for their man, god, queen or country (strike out which one doesn't apply at any particular time).

Woody Allen said it all, and in a much funnier way, in Annie Hall, way back in 1977. Why not save the money you'd spend on Arndt's book, and check it out?

In this scene, it's split screen, with Annie (Diane Keaton) and her psychiatrist on the left; Alvy (Woody Allen) and his shrink on the right.

ALVY'S PSYCHIATRIST
How often do you sleep together?

ANNIE'S PSYCHIATRIST
Do you have sex often?

ALVY
Hardly ever. Maybe three times a week.

ANNIE
Constantly! I'd say three times a week.
Like the other night, Alvy wanted to have
sex.

ALVY
She would not sleep with me the other
night, you know, it's ...

ANNIE
And ... I don't know ... I mean, six months
ago I-I woulda done it. I woulda done it,
just to please him.

ALVY
I mean ... I tried everything, you know,
I-I-I put on soft music and my-my red light
bulb, and ...

ANNIE
But the thing is-I mean, since our
discussions here, I feel I have a right
to my own feelings. I think you woulda
been happy because ... uh, uh, I really
asserted myself.

ALVY
The incredible thing about it is, I'm
paying for her analysis and she's making
progress and I'm getting screwed.

ANNIE
I don't know, though, I feel so guilty
because Alvy is paying for it, so, you
know, so I do feel guilty if I don't go
to bed with him. But if I do go to bed
with him, it's like I'm going against my
own feelings. I don't know I-I can't win.

ALVY
(Simultaneously, with Annie)
You know ... it's getting expensive
...my analyst ... for her analyst. She-
she's making progress and I'm not making
any progress. Her progress is defeating
my progress.

ANNIE
(Simultaneously, with Alvy)
Sometimes I think-sometimes I think I
should just live with a woman.

And for a better insight into relationships, and our need for them? Allen again, though if you watch the movie, this is a real spoiler, so avoid reading:

I-I thought of that old joke, you know, this-this-this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy. He thinks he's a chicken." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" And the guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs." Well, I guess that's pretty much how how I feet about relationships. You know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd and ... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us need the eggs.

But I guess Allen turned out to be a prevert, so what would he know?